Cinema Retro's Dave Worrall sat down to enjoy the recent UK TV special on great disaster movies - and found that the real disaster was in the choice of reel disasters!
When I hear
the words “disaster movie†I automatically think of erupting volcanoes, tidal
waves, burning buildings, sinking ships and crashing airliners. Doesn’t
everyone? Well, apparently not.
Last night
I watched ‘The Greatest Ever Disaster Movies’, which aired on Channel 5.
Running almost three hours, the programme showed clips from forty films – all
voted for by members of the British public and shown in descending order.
The phrase
‘Disaster Movie’ was coined in the early 70’s following the success of The Poseidon Adventure, and this spawned
a plethora of films featuring a storyline that concentrated on either a catastrophe
caused by nature, or an act of human error.
Films like Krakatoa East of Java,
Earthquake, The Towering Inferno, etc, etc, spring to mind – but that’s not
the case with today’s audiences. No, they pick Die Hard, Predator, Con Air and Speed!
What? Now, whilst I actually think those latter films are good – excellent, in
fact – they are not ‘disaster movies’ but merely superb action films. I found
it hard to believe that a film like Twister,
which is a ‘disaster movie’, and a
bloody good one too, didn’t make the ‘Top Ten’ but Predator, which is a Sci-Fi/Fantasy film, did! Likewise, where was Rollercoaster – another original
‘disaster movie’?
The
programme, which was interspersed with interviews with TV critics, film
historians and actors, did at least include many of the older classics but I
have to admit that whilst we thought it good in its day, Earthquake hasn’t stood the test of time – but at least it was a proper ‘disaster movie’. However, it was
nostalgic to see the likes of George Kennedy, Jacqueline Bissett and Robert
Vaughn being interviewed, and at least two Seventies ‘classics’ made it into
the ‘Top Ten’ (see chart below).
Audiences
forget that the whole premise behind this genre was to take a B-movie storyline
and fill it with A-list actors who are put in precarious situations, and
guaranteed to die. That was the fun of it all. Today, if you are lucky, a big
event film has just one, maybe two major stars playing the lead roles. Gone are
the days of a major cast line-up. Then again, there are not enough ‘major’
stars left in the world to achieve this – and if there were, the studios
couldn’t afford their extortionate fees anyway!
Anyway,
enough of my ‘grumpy old man’ moaning - here are the top ten entries voted by
the Brits…
10: The
Poseidon Adventure.
9:
Predator.
8: Speed.
7: War of
the Worlds (Cruise version).
6: Con Air.
5: The Day
After Tomorrow.
4: The
Towering Inferno.
3: Apollo
13.
2: Armageddon.
1: Die
Hard.
Oh, I
forgot to mention that the programme was sponsored by Play.Com, an internet
company specializing in selling DVDs by mail order, and oddly enough all forty
films chosen are available on DVD. What a coincidence, especially as the film’s
sleeve was shown next to the number it had been voted for!