The Towering Inferno [1975]

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Primary Contributor : Steve McQueen
Primary Contributor : Paul Newman

Product Details

Director : Irwin Allen, John Guillermin
Actor : Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire
Format : HiFi Sound, PAL
Binding : VHS Tape
EAN : 5014786125326
Number of Discs : 1
Product Group : Video
Release Date : 1998-06-15
Running Time : 158minutes
Studio : Warner Home Video

ASIN : B00004CK74

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review

Disaster movies used to work because there was little certainty as to who would survive. Not so in this film, really an amalgam of two original stories, about a group of well-to-do celebrants at the top floor of a skyscraper. Cheapo electrical wiring and bad construction management cause an enormous blaze at the lower floors, steadily rising to consume the revellers. Newman's an architect, McQueen a firefighter and Fred Astaire a kind old gentleman, for which he was Oscar-nominated. OJ Simpson plays a security guard who rescues a cat. Now that's a disaster. -- Keith Simanton, Amazon.com

Customer Reviews

It's out of control and it's coming your way!! (2008-05-30)

Due to an alleged stupid dispute between Warners and 20th Century Fox over who owns the UK rights to the Towering Inferno this magnificent 2 disc set is unavaible in the UK except on Region 1 import. But it is well worth the effort to get hold of one.Beautifully packaged, with the main feature remastered and a host of fascinating extras, far to many to go into detail about on disc 2, plus a set of lobby cards, this is the ultimate Towering Inferno set and one that every fan of this classic disaster movie should own.

Stellar Cast as tall as the building itself (2007-12-18)

What a movie! it has an all star cast including Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, William Holden and many more.The basis for this movie is the opening of the worlds tallest building, but things aren't as perfect as they seem as architect Paul Newman discovers inadequate electrical wiring in the building which could result in dangerous concequences. He then reports this to the buildings owner James Duncan but he doesn't think that it is a problem and still decides to go on with the opening ceremony which puts 300 peoples lives in the balance while trapped on the top of the 138 storey skyscraper when the building goes on fire due to the poor wiring, this results in unpredictable explosions and fires breaking out everywhere in the building. It is now up to fireman Steve McQueen his crew and the aide of the Navy to rescue the 300 people on top of the building and put out the fire.By far the best disaster movie ever made with a terrific all star cast. Not to be missed!

the best disaster movie ever made. (2006-09-03)

I have bought several copies of The Towering Inferno hoping to get some special features, but unfortunately I was unsuccessful until I bought this copy. This is a 2 disc special edition with featurettes, 2 trailers, cast interviews, deleted scenes, photo gallery, interactive menu, and improved stereo sound for best effect of the movie, what more could you ask for. This edition is definately worth investing in especially if you are a fan of this movie.

The classic disaster movie (2006-07-14)

Although fans of the original Poseidon Adventure might have something to say about that. Frankly, I love them both.Little needs to be said about The Towering Inferno. Skyscraper catches fire due to corner cutting in the construction. Lots of people try to get out. The end. It's a mini adventure.I'm being flippant about a pretty grim film here. With my serious hat on, I will now state that the acting is uniformly superb; it's impossible to complain, and this is really the most important thing. The script, such as it is, works well, and the effects are, for their time, superb. Direction is well paced, and cleanly and imaginatively shot. A good effort all round. The sound could do with a little work though -the dialoge can get a little muddy unless you crank the volume up, whereupon the music blows your head off. Minor fault, that doesn't detract from the film though. Highly entertaining, and difficult to take your eyes off. Perhaps they could make a proper special edition, stuffed with extras and reballanced sound, but until then, this will do very nicely, thank you. There is only one real problem I can think of to be honest. It's on TV in the UK just about every other week, rather like Zulu.

The original Die Hard in a great 2-disc NTSC special edition (2006-07-07)

The Towering Inferno is still the daddy of all the 70s disaster movies, even if time has taken the edge off some of the special effects and rendered the fashions and décor more frightening than the pyrotechnics. It's also the blueprint for Die Hard, which borrows many of its key setpieces almost verbatim - the trapped party guests, the hero crawling around at the top of a seemingly endless lift shaft, the chopper exploding on the roof, the explosion that unleashes a deluge on the building - while scaling down the all-star cast and adding gunplay to the mix. As a rule in the genre, movie stars survive, TV stars die, but it's not ironclad here, although the probability of death does seem directly correlated to the amount of screen time a character gets. It's a lavishly mounted affair and, unlike the Glass Tower itself, beautifully constructed. Stirling Silliphant's script sets up the characters (although some, like Robert Vaughn, end up sidelined completely for most of the film) and the premise so efficiently that you barely notice it's 36 minutes before anyone even notices the fire, while the survival (or otherwise) set pieces are well-staged and show some imagination - particularly the scenic elevator scene. If with recent history it may seem a tad tasteless to say it, the film is Hollywood enough to enjoy as an old-fashioned survival story/disaster movie and at least doesn't dodge the bullet of the main characters' complicity in the corner-cutting that results in the disaster - even Newman's supposedly idealistic architect takes the blame for his inaction in preventing it. Fox's 2-disc Region 1 DVD is an impressive package: there's perhaps more quantity than quality, but there's more than enough good extras to make it worth the price of an upgrade if you already have the old version. The AMC backstory is the best behind the scenes feature despite running only 22 minutes. The new featurettes are more sort of sidebars than a comprehensive acount of the production - interesting and occassionally gossipy fun (Richard Chamberlain's enthused fascination for Irwin's outrageous weave, Irwin taking Stella Stevens out to lunch at Jack in the Box). The NATO presentation by Allen at his most shamelessly hucksterish is hilariously hokey as hell - shame they couldn't find the script for the onstage bits - and the unedited interview footage of Irwin and his incredible hair was fun if only to see his attempts to be a dignified serious figure quickly give way to the carnival sideshow barker side of him! There are also two original 10-minute featurettes covering the fire and water stunts, teaser and full trailer, stills galleries and more. Sadly, F.X. Sweeney's commentary tends to play at times like an audio description ("Here we see the secretaries talking and Robert Wagner having the outside phone line turned off. And here we see the pretty secretary with the glasses walking through the door.."). I did dip in and out where I wanted to know more about certain scenes, but on the few occasions he was talking about the making of the film, it had no relevance to what was happening onscreen. However, it's not enough to take the shine off what is still a great fun disc.Sadly, the PAL region 2 discs from Warners don't match up to Fox's 2-disc special edition, boasting only a decent widescreen transfer and the original trailer.

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