8 / 10
Earthquake is the second-best disaster film of 1974. The Towering Inferno is the best. Both films defined what the disaster genre would be for the next fifty years and Earthquake’s specific contribution was the realization that you could make a movie out of a city falling down and not need a plot more complicated than that. Mark Robson directed it. Charlton Heston plays Stewart Graff, a stagnant architect. Ava Gardner plays his wife. George Kennedy plays a cop. Lorne Greene plays Heston’s father-in-law. Geneviève Bujold plays the affair. Walter Matthau is uncredited as the drunk in the bar. The script was co-written by Mario Puzo.
Universal Pictures premiered the film in Sensurround, which was the studio’s name for theater speakers that vibrated the chairs at the right frequencies. The decision to deliver an earthquake to the audience as a physical experience rather than just an audiovisual one was the kind of theatrical innovation studios used to attempt before home video made the theater experience replaceable. Original audiences felt the floor shake.
The Earthquake
The disaster sequence is well-staged for its era. Practical miniatures, real building collapses, careful editing to suggest scale that the budget could not directly produce. The Hollywood Reservoir dam sequence is the famous set piece. Real water cascades through real miniature streets. The cinematography by Philip H. Lathrop tracks the destruction with a journalistic eye that most subsequent disaster films have abandoned for stylized chaos.
The film does not stint on death. People die. The audience sees them die. Children die. Heroes die. The third-act dam failure kills off characters the audience expected to survive. The willingness to kill audience favorites is part of what made the film feel like a real disaster rather than an action movie with disaster as background.
For Writers
A disaster story needs to actually disasterize. If the audience can predict who will live and die from the casting, the stakes collapse. Earthquake kills its main characters. Modern disaster films usually do not. The lesson is that real consequence requires real loss. If your story has high stakes but no one important dies, the reader will not believe the stakes the next time you raise them.
The Soap Opera
The pre-earthquake first hour is a soap opera. Heston’s marriage is unhappy. He is having an affair with Bujold. Gardner is suspicious. Lorne Greene is plotting. George Kennedy’s cop is in trouble at his precinct. The threads do not connect to each other in any meaningful way. They simply exist until the earthquake reorganizes them.
This was the disaster film template. Establish a half-dozen disconnected characters with personal problems, then have the disaster cut through all the personal problems and force the characters to deal with survival instead. The technique works because the audience comes to care about the characters they are about to watch die. It is not subtle and it does not need to be.
For Writers
Ensemble disaster stories work by introducing characters in normal life before the disaster strikes. The audience needs to recognize the characters as people before the disaster turns them into survivors. The lesson is that the boring first act of a disaster story is doing essential work. Resist the urge to start in the chaos. Spend the time establishing who the people are. The disaster will land harder.
The Performances
Heston is in his late-career mode. Stoic, competent, slightly tired of being Charlton Heston. He plays the architect as a man whose professional life has surpassed his personal life and who knows it. Ava Gardner, in one of her last major roles, is given a thin part and acts the hell out of it. George Kennedy plays the cop the way George Kennedy plays cops, which is to say very well.
The supporting cast is large and uneven. Some of the disconnected subplots work. Some do not. The film does not particularly care because it knows that once the ground shakes, all of these people are going to be running.
For Writers
A large ensemble forgives weak supporting threads if the disaster is strong. Earthquake has eight or nine plot lines going into the disaster. Several of them are forgettable. The strong ones carry the film and the weak ones disappear into the destruction. The lesson is that ensemble work can be uneven without sinking the whole. Pick your best three or four threads and write them well. Let the others exist as texture.
Craft Note
Mark Robson directed. Mario Puzo and George Fox wrote. Charlton Heston as Stewart Graff. Ava Gardner as Remy Royce-Graff. George Kennedy as Sgt. Lew Slade. Lorne Greene as Sam Royce. Geneviève Bujold as Denise Marshall. Walter Matthau (uncredited) as the drunk. John Williams scored. Released November 1974 in Sensurround. Approximately seven million dollar budget. Roughly eighty million worldwide gross. Two Oscars (Sound, Visual Effects).
The Verdict
8/10. The defining disaster film of the 1970s and a textbook example of the genre. The Sensurround experience is gone but the film holds up on the strength of its destruction sequences and its willingness to kill its leads. Watch it as a double feature with The Towering Inferno.
FAQ
What was Sensurround?
A theatrical sound system that used subwoofers to vibrate the audience during the earthquake sequences. Used in Earthquake and a few later releases. Now obsolete.
Is Walter Matthau really in it?
Yes, uncredited, as the drunk who wanders through several scenes oblivious to the disaster. He took the role as a favor.
Did Mario Puzo really co-write it?
Yes. Between Godfather screenplays. He needed work and the studio paid well.
How does it compare to The Towering Inferno?
The Towering Inferno is the better film. Earthquake is the more influential disaster film for the genre.
Is the science accurate?
The premise is accurate. The San Andreas Fault can produce a major earthquake. The specific magnitude depicted is on the higher end of plausibility but not impossible. The damage shown is exaggerated for cinema.
Did anyone die in real life from the Sensurround?
No. Some theaters had ceiling tiles dislodged by the vibrations. Concerns about structural damage to older buildings led to limits on how loud Sensurround could go.
Should I watch this?
Yes if you are working through the disaster genre. Yes if you like 1970s ensemble films. Skip if you want modern pacing.