The Towering Inferno

When we hear such a dramatic name like The Towering Inferno we can instinctively do two things in the year 2011:  jokingly scream Oh the humanity! and grab a strong drink.  That is not a bad way to approach this film, but that is also stereotyping.  Sure it’s one of those 1970’s disaster films, but it is the best of them.  While the story lacks and is based on a whole lot of what-ifs, the action, suspense and cinematography are so well done you can’t just toss the film aside.

Paul Newman plays Doug Roberts, the architect of the new tallest building in the world, The Glass Tower.  But the building’s owner, Jim Duncan (William Holden) has decided to cut corners and employed his son-in-law Roger Simmons (Richard Chamberlain) to find ways to cut costs.  Unfortunately, he decided to swap out Doug’s electrical plans and put in cheap wiring that is sparking random fires all over the building during the grand opening party.  The party is on the top floor, and because of the spreading fire and lack of exits, they are trapped up there.  It’s up to the fire departments Chief O’Hallorhan, (Steve McQueen) to find a way to save the people and put out fires that are far beyond the fire fighter’s reach.

The film becomes a cautionary tale of epic proportions.  In the opening credits, the film is dedicated to all firefighters and they become the real heroes.  The overall lessons we’re supposed to learn from the film is that fire fighters deserve more respect and architects need to work with firefighters to build safer buildings.  I hope architects were scared straight.

There are a lot of great action scenes, full of fire, explosions and tense moments.  Most of the action was directed by Irwin Allen, not the credited director John Guillermin.  These great moments range from fire raging down hallways, stairwells crumbling away in an explosion, a failed attempt to run through a blazing room, an elevator full of women and children hanging by one cable and an amazing climatic explosion in an attempt to save the day.  It’s all a lot of fun, these scenes can feel like mini adventures that keep you on the edge of your seat.  One of my favorites, that I remember watching as a kid, is when Newman, two kids and Liselotte (Jennifer Jones) are trapped in a destroyed stairwell.  Below them is just a long pit and they have to shimmy down to the next floor on a twisted stair rail.  All the action scenes have a wonderful element of danger that is always shown visually in a way that really pulls the tension.

Alright, back to the Oh the humanity! side of the film.  While most of the action is done well with enough suspense to keep me semi-serious, there was one moment that left me rolling and probably pushed the feminist movement back ten years.  At a point in the film, a helicopter is sent to land on the building to rescue the trapped party goers.  Paul Newman takes ten women (ladies first) up to the roof and tells them to stay back so the helicopter can land.  Well they don’t seem to grasp this concept and the two stupidest women run past Newman and head for the chopper, right in the way of its landing.  Because estrogen and high heels are a helicopter’s natural enemy, it crashes, in a magnificent fireball.  That whole ridiculous scenario seems like a bad joke that just ends with the reasons women were confined to a kitchen.  Thanks ladies, you just killed the rescue crew.

Let me not completely encourage this idea, but if you’re looking for a decent film to pair a drinking game to, this may be your winner.  Now I have seen the horrible products of drinking to a film that was not thought out while sober.  Never decide that it’s a good idea to watch Pirates of the Caribbean and take a shot every time you hear pirates, matey, savvy and Captain Jack Sparrow.  Picking just one is a better idea, but everyone has already seen POTC a million times.  So, here is my proposed game to The Towering Inferno: a drink every time someone is on fire.  Exciting, eye-catching and only gets funnier as you play.  By my calculations, there are only six of these moments throughout the 2 ¾ hour film.  No one (off screen) should die and your designated driver still has a good film to watch.  This isn’t exactly Mystery Science Theater 3000 material, but who really wants to be subject to the quality of films like ‘Manos’ the Hands of Fate?  There’s not game in the world that can make that film enjoyable.

But seriously, The Towering Inferno is a good, film.  Whether you want to seriously contemplate the intelligent visual aspects, daring stunts or just kick back and enjoy the best of what the 1970’s disaster genera has to offer, I highly recommend it.  And the best part, it’s on Netflix Instant right now, available whenever you want it.

“Did you leave a cigarette burning?”

Since You Went Away

Since You Went Away focuses on the Hilton family’s struggles after the man of the house has enlisted in the military for WWII.  The suburban family consists of the mother, Anne (Claudette Colbert), two teenage daughters, older Jane (Jennifer Jones), younger whinier Bridget (Shirley Temple) and a bulldog who seems to have his own bassoon theme music.  The ladies have a friendly black housemaid, Fedilia (Hattie McDaniel) and are regularly visited by their longtime friend Tony (Joseph Cotten), a naval officer.  The daughters want to do what they can to help in this time of war, so Bridget suggests renting out a room to an officer in need.  Jane, being seventeen full of girlish fantasies about older military men likes the idea, until old Colonel William G. Smollett (Monty Woolley) arrives as the new tenant.  He quickly becomes the cranky old man of the household.  When his grandson, Bill (Robert Walker), comes to visit to tell his grandfather that he’s in the army, we see a struggling relationship between grandfather and grandson.  Bill and Jane become friends and eventually fall in love, but as most WWII home front dramas do, they are pulled apart by war just as their love is at its fullest.  And to make sure the whole family is hurting, they are informed that Mr. Hilton is missing in action.

I’m sure back in 1944 this was a great film that touched the hearts of so many people living the struggles and tragedies these characters depict.  There’s a great sense of pride in the military men and the younger women back home are willing to do their part to help the war efforts.  Later in the film, Jane decides to put college off so she can help by being a nurse.  She’s willing to sacrifice some of her upper-middle class lifestyle to help those in need and it makes Anne question what she can do.  Surely she shouldn’t be like that snooty lady at church, Mrs. Hawkins (Agnes Moorehead), who acts like she is too good to help with any war aid or become a lady welder.

While this film is a great representation of the struggles and sacrifices families made, its sappy melodramatic style is very old and dated and may be very hard for today’s viewer to get into.  Honestly, it feels like an episode of Leave it to Beaver at times, only with teenage girls and they can make petty drama out of anything.  From Jane’s silly girl crush on Tony to Bridget’s fourteen going on nine demeanor, I could not take either of the daughters seriously.  And Bill becomes little more than the sweet, shy boy who uses words like gee and swell too much.

Many will recognize the iconic train departure scene, not because of this film, but because of it’s parody in Airplane!.  The parody does a great job playing off the dialogue and only replaces pillars with runway equipment.  It’s cheesy enough to be a perfect gag in one of the greatest spoofs ever.  If you can take the rest of the film seriously after that scene, you’re a stronger person than I am.

The film did win the Oscar for best music and I can see why.  There is a lot of music and it all goes with the scenes very well, it swells and wanes with the rising and falling dramatics perfectly.  It provides a great background for the trite small talk that we only need to half listen to.  Then it strikes up perfectly on cue with the dramatic slam of a door.  My absolute favorite moment was early in the film when Anne is to spend the first night with her husband gone.  She’s in her bed looking worried and suddenly with a swipe of the harp and a quick swell of music she hops across the room into her husbands twin bed and cries.

Off the top of my head, I can think of two films of the forties that focus on families dealing with WWII on the home front that are much better than Since You Went Away: The Human Comedy and Mrs. Miniver.  These films have both better quality acting and a more intriguing storyline.  Unless you really want to kick back for three hours with some melodramatics that teeter on the edge of extra-cheesy, skip this and go with one of the other two.

“Cry, darling.  Cry your heart out.”

Love is a Many-Splendored Thing

Here’s another love story where William Holden can’t keep his shirt on.  Set in Hong Kong towards the end of the Chinese Civil War, Suyin (Jennifer Jones) is a Eurasian doctor and a widow.  At a party she meets Mark (Holden), a foreign correspondent from America reporting on the War.  Despite the fact that Mark is married and Suyin is happy with her life as it is, they fall in love.  It seems there could be no greater happiness for them, but Mark’s job pulling him all over the world could spoil everything.

What makes this more interesting than just a love story is the conflict between Eastern and Western cultures.  Suyin is a perfect example of the divide, being half European and half Chinese.  She’s a doctor, a respected intellectual, yet she will still keep faith in old Chinese superstitions.  There’s a fun scene where people make noise to scare clouds away from the moon and she might have too much faith in a later fortune teller scene.  When she’s faced with the idea of romance with Mark, there is conflict between a reserved life alone in memory of her late husband or to start over with new passion.

We see other Eurasians who have assimilated so deeply into their European side, you can hardly see their Chinese heritage.  Suzanne has dyed her hair blonde and takes pride in being mistaken for European.  Suyin is a little heartbroken that someone can just do away with a whole half of their culture.

When Suyin goes back home to China for a family emergency, we see just how different the cultures are.  She must ask her uncle, the head of the household, permission to do anything.  And every little detail is done with such reserved tradition, we can tell Suyin is not quite used to it after so much time in Hong Kong.

When Mark and Suyin decide to tell marry and tell everyone about their love, the reception isn’t exactly joyous.  Suyin’s Chinese family is not happy about bringing a foreigner into their family, but decide not to hold her back.  Their European friends in Hong Kong also give Suyin fair warning about their cross-cultural relationship.

The romantic scenes between Holden and Jones are layered with cheesy mush.  They lay out all these mushy lines, but they hardly feel real.  It’s like they’re talking to a plank of wood, rather than a lover.  Perhaps the rumors about their strained relationship off set contributed to this.  There are stories about Jones chewing garlic before her romantic scenes with Holden.  Trying to act in love through garlic breath might have put a damper on his lines.

In the end, this is an interesting story of culture and an eye-rolling romance.  My biggest complaint isn’t about Holden’s shirtless strutting, but the fact that he shaved his chest for that beach scene and made us look at his hairy thigh in the foreground the whole time.

“Where’s your pride Suyin?”

The Song of Bernadette

In 1858 a young French peasant girl claimed to have seen a beautiful woman and miracles started happening in the little village of Lourdes.  Today, that young girl is a saint and this is her story.

When we first meet Bernadette, she is always sick due to her asthma and one of the worst students in her school.  She can’t even tell a nun what the holy trinity is, and so she cannot receive first communion.  Her family is very poor, living in a hole in the wall and her father cannot find steady work.  When she and her sisters go out to find firewood something amazing happens.  She sees a vision of a beautiful woman in a cave, and says that the woman wants her to visit that spot everyday for the next fourteen days.  She describes her as wearing a blue robe and has golden roses on her feet.  Bernadette tells her sisters only after they promise not to say a word, but once they get home one immediately tells their mother.  Soon, half the town has heard about Bernadette’s vision.  Bernadette whole-heartedly believes in what she saw and obediently goes back to the grotto.  Soon, she’s drawing a crowd and followers, but there are also skeptics.

The mayor and high class men running the village see Bernadette as a threat.  They think the whole thing is a hoax and repeatedly question her to see if they can catch her in a lie.  Over and over, Bernadette’s innocent conviction shows that she’s telling the truth, but the men want proof.  So they tell Bernadette to ask the lady to provide a miracle, make the wild rosebush bloom in the last week of February.  The following events are miraculous.  People from all over France begin to flock to Lourdes and Bernadette is headed to the path of sainthood.

Jennifer Jones won the lead actress Oscar for her portrayal of Bernadette.  She keeps such an earnest and innocent demeanor that no one can question Bernadette’s motives.  When she’s kneeling in the grotto, she doesn’t just look at the lady, she sees her.  When questioned in school, or by anyone, she’s extremely humble, even calling herself stupid at times for not knowing things.

Growing up in the Catholic Church, I know I’ve heard the name Saint Bernadette and probably got a quick summery of her story.  This film is much more than a quick textbook version.  It brings in the doubts from all over her village, from the high class men who think she’s a menace, to nuns who don’t realize their envy.  I really recommend this film as a tool for religious education (probably no younger than 2^nd grade), but it is two and a half hours long, so maybe a few selected scenes would suffice.  If you’re looking for a good time to show this film, Bernadette’s feast day is April 16^th.

“She SEES this lady; others don’t. It may well be that this is indeed a heavenly creature… I intend to go with her, and when I do, let anyone dare to laugh!”