Earthquake (film)

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Earthquake
Earthquake movie poster
Directed by	Mark Robson
Produced by	Mark Robson
Written by	George Fox Mario Puzo
Starring	Charlton Heston Ava Gardner George Kennedy Lorne Greene Geneviève Bujold Richard Roundtree Marjoe Gortner Barry Sullivan Lloyd Nolan Victoria Principal
Music by	John Williams
Cinematography	Philip H. Lathrop
Editing by	Dorothy Spencer
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Running time	123 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$7,000,000 USD
Gross revenue	$79,000,000 USD
IMDb profile

Earthquake is a 1974 action adventure/disaster/thriller film that achieved huge box-office success, continuing the disaster film genre of the 1970s where recognizable all-star casts attempt to survive life or death situations. The plot concerns the struggle for survival after a catastrophic earthquake destroys the city of Los Angeles, California, reaching 9.9 on the Richter scale.^[1][2]

Directed by Mark Robson and with a screenplay by George Fox and Mario Puzo, the film starred Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, Lorne Greene, George Kennedy, Geneviève Bujold, Richard Roundtree, Marjoe Gortner, Barry Sullivan, Lloyd Nolan, Victoria Principal, Monica Lewis and Walter Matthau (credited as "Walter Matushanskayasky").^[3]

Contents 1 Origins 2 Development 3 Production 4 "Sensurround" 5 Release 6 Awards 7 Television premiere 8 Proposed sequel 9 Theme park attractions 10 Stock footage 11 Reference list 12 External links

[edit] Origins

In the wake of the tremendous success of the disaster-suspense film Airport (1970), Universal Studios began working with executive producer Jennings Lang to come up with a new idea that would work within the same "disaster-suspense" genre. The genesis of the idea literally "came to them" as a direct result of the San Fernando Earthquake which shook the Los Angeles area during the early morning hours of February 9, 1971. Director Mark Robson and Lang were intrigued by the idea of creating a disaster on film that would not be confined to an airliner, but rather take place over a large area.^[4]

[edit] Development

Lang scored a major coup when he was able to sign on legendary screenwriter Mario Puzo to pen the first draft during the summer of 1972. Puzo, fresh from the success of his novel and film, The Godfather, delivered the script in August. Much like his Godfather films, the characters and situations in his Earthquake script were intricate, and showed a similar attention to detail. However, Puzo's detailed script necessitated a much larger production budget (as the action and characters were spread over a vast geographical area in the city of Los Angeles), and Universal was faced with either cutting the script down, or increasing the film's projected budget. Puzo's involvement with Earthquake was short-lived, however, as Paramount Pictures was anxious to begin development with the followup to The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II. Since Puzo's services were contractually obligated to the sequel, he felt he would be unable to continue work on two projects of such a large scale, so he opted out of continuing any further work on Earthquake.

The Earthquake script languished at Universal Studios for a short period of time, but was brought back to life by the huge success of the 20th Century Fox hit, The Poseidon Adventure, released in December, 1972. Fueled by the enormous box office receipts of that film, Universal Studios put pre-production on Earthquake back in to high gear, hiring writer George Fox to continue work with Puzo's first draft. Director Mark Robson worked with Fox (who was more of a magazine writer - this was his first screenplay) to narrow the scope of the script down to fit into the budgetary constraints. After 11 drafts, Earthquake went before the cameras in February, 1974.^[5][6]

[edit] Production

Budgeted at $7,000,000 USD, Earthquake immediately found itself in a race against the clock with the bigger-budgeted disaster film, The Towering Inferno, which was being financed by two movie studios (20th Century Fox and Warner Brothers, a motion picture first) and produced by Irwin Allen (The Poseidon Adventure). While that film featured a larger "all star" cast (in fact, Universal had approached several, including Steve McQueen and Paul Newman, to star in Earthquake - but they had already been signed by Allen), Universal was able to land Charlton Heston in the lead role, along with Ava Gardner (who signed at the proverbial "11th hour" simply because she wanted to spend the summer in Los Angeles), George Kennedy, Lorne Greene, Geneviève Bujold (who agreed to a part in the film to head off an impending lawsuit by Universal over a prior project), Richard Roundtree (riding a wave of success from the Shaft film series), former evangelical Marjoe Gortner, and fresh-faced newcomer Victoria Principal.^[7][8]

Production necessitated the complete destruction of the Universal Studios backlot in order to simulate the catastrophic earthquake of the title (as doing the same on Los Angeles streets would not have been possible). Along with a clever use of miniatures of actual buildings, matte paintings, and full-scale sets, Earthquake combined decades old special effects techniques with those developed especially for the film (including a revolutionary "Shaker Mount" camera system, which mimicked the effects of an earthquake).

Extensive use of highly trained stunt artists for the most dangerous scenes involving high falls, dodging falling debris, and flood sequences, set a Hollywood record for the most stunt artists involved in any film production up until that time: 141. Some stunt artists were required to fall sixty feet onto large air bags, for which they were paid the sum of $500.00.^[9]

[edit] "Sensurround"

Universal Studios and Jennings Lang wanted Earthquake to be an "Event Film" - something that would draw audiences in to the theatre multiple times. After several ideas were tossed about (which included bouncing faux styrofoam "debris" over audience members heads), Universal's sound department came up with a process called "Sensurround" - a series of large speakers and a 1,500 watt amplifier, that would pump in sub-audible "infra bass" sound waves at 120 decibels (equivalent to a jet airplane at takeoff), giving the viewer the sensation of an earthquake. The process was tested in several theatres around the United States prior to the film's release, yielding various results. A famous example is Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California, where the "Sensurround" cracked the plaster in the ceiling. Ironically, the same theatre premiered Earthquake three months later -- with a newly-installed net over the audience to catch any falling debris -- to tremendous success.^[10]

The "Sensurround" process proved to be a large audience draw, but not without generating a fair share of controversy. There were documented cases of nosebleeds generated by the sound waves. When the film premiered in Chicago, Illinois, the head of the building and safety department demanded the system be turned down, as he was afraid it would cause structural damage. In Billings, Montana, a knick-knack shop next door to a theatre using the system lost part of its inventory when items from several shelves were thrown to the floor when the system was cued during the quake scenes. Perhaps the most amazing Sensurround incident occurred when a patron's ribs were cracked by the intense output of the system.^[11]

Sensurround was used again for the films Midway (1976), Rollercoaster (1977) and Battlestar Galactica (1979).^[12]

The 2006 Universal Home Video DVD release features the original "Sensurround" 3.1 audio track, duplicating the original theatrical "Sensurround" track, which generated low frequency, high-power sound waves which "shook" the theatre. In addition, the films original soundtrack was remixed in Surround Sound 5.1 (a different arrangement than "Sensurround)."

[edit] Release

After October test screenings in various theatres throughout the country, Universal opted to cut 30 minutes from the film at the last minute (notably from the pre-quake sequences), at the cost of some of the dramatic flow (including a sub-plot involving an abortion).^[13] Released in the United States on November 15, 1974, Earthquake would become the fourth-highest grossing film of the year; its competition, The Towering Inferno, was the highest.^[14]

The Disaster film trend had reached its zenith in 1974 with the combined releases of Earthquake, The Towering Inferno and Airport 1975 (the first Airport sequel). The films enjoyed staggering success, with The Towering Inferno earning $55 million in rentals, Earthquake $36 million and Airport 1975 $25 million.^[15] By 1976, the Disaster film cycle had also left its mark on the list of all-time box office champions, with The Towering Inferno ranked 8th, Airport 14th, The Poseidon Adventure 16th and Earthquake 20th.^[16] Such success spawned a flood of similar films throughout the decade.

Earthquake would eventually gross nearly $80,000,000 USD ($333,000,000 USD, adjusted for inflation in 2007 dollars).^[17]

[edit] Awards

Earthquake was nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction and Best Sound. It won for Best Sound (Ronald Pierce, Melvin M. Metcalfe Sr.) and a Special Achievement Award for Visual Effects (Frank Brendel, Glen Robinson, Albert Whitlock). The film was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards including Best Motion Picture - Drama and Best Original Score (John Williams).^[18] Williams' music for Earthquake was the second of his trio of scores for large-scale Disaster films, having previously scored The Poseidon Adventure and following with The Towering Inferno (briefly earning him the nickname "King of the Disaster Scores").^[19] Williams scored both The Towering Inferno and Earthquake in the summer of 1974, both scores showing similarities to one another (notably Earthquake's theme and The Towering Inferno's love theme sharing the same eight-note melody)

[edit] Television premiere

For the film's October, 1976 television premiere on NBC, additional footage was added to expand the running time of the film so it could be shown over two nights. Contrary to popular belief, this "television version" made no use of material originally left out of the theatrical release (save one brief scene featuring Victoria Principal and Reb Brown), but rather new footage was shot some two years after the original, using some of the stars from the theatrical version. New scenes included a young married couple (Debralee Scott and Sam Chew) on an airliner attempting to land at Los Angeles International Airport during the earthquake.^[20]

[edit] Proposed sequel

A script for a sequel, Earthquake II, was written in 1975 and was to feature the characters played by George Kennedy, Victoria Principal, Richard Roundtree and Gabriel Dell. The script never reached the production stage. The story details the characters, now refugees from the Los Angeles quake of the original film, adjusting to life in San Francisco. Another catastrophic earthquake and tsunami eventually strikes the Bay Area. Production was cancelled in late 1977 as the popularity of disaster films was starting to wane.^[21][22]

[edit] Theme park attractions

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Earthquake: The Big One. (Discuss)

Earthquake: The Big One
Former Entrance to the Earthquake ride in Universal Orlando Resort
Universal Studios Florida and Universal Studios Hollywood (as part of the Studio Tour)
Area	San Francisco (Florida) Upper Lot (Hollywood)
Theme	Earthquake
Opening date	June 7, 1990 (Florida) 1988 (Hollywood)
Closing date	September 8, 2007 (pre-show) November 4, 2007 (entire attraction)
Ride duration	20 (Florida) 5 (Hollywood) minutes
Preceded By	The Tower of London Set (Hollywood)
Replaced By	Disaster: A Major Motion Picture Ride- Starring You (Florida)

Earthquake inspired the attraction "Earthquake-The Big One" at Universal Studios Florida and Hollywood. The original attraction starts out by having guests entered a model of a museum in San Francisco themed to earthquakes. A tour guide then appears, and begins to talk about the film, followed by them taking 5 volunteers, which will participate in an interactive portion of the attraction. The guests then entered a screening room with a miniature model of the sets used in the film, in front of them. A screen then rolls down the sets, and Charlton Heston appears on it and begins to discuss how the filmmakers filmed the disaster portions of the film with miniature sets, which they set on fire, and, knocked down. Guests are then ushered into another room where the audience participants acted out as if they were in the film, including one volunteer, usually an older woman, was faked that she was dropped from a the tower, in the film. After this, guests boarded a ride vehicle, which took them to a subway station in Los Angeles, where they experienced the earthquake, followed by the ride ending. The pre-show was changed to a "magic of making movies" theme in fall 2002, with slight modifications. The pre-show ended in September 2007, with the former rooms being used as a queue line to the ride vehicles. The ride officially closed on November 5, 2007. The attraction has been replaced by "Disaster!: A Major Motion Picture Ride...Starring You!." Universal Orlando has stated the attraction will be interactive and connected to all of Universal's Disaster films.^[23] There is also an Earthquake section of the Universal Studios Hollywood Studio Tour, which replaced The Tower of London Set, and features the tour tram entering a San Francisco subway station, just before an earthquake hits.

[edit] Stock footage

Many scenes from the movie, especially those featuring the destruction of Los Angeles, have appeared in other productions, often those of Universal Studios itself. Some examples include:

• Quantum Leap: Sam Beckett leaped in as one of the stuntmen on the fictional disaster film "Disco Inferno." In the episode, "Sam" is the man hanging from a piece of debris whom Sam Royce (Lorne Greene's character) attempts to save, but loses his grip and falls.
• Galactica 1980: In the episode "Galactica Discovers Earth", in a "computer simulation" of a devastating Cylon attack on Los Angeles.
• Scarface: Tony Montana conducts a botched drug transaction with the Columbian drug dealer Hector, while "Earthquake" is seen playing on a television in the background.
• V: The Final Battle: Footage from the sequence featuring the collapse of the Hollywood dam was reused during the destruction of the Visitors water pumping station.
• Barenaked Ladies: Parts of the movie, namely portions of the film when the big earthquake struck, were used in the music video for the song "Another Postcard."

[edit] Reference list

[edit] External links

• Earthquake at the Internet Movie Database
• Catastrophe in the Movies
• EarthquakeMovie.com Fansite
• Disaster Films
• The New York Times Review, Earthquake
• Introduction to Sensurround