EARTHQUAKE (1974)

[RCMerchant]

I saw this movie at the Strand when it first came out-we didnt have the 'Sensurround' in the ancient movie house in Paw Paw.
This movie has ok F/X-the shakey cam thing was kinda lame-but ok  for the time -but dam-it's stupid.
Lotsa good actors wasted over emoting...the only selling point is seeing famous people in an earthquake.Its an overblown Movie of the Week.
Walter Matthau as a drunk in hippie clothes is inane.Ava Gardner as the daughter of Lorne Greene? And all the TV style drama is predictable.
I did like Marjoe Gortner as the perv National Guardsman,though.
This was the 70's-AIRPORT (197o) set off a slew of disaster films-the POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1971),the TOWERING INFERNO (1974),all the f**king AIRPLANE sequels-which prompted the great AIRPLANE! (1980)-all with all star casts getting killed. Of course crap like this still sells-look at INTO THE STORM (2014)-same cheezy stuff-no all star cast-GAWD-now thats an AWFUL movie!

Of course I seen most of them at the Strand in the 70's.Hey-I seen lotsa s**t at the Strand-where else could you catch a double bill of RACE WITH THE DEVIL and PSYCHIC KILLER?

http://youtu.be/yV88FanNJlU

Written by Mario Puzo? Was he asleep when he wrote this?

[Trevor]

This movie has ok F/X-the shakey cam thing was kinda lame-but ok  for the time -but dam-it's stupid.

I was going to make a thread about this and how bad this actually is - I saw it twice in the last two months on AMC / MGM - but I agree. It really is an overblown Movie Of The Week. The acting is blah, the action OK and the FX are great but the whole thing is just..... meh. 

Written by Mario Puzo? Was he asleep when he wrote this?

Very likely. 

[Jack]

Why is Victoria Principal the main thing I remember about that movie?

[Trevor]

Why is Victoria Principal the main thing I remember about that movie?

No clue, brother, I have no clue. 

I love that Gabriel Dell is not looking at her in this scene. 

[Newt]

... I saw it twice in the last two months on AMC / MGM

   

[Trevor]

... I saw it twice in the last two months on AMC / MGM

   

What can I say, SisterN: I love bad movies. 

[Flangepart]

Riffing while L.A. collapses about it's self...that just seem SO right. 

[JaseSF]

I won't dispute the movie of the week feel, still I remember really enjoying this one but then I also have practically all the 1970s disaster flicks in my collection and many from the 90s/2000s too.

[Allhallowsday]

I just watched THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE this week on TCM... I think that is kind of a good movie, even if it is absurd and implausible. 

Now EARTHQUAKE (which I saw when it was new in SENSURROUND = snicker) and enjoyed it as a kid.  BUT, it does kind of STINK.   

[The Burgomaster]

I remember seeing this in Sensurround (which was basically the same as listening a big, loud subwoofer).  If you want to enjoy MAXIMUM BADNESS, try to see the pasted-together TV version.  They basically took the theatrical version and added new scenes to make the movie longer.  I believe they showed it in two nights like a mini-series.  All I remember about the added TV scenes was something about a plane and the runway cracking . . . and the bad acting.

Many people have forgotten the very bad Paul Newman volcano movie WHEN TIME RAN OUT.  It's basically a cross between THE TOWERING INFERNO (no one will listen to Paul Newman until it's too late) and THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (Newman leads a rag-tag group of survivors across the island to avoid the flowing lava).  In fact, some of the Towering Inferno (Newman and William Holden) and Poseidon Adventure (Ernest Borgnine and Red Buttons) actors are in it.  And if that isn't enough, Pat Morita and Alex Karras are in it . . . as well as Burgess Meredith who plays a tightrope walker.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWx2mp3uJGA

[FatFreddysCat]

I have only the vaguest memories of "Earthquake," cuz I was probably 9 or 10 at the most when I last saw it on TV in the late 70s. At the time the biggest deal for me was that Lorne Greene, who I knew as Commander Adama from "Battlestar Galactica," was in it. :D

I seem to remember reading somewhere that even tho Ava Gardner was playing Lorne Greene's daughter, in reality there was only an eight or ten year age difference between them.

I loved "Poseidon Adventure" though, I've seen that one a bunch of times and it still holds up fairly well, better than most of the 70s disaster flicks.

I remember loving "The Towering Inferno" when I was a kid too, but I revisited it a couple of years ago and found it dreadfully boring... it took forever for anything to happen in that movie... though I did get a chuckle at seeing O.J. Simpson (in what I believe was his acting debut) as the building security guard, who spent most of the movie kicking down apartment doors and gazing into smoky rooms saying "Hello? (cough) Is anyone in there (cough)?"

Another one I always liked (in spite of the heavy layer of cheez) is 1979's "Meteor" with Sean Connery and Natalie Wood, which came in on the ass end of the disaster movie cycle. Michael Bay's "Armageddon" was essentially a remake of this flick, with 100 times the budget and a million times the stupid. It kinda signaled the end of the disaster movie trend, tho, cuz it tanked at the box office and pretty much put Samuel Z. Arkoff's American International Pictures out of business....

[RCMerchant]

Another one I always liked (in spite of the heavy layer of cheez) is 1979's "Meteor" with Sean Connery and Natalie Wood, which came in on the ass end of the disaster movie cycle. Michael Bay's "Armageddon" was essentially a remake of this flick, with 100 times the budget and a million times the stupid. It kinda signaled the end of the disaster movie trend, tho, cuz it tanked at the box office and pretty much put Samuel Z. Arkoff's American International Pictures out of business....

The most startling thing about METEOR  (1979)  is this-



Weird crazy.
f**ked.

[Allhallowsday]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIwF60gHa_4

[FatFreddysCat]

The most startling thing about METEOR  (1979)  is this-



Weird crazy.
f**ked.

Yep, if memory serves one of the Twin Towers is hit by the meteor, which tips it over into the other building and they both go down.

That scene was noticeably absent the last time I saw the movie on SyFy channel five or six years ago.

[Allhallowsday]

EARTHQUAKE (1974) on TCM 10pm est TONIGHT!