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4
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4 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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Back
when Gerald Ford was president, Charlton Heston
ruled the box-office.
The
autumn of '74
saw the release of Airport
1975 and Earthquake
within a month of each other,
both produced at Universal and both headlined
by Heston. Hollywood was in the grip of "Disaster"
mania, as the spectacular success of Irwin Allen's
The Poseidon Adventure
(1972) opened the floodgates for copycats.
Universal producer Jennings Lang surfed this wave
with expert timing. Airport
1975 proved a hit; Earthquake,
with its elaborate (for the day) special visual
effects and the added gimmick of "Sensurround",
became a mega-blockbuster, earning what in today's
dollars would be almost $300 Million.
Watching
Earthquake is to
see the '70s
Disaster movie formula played out to the letter,
note for note. Now there's nothing wrong with
"formula" per se... Heck, I absolutely
love old pulp novels and James Bond flicks, and
you can't get more formulaic than that. But the
formula for Disaster films —
a disparate group of people are caught up in a
catastrophe (either natural or man-made), some
of whom will not survive —
almost always wears out its welcome long before
the disaster even strikes. It's the setup that
bogs these pics down, mired in the routine soap
opera dramatics of generic, cardboard characters
who, for the most part, you just wanna see die.
The lives of various Los Angeles residents intersect
on the day the city is struck by a quake of unprecedented
magnitude. These include construction engineer/ex-N.F.L.
star Stuart Graff (Heston) and his shrewish, manipulative
wife (Ava Gardner); Graff's younger mistress (Geneviève
Bujold), a single
mother and aspiring
actress; Graff's boss and father-in-law (Bonanza's
Lorne Greene); a veteran beat cop named Slade
(the great character actor George Kennedy, "Joe
Patroni" in all those Airport films);
a motorcycle daredevil (Richard Roundtree) and
his entourage (Gabriel Dell, the young 'n' busty
Victoria Principal); a psychotic grocery store
clerk who's a weekend warrior with the National
Guard (Marjoe Gortner
of The Food
Of The Gods, in a manic performance); and
a hammered, flamboyantly dressed barfly (Walter
Matthau, billed as "Walter Matuschanskayasky").
Meanwhile, a team of university seismologists
headed by Barry Sullivan (Planet
Of The Vampires) ponders potentially ominous
warning signs, as do the maintenance men at the
L.A. dam.
It
isn't until 52 very long minutes into the
film that the monster quake occurs.
The scenes of destruction and mayhem hold up generally
well compared to today's digital stuff, employing
some great miniatures and matte paintings. (A
few of the death scenes are laughably cheesy,
however, as when an otherwise effectively scary
moment showing an elevator car full of people
plunging to their deaths is capped by spraying
the screen with cartoon blood.) This first
major effects set-piece lasts exactly 8 minutes
and 28 seconds. Then we're back to the stale soap
opera (until the big aftershock and watery climax).
Eventually the various storylines converge for
the final act, when Graff and Slade team up to
lead a dangerous rescue mission... 70 people are
trapped in the basement of a heavily damaged aid
center; at any moment what's left of the building
could collapse. Among those trapped below are
both Graff's wife and mistress. (Naturally.)
And, oh yeah — the
dam is about to burst in the San Fernando hills
above.
Not aided by Mark Robson's thoroughly pedestrian
direction, Earthquake's
contrived characters and script can't help but
ring false. Significant as these elements are,
however, they aren't the only things that fail
to pass the smell test. Greene is supposed to
be Gardner's father but looks young enough to
be her (slightly) older brother. (I guess Henry
Fonda wasn't available.) And when compared to
recent real-life calamities around the globe,
the rapidity with which the authorities spring
into action with relief/rescue operations in this
film comes off as total fantasy. Within mere hours
of the first major quake —
which leaves Los Angeles utterly devastated, looking
as if hit by an atomic bomb —
city officials have orderly, efficient emergency
centers set up, treating the injured and supplying
hot coffee and sandwiches, while National Guard
troops roll into the streets. (FEMA should've
reassembled the Earthquake
production team to handle the aftermath of Hurricane
Katrina.)
The
TV soap-quality characters and dialog (some of
it unintentionally funny) do more damage to this
movie as a viable drama than the fictional "Big
One" it depicts does to southern California.*
The film would've been much better, I think, had
Kennedy's cop been the tent-pole character instead
of Heston's engineer. As played by Kennedy, Officer
Slade is the most likable "everyman"
in the cast, and with the added responsibility
of being a "first-responder" —
not just surviving —
his is the most interesting plot thread.
Charlton
Heston may be heading
what is ostensibly an ensemble drama but he naturally
dominates the proceedings. He even gets to tool
around in a prototype SUV, a badass Chevy Blazer
with 11 gears, 8 forward and 3 reverse. (Cruising
L.A. with his aviator shades on, I almost expected
him to pull over to the curb, whip out a machine
gun and start blasting black-robed mutants.) A
larger-than-life figure who in his heyday could
swagger while sitting down, Heston may
be in the cockpit here but does a lot of the flying
on autopilot, merely going through the motions.
He's seemingly quite aware of what a dog the script
is — even though
he had final approval —
and maybe a bit chagrined that he's not the real
star of the show...
the special effects are. (Once he did Midway
and Two-Minute
Warning Heston's days as an A-List leading
man were effectively over; he'd spanned the three
major phases of his career — biblical/historical
epics, dystopian sci-fi, and Disaster pics — in
less than than 20 years.) Never fear, though;
Heston does get the opportunity to use his signature
"Oh...
my... God" line.
Nobody can invoke the Almighty with stress-wracked
gravitas like the Chuckster.
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Trivia Note: Additional footage was later shot for
a two-part TV broadcast in the late '70s, which
expanded the Gortner-Principal subplot and added
even more extraneous characters (in a jetliner
trying to land at LAX). This version — fortunately
not included on the DVD — is even more of
a chore to sit through. |
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The Universal disc (released this past May) offers
a somewhat grainy but otherwise sterling 2.35:1
anamorphic transfer that's significantly superior
to the long-out of print GoodTimes DVD. Given
that this new edition presents Earthquake
in its proper aspect ratio and is virtually pristine,
it's safe to conclude that the film hasn't looked
this good since its theatrical debut some 32 years
ago. As for sound, you can go with either a terrific
new 5.1 mix (recommended)
or original Sensurround, which will require you
to adjust your subwoofer to get the optimum low
frequency effect.
So the disc looks and
sounds great, and at $13 or so online (a buck
or two cheaper at some retail stores) is decently
priced... Why, then, my DVD rating of "4"?
No extras, that why — not even a trailer.
Earthquake was one
of the biggest hits in the history of Universal
Studios and they didn't bother to supply the barest
minimum of extras. (The disc even lacks a chapter
menu.) Ridiculous!
9/07/06
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