Tremblement de terre

In 1974 I was 29 years old when I first saw this movie. At the time I didn't question the suitability of the lead stars as I had grown up with them appearing in other films. Considering all the various genre of films I had seen up to that time, I must confess that it didn't seem a bad effort at that point in time. I grew up with various westerns and others and one film in particular I remember well is the classic "King Kong".

Critics who knock this film must remember that 1974 was a transitional period where techniques were still being learned. Without the benefit of computers, I might add. When you have grown up with computer wizardry, that is, since the start of the seventies, it it far easier to find fault than to see the merit in what these people achieved.

However, with the passage of time, one realizes the major fault with this film was the poor casting. This should not detract from the efforts of the special effects people. They have led the way and shown the young people coming along what can be done with skill and imagination. 3/10 for casting, 6/10 for special effects.

Remy (Ava Gardner) and Stuart Graff (Charlton Heston)'s marriage is falling apart. She ODs once again after another fight. During a small earthquake, she jumps up and reveals that she's faking. He's a construction engineer working for his father-in-law Sam Royce (Lorne Greene). He starts an affair with the widow of his friend and single mom Denise Marshall (Geneviève Bujold). There is a mysterious drowning at a local dam and other disturbing signs. LAPD cop Lou Slade (George Kennedy) gets suspended for punching a clueless county cop. Miles (Richard Roundtree) is a motorcycle rider perfecting a new stunt. Grad student Russell predicts the big one in 48 hours.

Walter Matthau's getup is hilarious. That bar is a weird place and that T-shirt is super fine. I like that group of characters. They're a little off-beat and slightly fun. I care a lot less about the affair and the jealousy within the Graff marriage. They could drop into the earth for all I care. The earthquake action is as much as can be expected with shaking cameras, miniatures, falling styrofoam and other stuntwork. This is good special effects for its times and satisfies the need for destruction. It's nowhere near as visually compelling as CGI but it feeds the same animal instincts. There is a good 15 minutes of continuous destruction. The aftermath is a mix of good rescue scenarios and bad melodrama.

In the 1970s, Irwin Allen made a niche for himself in Hollywood by producing some big budget disaster films, such as "The Poseidon Adventure", "The Towering Inferno" and "The Swarm". In addition to folks dying and being destroyed, the films all had HUGE star-studded casts as well as a lot of soap opera-like plots. Well, you see all this in "Earthquake", though Allen was not involved in the production...but clearly they copied his formula for success, as the film has the same style AND made a mint at the box office.

The first half of the movie introduces several plots, such as the brilliant architect (Charlton Heston) who is married to an incredibly screwed up and addicted woman (Ava Gardner), the disenchanted no-nonsense cop (George Kennedy), the accident at a local dam and much more. None of these plots are especially deep and are designed to get the audience to care for some of the folks who will be tossed into this epic disaster.

Halfway through the film the Earthquake hits the Los Angeles area and the remainder of the story follows folks trying to make their way to safety. I was actually surprised that the special effects for all this were done very well for 1974...and they actually hold up well today.

So is it any good? Well, it's reasonably well made but not deep in the least...so it would make a great film to watch if you aren't in the mood for something artsy or with an involved plot. Mostly it's just folks trying not to die...and some of them doing very poorly in this department. Overall, modestly entertaining but a film that must have been MUCH better on the big screen and in Sensurround, a sound system with a heavy bass that made theaters rumble.

Sensurround! How I do miss it! How this movie misses it! It was the best thing it had going for it when it was released in special theaters with sound equipment designed to vibrate your fanny as it sat snugly in those theater seats. Unfortunately, without the vibrations, Earthquake just ain't as much fun.

As disaster films go, Earthquake is certainly not the worst, but is far from the best. Charlton Heston, fresh from having saved a 747 from certain disaster in Airport 1975, now does his best to save the city of Los Angeles. To be fair though, we knew he wasn't going to stop the earthquake, leaving that for Christopher Reeve in Superman some years later. But we just knew that as Construction Engineer, Stewart Graff he'd do his best to save a lot of L.A. citizens stuck in precarious situations. Why else would he be here? And just for fun, he even brought George Kennedy over from Airport 1975 with him although he's a cop named Lew Slade now instead of tinkering around with jetliners. What a treat!

It seems that Lew Slade was chasing a bad guy who had been drunk driving and run down a kid. Unfortunately the bad guy crashes his vehicle right on the property of Zsa Zsa Gabor, which is out of Slade's jurisdiction. When another officer who is in the proper jurisdiction berates Slade for messing up Miss Gabor's shrubbery, Slade let's the young officer know how much he cares about plant life by landing a right cross. This lands him a suspension, and supposedly helps us get to know his character a little better while we pat our foot waiting for the big rumble to start. Did you really think they were going to open a disaster film with the actual disaster? There's a code in the screenwriter's handbook that says that's not allowed. At least that's what I'm told.

Meanwhile somewhere else in L.A., Stuart Graff is married to Remy Royce-Graff(Ava Gardner) who was fathered by Sam Royce(Lorne Greene) when he was seven I think. Sam is also Stuart's Boss. Stuart is having an affair with Denise Marshall(Genevieve Bujold) who happens to be the widow of a former co-worker of Stuart. We are not told whether Stuart had anything to do with the death of Denise's husband so he could put the moves on her but they could have added that to the plot too. Generally in these types of films they throw everything in but the kitchen sink anyway so why not?

Then on the other side of town we have motorcycle daredevil Miles Quade(Richard Roundtree) along with partner Sal Amici(Gabriel Dell) getting ready to put on the show of his life. His sister is Rosa Amici(Victoria Principal, before Dallas)who has about the funkiest curly hairdo I think I've ever seen on film. Think Shirley Temple with coal black hair. Then there's supermarket manager, weekend warrior, Jody(Marjoe Gortner)who happens to be a fanatic about women with curly coal black naturally curly hair as you'll soon discover. Now all this might sound interesting on paper, and might make a good soap-opera. In this film it's all useless information since this is a film about an earthquake and after it hits we could care less about what happens up to that point. Think of it as the filler before the thriller.

Even without the oscillating seats, the earthquake itself is still fun to watch. We get skyscrapers crashing to the ground, buildings falling on people, shards of glass piercing the good citizen's skins, people scalded by stoves, houses explode, freeways cave in, Stuart, Remy, and Sam get trapped in a high rise, a bar comes crashing down around Lew, Miles big motorcycle stunt comes crashing down, Rosa loses her popcorn in a movie theater, Denise's son takes a dive on his bike, and good boy Jody gets to put his uniform on and show us just how psychotic and messed up he really is. This is cool stuff folks even for 1974 type special effects. Unfortunately, the Earthquake momentarily subsides and we are left to deal with some of the silly plotting the film started out with. Guess you can't have everything.

If you can overlook the usual silliness and terrible dialog which seems to go with the territory in disaster films, you might be entertained by some close calls and daring rescues after the earthquake. You'll certainly get a few laughs out of Marjoe Gortner's cracked-up soldier performance. George Kennedy is pretty darn good as the cop. Heston is better than he was in that Airport thingy, and though his romance with Bujold is an obvious mismatch, it doesn't come near to equaling the absurdity of his relationship with Karen Black on that 747. Ava Gardner plays the bitchy Remy as if she were competing for the Shrew Olympics. Lorne Greene looks as if he wishes he was back on the Ponderosa with Hoss, Adam and Little Joe. Richard Roundtree is fun as the daredevil, but we see little of him after the earthquake. Tiger Williams as Denise's son Corry spends most of the film unconscious and we are grateful for that. Usually the kids in disaster films are scripted to be overly cute and annoying. I think there's a rule in the screenwriter's disaster film handbook about that too.

If I have one suggestion to make it would be avoid the version of this film with the added TV footage at all costs. For those of you familiar with Welcome Back Kotter, if you see any footage of Rosalie 'Hotzie' Totzie(Debralee Scott)riding an airplane, change the channel, remove the tape, just do what you have to do. Why this goofy footage was ever added is beyond me.

In it's original form my grade for Mark Robson wiping out L.A.: C- Hotzie Totzie gets an F and it's back to the sweat hogs for her.

I really enjoyed the practical effects before CGI took over the film industry. This is the time when making disaster films was a huge challenge. This is decent film making at its best. The visual effects are incredible and is still good by today's standard. This must have been amazing at the time of release. Charlton Heston is a likable hero as usual. I enjoyed how the characters interacted with one another and how their characters developed during and after the disaster. The film did end rather abruptly, but it was an enjoyable action drama.