Terremoto

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.

Ordinary catastrophe movie in soap opera and vintage style with all star cast dealing with a huge earthquake outbursts at a noisy city. It has a long prologue presenting Charlton Heston, his drunk wife, Ava Gardner, and his lover, Genevieve Bujold. As well as other characters as a spectacle motorcycle rider, Richard Roundtree, a drunken man, Walter Matthaw, an avenger military, Marjoe Gortner, a besieged beautiful girl, Victoria Principal, and several others. As an earthquake causing death, destruction and wreak havoc. This impressive quake has an awesome and destructive power enhanced by the sensorround sound.

Acceptable disaster movie paced in fits and starts with a great cast, though a little wasted. The impressive cast cannot save this passable film , at all. It lacks deep characterization , displaying some boring moments and a tiring script that was presumibly well paid . This was a successful catastrophe movie that belongs to disaster movie genre of the 70s and 80s such as Towering inferno, Poseidon, Beyond Poseidon, The swarm, Avalanche, The Russian rollercoaster, Avalanche express , Airport I, II, III.. and whose main representative was producer Irwin Allen. It packs primitive and traditional special effects by LB Abbott , with no computer generator effects . It contains an atmospheric and adequate cinematography by Philip H. Lahtrop. And a sensitive and enjoyable musical score by the always great and incombustible John Williams. Main cast is pretty well, giving understanding interpretations as Charlton Heston, Genevieve Bujold, Ava Gardner and Lorne Greene. Support cast is frankly excellent such as Lloyd Nolan, Victoria Principal, Barry Sullivan, Pedro Armendariz Jr, John Randolph, Scott Hylands, Donald Moffat, brothers Jesse, Alan Vint, Walter Matthaw, George Murdock and usual in catastrophe movies, George Kennedy, among others.

The motion picture financed by Jennings Lang who produced Airport series was professionally directed by Mark Robson. He was a classical director. Robson had a prolific career, delivering classic movies, as well as hits and flops. He directed some classy terror movies as Ghost ship, Bedlam, The seventh victim ,Isle of dead, all of them produced by Val Lewton. Subsequently, he directed all kinds of genres in films as Peyton Place, The harder they fall, Edge of doom, Champion, Bright victory, Trial , Bridges at Toko-Ri, Return to Paradise, The inn of the sixth happiness, Valley of dolls, Von Ryan express, Last command , The prize, From the terrace, among others. Rating 6/10. Acceptable, passable and decent disaster movie.

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.

Earthquake almost realistically shows us the devastating effects of such "an event" on a large modern day city. Since movie studios didn't have the resources in 1974 to add expensive computerized effects, miniatures, camera trickery and a few large-scale destructions were used to simulate the quake. However even by today's standards, most (but not all) effects work pretty well. Many of the buildings we see crumbling to the ground are actual locals in Los Angeles and anyone who ever lived is this area (myself included) would still find watching this film chilling to say the least. The sets are very impressive - they made one helluva mess of Universal Studios making this film. The acting is so-so and the ending is disappointing and leaves us with a lot of unanswered questions: what ever happened to Miles and Rosa's brother anyway? And the scenes with Jody the weirdo are just plain uncomfortable. But as far as pure "end of the world" disaster entertainment goes, this film has it all.

I saw this movie on the big-screen when it was released and I actually found the Sensurround (R) to be annoying, but the film isn't as bad as critics made it out to be. I agree, the casting could have been better (the Ava Gardner/Loorne Green argument is a good one), but this is a special effects movie, and the special effects were pretty good by 1974 standards. Besides, how can a movie about the destruction of LA be so bad?