|
Mark Robson’s “Earthquake” like the “Airport” films
and “The Poseidon Adventure” come from a different era when
massive destruction and soap opera lives qualified as entertainment.
Each film had its own unique gimmick but the former had
the advantage of a gimmick to turn your stomach inside out.
Universal Pictures equipped each theater showing the movie
with special subwoofer speakers to carry the frequencies
of its Sensurround soundtrack through the floor creating,
in effect, a theatrical theme park ride. Robson took his
lead from disaster film producer Irwin Allen and packed
his film with an all star cast along with second string
supports that would give the film familiar faces to root
for as the concrete fe ll all around their heads. Allen’s
films could be equally cheesy but their visuals were much
more impressive and hold up much better than those in this
film. I’d hardly call “Earthquake” a classic. It’s more
like a cheesy soap opera with impressive visual effects.
The Oscar winning optical effects of Los Angeles burning
in the aftermath of the earthquake by Albert Whitlock look
pretty impressive even 30 plus years on even if many of
the other visuals look positively ridiculous today. The
film has had enough impact to spawn a theme park ride at
Universal Studios. This ensemble film is like the anti-Altman
ensemble film with the focus on clichés and histrionic performances
almost as large as the canvas used to tell the story. In
tr uth “Earthquake” is a throwback to the type of epic films
Hollywood used to produce in the 50’s just with more impressive
visuals and a ratings code that would allow for the occasional
bad word.
L.A. is hit by the mother of all earthquakes which
devastates the city of Angels. Despite warnings from seismologist
about the potential for destruction the heroes of “Earthquake”
continue on with their petty squabbles and lives. Stewart
Graff (Charlton Heston in his best lockjaw mode) steps out
on his wife Remy (Ava Gardner) for a younger woman. Remy’s
father (Lorne Greene) and Stewart’s boss tries to use promotion
and money to entice him to s tay with his wife. We also
follow the escapades of a psycho National Guardsman (former
evangelist Marjoe Gortner), a woman he’s obsessed with (a
very young Victoria Principal), a motorcyclist (Richard
Roundtree) who hopes his latest stunt carries him to the
big time and other assorted individuals all of whom have
a reckoning with fate as noon roles around and the big one
waits to change their lives.
Image & Sound:
“Earthquake” looks impressive nicely capturing the
color of the original theatrical presentation. Compression
artifacts are kept to a minimum and the sound comes across
with nice presence although Universal didn’t include a subwoofer
for me to watch the movie. That might have been helpful
but, let’s fact it, too expensive. I’d suggest it thought
for the next reissue though. ---
|
