Commentary tracks, a variety of featurettes, AMC documentary and vintage promotional materials (all special features in 480p)

The 70’s were the decade of the disaster film. Sure there were disaster movies before and since but this is the decade when the disaster film came into its own with GIMMICKS. In the case of “Earthquake” it was the use of oversized bass speakers to send vibrations through the floor and walls (they called it Sensurround). For “The Towering Inferno” based on TWO bestselling novels it was an all-star cast of “A” list actors. Directed by John Guillerman and Irwin Allen, “The Towering Inferno” resulted from two separate studios (Fox and Warner) buying the rights to two similar bestselling novels written by Richard Martin Stern (The Tower) and Thomas N. Scortia & Frank M. Robinson (The Glass Infero) and deciding to pool resources, produce one disaster movie and not having competing products in theaters at roughly the same time. ***

The screenplay by Stirling Silliphant (writer of everything from “Marlowe” to “The Enforcer”, “The Swarm” and “The Poseidon Adventure”) combined characters and even the conclusion from both movies into a massive production that featured the cream of the crop in Hollywood actors including Paul Newman, Steve McQueen (who almost starred with Newman in “Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid”), Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Fred Astaire, Susan Blakely, Richard Chamberlain, Robert Vaughn, Robert Wagner, O.J. Simpson and Jennifer Jones). ***

Set in an imaginary 140 story building during an opening party where a massive fire breaks out threatening the lives of everyone trapped in the building. It has a plot worthy of a daytime soap but with all the pyrotechnics that a show like that can’t afford. Guillerman (“King Kong”) directed all the of dramatic sequences while Allen directed all of the action sequences for the film. The film is a perfect example of the type of blockbuster entertainment in the wake of films like “Airport” and of the egos of actors; Steve McQueen demanded that he and Paul Newman have the same amount of lines in the film. McQueen and Dunaway had it written into their contract that no one should approach them outside of shooting when on the lot. McQueen and Newman had to have their names balanced on during the titles and Marquee. At nearly 3 hours “The Towering Inferno” remains a massive monument to the type of “A” list movies that serious actors like Newman made to get other projects made. ---

Image & Sound:

The good news is that film has a nice transfer for Blu-ray nicely captures the widescreen grandeur of the film. Depth and clarity are quite good throughout the film with flesh tones that range on the “rare” side (i.e., a bit pink). Overall, the presentation is quite solid although as mentioned skin tones are off a bit and some shots are a bit soft. ***

Audio is quite impressive for the time allowing dialogue to come across crisp and clear. John Williams’ score sounds quite good throughout. ---

Aside from film historian F. X. Feeney’s commentary track which runs throughout the film and is filled with trivia about the shoot, we get two other commentary tracks one of which is scene specific featuring stunt coordinator Bran Racki and the other featuring special effects coordinator Mike Vezina dissecting the on set effects. ---

“Inside the Tower” is a retrospective featurette with surviving stars Robert Vaughn, Richard Chamberlain, Susan Blakely and Susan Flannery discussing the difficulties of the shoot. ***

“Irwin Allen: The Great Producer” is a tribute to the legendary director/producer and his work featuring stars from various projects he made. ***

“Innovating Tower” focuses on the special effects on set including the extensive use of fire duplicating some of what we hear in the scene specific commentary track. *** “The Art of Towering” features storyboards and production drawings for the film. ***

“Still the Tallest Building” features real life counterparts to the building, architects and builders discussing them and comparing them to the fictional one that was “built” in San Francisco. ***

“Directing the Inferno” focuses on the contribution that Allen and Guillermin made to the film. ***

“Putting Out the Fire” focuses on the real danger on set, the safety precautions used and how Newman and McQueen did many of the stunts themselves with the stunt coordinators/effects folks discussing how they tried to minimize the danger to their stars. ***

“AMC Backstory” is a half hour documentary on the making of the film from the AMC channel. ***

“The Writer: Stirling Silliphant” focuses on the Oscar winner writer giving us a biography and highlights of his work. ***

Finally we get deleted/extended scenes running nearly 45 minutes as well as articles that appeared at the time in “American Cinematographer”, storyboards and vintage promotional material including a brief interview with Allen.

Final Words: