Made in 1974, The Infernal Tower, broadcast this Sunday, April 30, 2023 at 8:50 p.m., on Arte, is the prototype of the disaster film. Directed with great resources by John Guillermin, this skillfully dosed suspense story, composed of a host of internationally renowned actors, was calibrated to be a hit at the box office… Which it was. How can you resist the charisma of the two greatest male stars of the time: the hero of cold hand luke and of Butch Cassidy and the KidPaul Newman, and that of The great Escape and of Bullitt, Steve McQueen? Especially when they are accompanied by the impressive Faye Dunaway, the overwhelming Fred Astaire and the impeccable William Holden! The recipe for The Infernal Tower owes nothing to chance…
O my boat!
This blockbuster from the 1970s is directed by John Guillermin, who will later direct a remake of King Kongbut another man plays a more vital role in the making of the infernal tower. Co-director (including action scenes) of the film, Irwin Allen is above all the producer and project manager. Owner of an advertising agency, at the initiative of a few small cult films at the end of the 1950s, known in the 1960s for having launched legendary television series, lost in space To In the heart of timeAllen returned to the cinema in the early 1970s. Determined to make a disaster film with a big show, he brought together several famous actors, from Gene Hackman to Shelley Winters, and entrusted Ronald Neame with the production of The Poseidon Adventure, a kind of modern Titanic, which takes a long look at characters with whom the public takes the time to identify. With this distressing question: which one will die or which one will survive, when the ship sinks? In the end, the film will remain 12 weeks at the top of the box office and, totaling 40 million dollars in revenue, become the biggest cinematic success of the year 1973. It is this formula, boosted by more means, that will want to serve the same Allen again, in 1974, with The Infernal Tower. With even more stars – a dozen – and special effects.
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From one tower to another
For Irwin Allen, the film is a new triumph, which garners $48,838,000 in receipts in the United States and Canada. The Infernal Tower also beat records internationally and became one of the biggest box office successes in 1975. Determined to exploit the vein to the end, Allen will produce, in the years that follow, other disaster films whose quality will continue to decrease, down to the mediocre The Last Secret of Poseidon et Doomsday Day. The producer ceased its activities in 1986. Two years later, released on the screens crystal trap, by John McTiernan. A film that takes place in a tower, whose occupants are victims of a hostage-taking and where care is taken to present the characters – in order to empathize with them. A work whose hero is a police inspector – played by Bruce Willis – instead of a fire captain – Steve McQueen in The Infernal Tower -; where an absolutely loathsome character – like in the 1974 classic – is behind the drama in the tower. With, in the end, the super cool savior who will avoid a bloodbath for the majority of the protagonists… We can clearly see that in the chain of disaster films, The Infernal Tower was an essential link; the culmination of the precedents… and the matrix of those who were to follow.
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