DVD Talk review of 'Earthquake'
05-19-06, 10:39 PM
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DVD Talk review of 'Earthquake'
I read DVD Savant's DVD review of Earthquake at http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=21654 and...
Covers many good points on this most-wretched of all disaster pics. I would add that an old, haggard Ava Gardner playing Loren Greene's DAUGHTER has to be among the most laughable casting decisions is movie history. She was not only older than him in real life, but very much looked it! Marjoe Gortner's lunatic Guardsman is so over the top it's silly, and Walter Matthau's supposedly "comic" cameo as a wino is painfully unfunny. For a movie about a major quake devastating L.A., it's all surprisingly pedestrian and tedious. Before the quake the various subplots involving the stars unroll....yawn....and after the quake we're treated to some very unsuspenseful, long-winded rescues (especially the utterly tedious one in the stairwell...it goes on and on and on...til the audience couldn't care less if any of them live or die!). Then there's this peculiar sub-plot about a young couple on a jetliner heading for LAX, which absolutely defies logic as to why it was even included. These unknown actors make the most boring screen couple in all moviedom as they ramble on and on about nothing. They have no connection to any of the other cast, and all their scenes take place in two passenger seats. Combined, their scenes must take up about 1/2 hour of movie time....and all for 10 seconds of "suspense" when the airliner lands just as the quake hits. It immediately takes off again, out of harm's way, and we can "breathe a sign of relief" that this "fascinating" couple escaped destruction! All I can figure is these scenes were filmed later and shoved in when the producers realized they were short on running time. Small-time operator Richard Roundtree's "daredevil" motorcycle stunt seemed pretty tame even back in 1975, and Charlton Heston looks bored in the same stock character he played all too often in the Seventies. I do recall the biggest laughs in the theater coming when he "heroically" jumps down the storm drain to save his nagging, drunk wife Ava (who he was cheating on and planning to divorce). Yeah, right.... Some of the special effects of the quake are not bad (at least for the mid-Seventies), but the problem is the quake takes up far too little screen time, and the rest is all simply padding.
Covers many good points on this most-wretched of all disaster pics. I would add that an old, haggard Ava Gardner playing Loren Greene's DAUGHTER has to be among the most laughable casting decisions is movie history. She was not only older than him in real life, but very much looked it! Marjoe Gortner's lunatic Guardsman is so over the top it's silly, and Walter Matthau's supposedly "comic" cameo as a wino is painfully unfunny. For a movie about a major quake devastating L.A., it's all surprisingly pedestrian and tedious. Before the quake the various subplots involving the stars unroll....yawn....and after the quake we're treated to some very unsuspenseful, long-winded rescues (especially the utterly tedious one in the stairwell...it goes on and on and on...til the audience couldn't care less if any of them live or die!). Then there's this peculiar sub-plot about a young couple on a jetliner heading for LAX, which absolutely defies logic as to why it was even included. These unknown actors make the most boring screen couple in all moviedom as they ramble on and on about nothing. They have no connection to any of the other cast, and all their scenes take place in two passenger seats. Combined, their scenes must take up about 1/2 hour of movie time....and all for 10 seconds of "suspense" when the airliner lands just as the quake hits. It immediately takes off again, out of harm's way, and we can "breathe a sign of relief" that this "fascinating" couple escaped destruction! All I can figure is these scenes were filmed later and shoved in when the producers realized they were short on running time. Small-time operator Richard Roundtree's "daredevil" motorcycle stunt seemed pretty tame even back in 1975, and Charlton Heston looks bored in the same stock character he played all too often in the Seventies. I do recall the biggest laughs in the theater coming when he "heroically" jumps down the storm drain to save his nagging, drunk wife Ava (who he was cheating on and planning to divorce). Yeah, right.... Some of the special effects of the quake are not bad (at least for the mid-Seventies), but the problem is the quake takes up far too little screen time, and the rest is all simply padding.
05-20-06, 05:44 PM
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This movie was a hit when it came out and the sound system in theaters for the earthquake effect was great. Nobody I knew who saw it back then had anything bad to say about the movie. Now maybe today the movie does not hold up like the movie CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE 3RD KIND or SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER doesn't hold up to today's movie going crowd. But the movie was enjoyed back then.
05-23-06, 06:15 PM
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The whole subplot on the plane was not in the original release. That material was shot much later to be included in an "expanded" NBC version, which also padded the running time with outakes from the original production.
I was 8 years old when I saw this film in theatres in "Sensurround." It was about the coolest thing I has ever seen up to that point!
Even back in 1974, the movie was chuckled at by most critics and many audiences. I mean, the blood spurt in the elevator alone! Hee Hee!
I was 8 years old when I saw this film in theatres in "Sensurround." It was about the coolest thing I has ever seen up to that point!
Even back in 1974, the movie was chuckled at by most critics and many audiences. I mean, the blood spurt in the elevator alone! Hee Hee!
05-25-06, 07:11 AM
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"When you made love to me.....it was with such anger." 
I love this cheese fest! My pops took me to see it upon it's initial release with the Sensurround.
I love this cheese fest! My pops took me to see it upon it's initial release with the Sensurround.
05-29-06, 08:42 AM
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Originally Posted by LiquidSky
"When you made love to me.....it was with such anger." I love this cheese fest! My pops took me to see it upon it's initial release with the Sensurround.
I love this cheese fest! My pops took me to see it upon it's initial release with the Sensurround.Last edited by cblount; 05-29-06 at 08:47 AM.
05-30-06, 06:58 AM
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Originally Posted by cblount
Actually that line refers to a deleted scene. It was revealed in the original script that Ava Gardner's character had an abortion and didn't tell Charlton Heston's character. That bit of news is what pushed him into the affair.
06-01-06, 07:09 AM
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Originally Posted by cblount
It was earlier in their marriage.
okay....I was wondering.....I would love to see a SE edition of "Earthquake" like the recent ones for "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno".
