Sunday 6 February 2022

Earthquake (1974 Mark Robson)

Watch out! For falling papier mâché and script clichés! ("This used to be a helluva town.") Enjoyable soap opera / disaster movie, starring Charlton Heston, George Kennedy, Ava Gardner, Genevieve Bujold. With Lorne Greene, Richard Roundtree, Barry Sullivan, Lloyd Nolan, Marjoe Gortner (with the hair), Victoria Principal (also with the hair), Walter 'Matuschanskayasky', Monica Lewis, Pedro Amendariz Jr, John Randolph, Donald Moffat.

The earthquake bits are not badly done, except for the moment when a cattle truck goes off a freeway and the cows don't fall out and all look like plastic. Crazy soldier killing looters / impending sexual assault story seems somewhat out-of-place, misjudged.

Real cheese-o moment when lift plummets to bottom and this happens:

I guess Heston and Gardner got swept away, then? One missed opportunity - unharmed Matthau should have been there right at the end.

Edited by Dorothy Spencer (Oscar nomination), who used a take of a real bike crash and had extra lines filmed so it could be worked into the story. Sound won Oscar (Ronald Pierce, Melvin Metcalfe), Philip Lathrop's photography nominated. Universal.


The film on in the cinema is High Plains Drifter, released (of course) by Universal.

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