“Hell in the Tower”, the classic of catastrophe cinema inspired by the construction of the Twin Towers

The decade of the seventies was the decade of catastrophe cinema. Airport (1970), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Earthquake (1974) and Hell in the Tower (1974) formed an essential quartet to understand the genre that dominated much of the box office of the decade. Great casts, huge budgets, shocking images, all human fears of natural or human-made disasters. Catastrophe cinema was not born in those years, but reached its highest point. Hell in the Tower chooses to tell the story of San Francisco's most ambitious skyscraper and how a fire breaks out that seems impossible to control.

Hell in the Tower (The Towering Inferno) has since its origin the grandiloquence of these productions. For the first time two studios came together to produce the same film: 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. It stars two big stars: Steve McQueen and Paul Newman. It is directed by two directors: John Guillermin and Irvin Allen, the latter focusing on action scenes. It had two cinematographers, each with a director. And finally it's based on two novels. “The Tower” by Richard Martin Stern, and “The Glass Inferno” by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson. In reality, the rights of the second were acquired so that no one could develop a similar project.

The two novels mentioned were inspired by the construction of two towers that would be an emblem of New York: The Twin Towers. Even so, the film takes place in San Francisco. Like every catastrophe film, the entire previous part plays with melodrama. Forbidden love stories, excessive ambitions, small miseries and great ambitions that will end up being left aside when disaster strikes. Before the inauguration of the tower there is a party for the elite of the city. The venue is the ballroom, located in the highest area of the building.

But because of an act of corruption on the part of the builder's son-in-law, a fault occurs that starts a fire. Alarms fail and empty floors make no one solve the problem in time. The builder, played by William Holden, does not want panic to break out, but the building's architect, Doug Roberts (Paul Newman) discovers the coming catastrophe. When the firefighters arrive, led by Chief Michael O'Halloran (Steve McQueen), the fire has already progressed too far, in part because the security facilities are not fully operational. They'll have to rescue the people from the ballroom and the rest of the people in the building before hell is total.

In addition to the three stars mentioned, Richard Chamberlain, Faye Dunaway, Susan Blakely, Jennifer Jones, Robert Vaughn, Robert Wagner, O.J. Simpson and Fred Astaire, the latter the ultimate luxury of casting. The film received 8 Oscar nominations, including one for Fred Astaire and also best film. In the end he got three of them, best photography, editing and song, We May Never Love Like This Again. The two big stars, Paul Newman and Steve McQueen had all kinds of cartel discussions, but never clashes. Each one charged $1 million for their role, plus 10% of the film's proceeds. If you consider that globally he received 203 million dollars, it can be said that everyone was happy. Steve McQueen went four years without making another film after this one and Paul Newman said he would never make this kind of film again. He did not comply, because in 1980 he returned to work with producer Irvin Allen on The Edge of Time.

Whether they did it for love or money, the two protagonists shine in their roles and the cast lives up to their names. Fred Astaire plays a con man who finally shows a big heart and his role is charming. The scenes of the fire are overwhelming and people in the rooms were moved. It has all the common places of the genre and that is why it also likes it so much, there are no surprises here, although in 1974 the concept of the burning skyscraper was much more novel. There are several moments of tension that are still unforgettable today, demonstrating the effectiveness of the story.

Hell in the Tower was the highest-grossing film of the year 1974. Without knowing it, it was the closing of an era. The following year Steven Spielberg's Tiburón (1975) would be released and the collection records would skyrocket. But ironically, Spielberg's film is also classified as a film within the catastrophe genre, only that it cost much less and grossed much more, and of course it has a much more personal visual style. A dozen stars would no longer be needed and the spectators would also change.

On the other hand, skyscrapers in the style of the one that appears in Hell in the Tower would no longer be an exception, but a rule, and it would not be so funny to see them on fire. As for the Twin Towers that were the inspiration for the two novels and this title, they would be shot down in a terrorist attack that would mark the history of humanity. No screenwriter would have dared to think such a terrible thing. Inferno en la torre denounces corruption and is dedicated to those who fight fire, but at the end of the day its pretense is above all to create a great show for the big screen. That goal was more than achieved and that is why it became a classic.

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