They'd forget their precious gold if they had to dig their own

GOLD

1974

Directed by Peter Hunt

Written by Wilbur Smith and Stanley Price (based on the novel Gold Mine by Wilbur Smith)

Spoilers: moderate

What a disaster: The Jerry Jameson TV roundup, part 2

In which we discuss Terror On the 40th Floor, The Deadly Tower, Superdome, and A Fire In the Sky, concluding our overview of the disaster telefilms Jerry Jameson directed in the 70s, which began here., where we dealt with Heatwave!, The Elevator, and Hurricane.

TERROR ON THE 40th FLOOR (1974)

When I set myself to the disaster telefilms of Jerry Jameson, I negligently failed to realize there were this many, so many that even just "the disaster telefilms of Jerry Jameson of 1974" became a fractal, neverending endeavor, so that I suppose that after doing three previously and only realizing I'd missed a fourth now, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if there were, somehow, four more still lurking out there to make me look foolish.  Fortunately, Terror On the 40th Floor doesn't change anything I said about The Elevator, which is, if anything, even more comfortably Jameson's best movie of an extremely busy 1974.  Similar in setting and somewhat in concept to The Elevator, what we've actually got here isn't that at all, and it's pretty shameless and more than a little suspect just from the outset: a skyscraper-on-fire TV disaster movie aired three months before The Towering Inferno came out in theaters in December.  If that sounds hackish and mercenary and even gauche to you (yet actually about two months too early to properly parasitize on the marketing and hype for The Towering Inferno, especially when Airport 1975 is presently playing on the big screen), you're pretty much right; this is quite low-effort material.  A notable distinction, anyway, is that The Towering Inferno is legitimately "about something"—mostly that fire is hot, sure—but also that skyscrapers and perhaps the system that produces them are an affront to morality, and the disaster there is triggered by greed and hubris and poor regulation; in Terror on the 40th Floor, the disaster is triggered by a drunken blue collar worker spilling fire all over everything.

What a disaster: The Jerry Jameson TV roundup, part 1

In which we discuss Heatwave!, Hurricane, and The Elevator.

Our retrospective of the disaster cinema of the 1970s left its main phase back when we arrived at 1980, whereupon we treated with Irwin Allen's final effort, When Time Ran Out..., as well as, of course, the parody that was disaster cinema's own disaster, somewhat killing the genre off for years to come, Airplane!; after that, there was no real compulsion to be even more thorough than I already had been, as there would only be side-quests left anyway, and these were to be completed at leisure and for their own pleasure: Airplane II: The Sequel; the original disaster cinema parody, The Big Bus; and one day, I swear I'll get to the Japanese branch of the genre.  For now, there's this.  Obviously, nobody is forcing me, and I doubt it would have occurred to anybody to even ask me, to backtrack through the television movies of Jerry Jameson.  But I did anyway.  (Then again, there was that guy who kept at me, justifiably enough, for like two years to finally get to Raise the Titanic.)  Initially, this was supposed to be a stopgap for the lull in reviews this late July—minimalist reviews, cross-posted from Letterboxd and cleaned up.  Well, they're not going to be maximalist.  But the main thing is that later on I still want to tell you about Starflight One, a very cool TV disaster movie from all the way out in the wilderness of 1983, this being a telefilm directed by, you guessed, Jerry Jameson; and if that was to have a place here, then it only feels right to deal with all of his other disaster telefilms, of which there were at least three and perhaps six, depending on your definition of "disaster movie."  (ETA: oh, for hell's sake, there's seven.)  We'll be going broader with that definition than I actually believe is correct, but there are so many fuzzy lines in life, aren't there?  To be clear, this does not open the way towards a pathologically completionist "all disaster films of the 70s, even the TV movies" campaign, or at least I hope it doesn't.

American Gothic Week: In case any of you are afraid of being bored, I promise you it won't take long—it's only a small tribute

MADHOUSE

1974

Directed by Jim Davis

Written by Ken Levinson and Greg Morrison (based on the novel Devilday by Angus Hall)

Spoilers: highish

What a disaster: Maybe they ought to leave it the way it is—a kind of shrine to all the bullshit in the world

THE TOWERING INFERNO

1974

Directed by John Guillermin and Irwin Allen

Written by Stirling Silliphant (based on the novels The Tower by Richard Martin Stern and The Glass Inferno by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson)

Spoiler alert: moderate

What a disaster: Earthquakes bring out the worst in some people, that's all

EARTHQUAKE

1974

Directed by Mark Robson

Written by Mario Puzo and George Fox

Spoiler alert: moderate

What a disaster: Climb, baby, climb!

AIRPORT 1975

1974

Directed by Jack Smight

Written by Don Ingalls

Spoiler alert: moderate

What a disaster: It is the view of Her Majesty's Government—the view, the policy, the determination—to resist extortion by terror

JUGGERNAUT

1974

Directed by Richard Lester

Written by Richard Alan Simmons, Alan Pater, and Richard Lester

Spoiler alert: moderate

Frady cat

THE PARALLAX VIEW

The only conspiracy thriller so opaque you need to invent a conspiracy theory just to explain it to yourself.

1974

Directed by Alan J. Pakula

Written by David Giler, Lorenzo Semple Jr., and (allegedly) Robert Towne (based on the novel by Loren Singer)

Spoiler alert: high

I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords

PHASE IV

A steady, meticulous dive into all-out evolutionary struggle, Saul Bass's Phase IV is in the running for best "evil bug" movie of all time, which sounds like a low bar, and is, but I do truly mean it in the most complimentary way I could.

1974

Directed by Saul Bass

Written by Mayo Simon

With Michael Murphy (James Lesko), Lynne Frederick (Kendra Eldridge), and Nigel Davenport (Dr. Ernest Hubbs)

Spoiler alert: moderate

Who's gonna steal a subway train?

THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE

Likely more purely entertaining than any documentary about the modern history of New York, and more edifying than many, Joseph Sargent's near-masterpiece captures the city as it was (or, at least, as we imagine it was) and offers it up inside the kind of fun, thrill-heavy package that would still work whether there was anything else interesting about it or not.

1974

Directed by Joseph Sargent

Written by Peter Stone (based on the novel by Morton Freedgood)

With Walter Matthau (Lt. Zachary Garber), Jerry Stiller (Lt. Rico Patrone), Martin Balsam (Mr. Green), Earl Hindman (Mr. Gray), Hector Elizondo (Mr. Grey), and Robert Shaw (Mr. Blue)

Spoiler alert: moderate

Steven Spielberg, part IV: They were all in love with dying; they were doing it in Texas

THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS

Spielberg dances cautiously around the style and content of the New Hollywood in his first theatrical feature, and the results are very much a mixed bag.

1974

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Written by Hal Barwood, Matthew Robbins, and Steven Spielberg

With Goldie Hawn (Lou Jean Sparrow Poplin), William Atherton (Clovis Poplin), Michael Sacks (Officer Maxwell Slide), and Ben Johnson (Capt. Harlan Tanner)

Spoiler alert: N/A, sort of, but let's say high

John Carpenter, part I: In space, no one can hear you... surf?

DARK STAR

Sure, there's something going on here, but there's a reason why most student films aren't released to general audiences.

1974
Directed by John Carpenter
Written by Dan O'Bannon and John Carpenter
With Brian Narelle (Lt. Doolittle), Cal Kuniholm (Boiler), Dre Pahich (Talby), Dan O'Bannon (Pinback), Cookie Knapp (the Computer), Joe Saunders (Cmdr. Powell), and Adam Beckenbaugh (Bomb 20)

Spoiler alert: moderate