Earthquake



Quintessential Disaster Movie from the outbreak of that genre in the 70s, alongside Airport, The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno. Directed by Mark Robson, and starring Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, George Kennedy, Lorne Greene, Geneviève Bujold, Richard Roundtree, Marjoe Gortner, Barry Sullivan, Lloyd Nolan, Victoria Principal, Monica Lewis and Walter Matthau.

Stewart Graff (Heston) is a construction engineer stuck in a forlorn marriage to Remy Royce-Graff (Gardner). Denise Marshall (Bujold) is the widow of a friend of Stewart's whom he has an affair with. Sgt. Lew Slade (Kennedy) is a disgruntled cop. Miles Quade (Roundtree) is a motorcycle stuntman who is preparing for the biggest stunt of his life with his partner Sal Amici (Gabriel Dell). Rosa Amici (Principal) is Sal's sister. Jody Joad (Gortner) is a soldier with a part-time job as a store clerk who is on the verge of a psychotic breakdown. Amidst all these characters and all this drama, however, the California Seismological Institute has calculated that Los Angeles is going to be hit by a massive earthquake, the worst ever recorded, in the next day or two. Walter Russell (Kip Niven), the amateur staffer of the Institute who discerned this, proposes that the city be evacuated, but his superior insists that the cost of evacuation could be even greater than that of the earthquake itself. Can you guess where this is all heading?

The film was originally written by Mario Puzo, of The Godfather fame. He dropped out from production due to contractual obligations to work on The Godfather: Part II. The script collected dust for a time until Universal Studios thought they could make a buck off of it due to the success of Airport and The Poseidon Adventure. In order to draw audiences in, screenings of the film used a technique called "Sensurround", in which loud speakers simulated an earthquake within the cinema. Despite lukewarm reviews at best, Universal Studios's predictions were correct and the film was a rollicking financial success, grossing $79 million whereas its budget had been a mere $7 million.

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This film provides examples of:

 * All Star Cast
 * Camera Abuse
 * Developing Doomed Characters: for 49 minutes
 * Disaster Movie
 * Elevator Failure: "Yeah, people drown in elevators every damn day of the week!"
 * Dueling Movies: Dueled with The Towering Inferno.
 * Tom Kennedy walked in late when the game show Split Second started (which is a little hard to do since game shows are not live, but on tape.) He explains his lateness by saying he went to see a Double Feature, Earthquake and The Towering Inferno but all the marquee said was "Shake and Bake."
 * Exactly What It Says On the Tin
 * Going Postal: Jody.
 * Loads and Loads of Characters
 * Los Angeles
 * Scenery Gorn: The ending shot.
 * Too Dumb to Live: Several people during the big earthquake, including people who crowd into an elevator before it falls, and a man running into a house with a broken gas line with a lit cigarette in his mouth.