He risked life and limb to save numerous people, but he was the chief architect to a skyscraper that caught fire and killed over 100 people.
His career is obviously ruined, civil and criminal proceedings will haunt him for the next 5 to 10 years. Faye Dunaway's character will probably won't stand by him.
The fire chiefs and the kids testimony might keep him out of prison, but he might have been better off dying a heroic death after the blast.
He deserves at least 10 to 15 years for his role. He killed people indirectly and that's manslaughter. The only reason I give him a break from getting more years because he did the noble thing by trying to save people. Ask Robert Wagner's character if Doug should be cut a break, I don't think so.
shareHow do you figure? All the things he called for were up to spec but were changed behind his back. The son and law and Bill Holden are responsible for their cost-cutting.
share[deleted]
LOL, you are bloody amazing, bro. I've seen you verbally assaulting other people on this board too (people like you are prolly why the boards are being closed). Do you just get off on talking that way to people?
Did you learn that in architectural college? Or all those buildings you built in the past, LOL.
Get a life, bud. It's just a comment and I disagree with you.
And actually, no, an architect does NOT oversee every single part of construction =)
https://www.reference.com/business-finance/duties-architect-62dc48cbd1e3b257#
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-role-of-an-architect-in-a-construction-site
"They do not generally inspect work, but the most common Architectural contract puts them as certifying the work complete for a contractor's progress billing. "
So, yeah. Again, architect does not oversee every single aspect of building. That and no specifics are given on how long he's been gone or what he did and didn't oversee.
He didn't have to be there for every single part of the building process, especially since Bill Holden was more or less family to him. If he's guilty of anything, it was trusting them to do the right thing.
sooooo, maybe fck yourself?
God God, what are you so angry about. Anyway he's responsible just as Holden and Chamberlain. He deserves some jail time
shareAlas, according to The Architect’s Handbook of Professional Practice, the architect IS responsible for overseeing construction in his role as Contract Administrator (https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-role-of-an-architect-on-a-construction-site).
shareI did 15 years as a Building Superintendent building buildings The Tallest I ever di was 10 stories, but after 5 their pretty much all the same
ARCHITECTS designs the building ALL he is interested in how it looks ,,, He had engineers to make sure of structural electrical plumbing HVAC and
The General contractor PAYs the local building inspection dept to approve all prints for construction
The Building Department has inspectors for every aspect of the construction process for every discipline from excavations and dirt work to the roof
WE NEVER build a building unless the prints are Stamped Approved as Drawn
What I am telling you is --- The Architect has no say in how the building is built, and wpould not be held accountable
ALL the other people and disciplines I mentioned would be
Ah, thank you! Someone who know what they're talking about!
A question, though... I can believe the architect has no hand in the electrical and plumbing setup, but isn't the architect responsible for a bit more than how the building looks? Isn't the architect responsible for designing the load bearing and superstructure and stuff, the physics of making a skyscraper that won't fall over in a strong wind? Or earthquake, as happens in SF?
That's what Structural Engineers are for
ANY of the changes in any part of the building, That was not according to prints and specification, Was illegal and should have been caught by Building Inspectors
Prints and Specs, are approved to be at least on code or above, The Electrician said his work was all up to code, BUT it was NOT up to Specs The Specs are approved the same time the prints are
SO The real persons at fault were the Inspectors who allowed the changes
Got to wonder how much extra they were paid for it
Early in my career as a Super I had a few inspectors that never asked BUT were hinting thing could be easier if I kicked up something
As Superintendent I held myself responsible for anything that happened on my site, The 1st job I did and was reading the job papers it said Built according to Approved Plans, & Specifications --- I took that seriously, and that helped me out the few Times I had to testify
Sorry I went on so much
Wow, thank you for being helpful, knowledgeable, and informative! You sure know more about this stuff than the film's writers did!
Of course they could have researched this sort of thing easily enough, but they weren't being paid to deliver a lesson on actual building construction, they were being paid to deliver a cheesy disaster movie! And if we're still talking about this stupid movie 50 years later, I guess they actually did their jobs right.
And if we're still talking about this stupid movie 50 years later, I guess they actually did their jobs right.
---
Ha. Actually I kinda liked The Towering Inferno. When the casting was announced in early 1974 -- that they managed to get Paul Newman AND Steve McQueen together as superstars(McQueen had been a way down the cast list supporting player in "Somebody Up There Likes Me" starring Newman in 1956)...was a big deal. Remember that they had ALMOST played Butch and Sundance, but split over billing.
So along with all the other things I did in 1974, I kept reading all the articles about the making of The Towering Inferno and by summer -- a trailer was ready showing all the big stars and -- I was excited waiting for it.
Took til Christmas to get it. Meanwhile in October we got Airport 75 and in November we got Earthquake, but everybody was waiting to get the "Paul and Steve/Steve and Paul" movie out and in December it arrived. BIG hit. BIG paydays for McQueen and Newman -- McQueen semi-retired on his share.
I like Towering Inferno best of all 70's disaster movies because its the "peak" -- of disaster movies; of Irwin Allen's status as a major producer(hey, he started with The Lost World and Lost in Space"), possibly of all star casts. Not just Paul and Steve/Steve and Paul -- but such once A-list giants as William Holden and Fred Astaire, plus modern star Faye Dunaway(fresh off of Chinatown), plus returned-from-retirement Golden Age star Jennifer Jones, plus Two Roberts from TV (Vaughn and Wagner), plus Richard Chamberlain and...ta da..OJ!
The best of the best.
"But seriously folks" -- the jargon exchanged by Paul Newman and Steve McQueen in their first meeting together was good and smart and knowledgable - no soap opera here. Paul got stuck with a soapy first half hour, but once Steve showed up, it was all business. Architecture jargon, firefighting jargon .
But now on to the issue of Newman's culpability...
CONT
Sometime in the late seventies, movie star James Coburn -- more of a friend to McQueen than Newman, less high on the charts than either of them -- gave a laughing interview where he said something like: "How about that Towering Inferno, man? Paul Newman getting ordered around by Steve McQueen for two hours!(Huge laugh.)
Now Newman actually holds his own heroism for most of the film, but the moment McQueen shows up, he hassles Newman about the tower and the fire. McQueen's only "merciful line" towards Newman is "If it means anything, architect, this is one building I thought WOULDN'T burn." Professional respect.
But it does burn down, and McQueen orders everyone around ("When there's a fire, I outrank everyone in the room.)
McQueen was reportedly offered the architect role, but asked for the Fire Chief(tentatively pencilled in for Ernest Borgnine!) McQueen KNEW the architect is a "semi-villain," and a patsy for the storyline. And Paul Newman elected to take tha part. Said Newman later, "This is the first -- but not last -- movie I took only for the money."
Some years later, after McQueen's death in 1980, surviving stars were asked to give quotes for an article on the "somethingTH" anniversary of The Towering Inferno. A spokesman for Paul Newman -- not Newman himself, gave this to the press: "This is not one of Mr. Newman's favorite movies of his. No comment."
Not one of his favorites, and yet it likely was his biggest payday "alongside" Butch Cassidy, and The Sting.
CONT
In addition to the technical responsibility afforded to the architect via posts above this one..Newman is also "villainized" (I think) because he went along with designing "the tallest skyscraper in the world" in the FIRST PLACE. McQueen hassles him on this from the beginning: "Now you architects know we can't effectively fight a fire above 7 floors, but you keep buidling them as high as you can go." Newman (on purpose I think) badly delivers his weak counter line: "Hey...are you here to fight me...or the fire?" Check out his line reading. He could do better.
So yeah, that point is rather muffled but...Newman's architect maybe never should have taken Holden's offer to build such a tall skyscraper in the first place..
Big McQueen fan here, but you’re wrong, that Newman line was delivered perfectly. He was an architect already beaten down and succumbed that his prize is burning down and is partly at fault.
shareBig McQueen fan here, but you’re wrong, that Newman line was delivered perfectly.
---
OK. I think what's being illustrated here is that we all interpret acting or line readings differently. Its also possible that the line isn't all that great and Newman did the best he could.
I'll slap myself upside the head one more time. I think MCQUEEN's line reading is a little wooden when he is telling OJ about ping pong balls emitting toxic gas and other technical information. Just a little "off." I'm a huge McQueen fan, but I think he sometimes just seemed to read lines wrong(not just in Towering Inferno.) And that was hard dialogue with technical information. No matter -- I think McQueen is just great in this movie -- he looks great(older, rugged, just a bit heavy), he takes command. Newman is to be commended for looking great too --not an ounce of fat on him -- and making his character a hero and pained by his ties to the tragedy.
I have read, btw, that McQueen sought out the Towering Inferno screenwriter Stirling Silliphant to work on his technical dialogue in particular and to try to remove any "sibilant S's" (whatever that means) because McQueen knew that his mouth couldn't handle that sound.
McQueen is also the one who asked Silliphant to write an equal number of lines in the script for Newman and McQueen. No more, no less. I've always felt that Don Gordon's dialogue with McQueen about the NFL seemed a little "tacked on" -- some lines added for McQueen(?)
He was an architect already beaten down and succumbed that his prize is burning down and is partly at fault.
Yes, McQueen did a lot to tailor dialogue to his character. However, totally disagree with your opinion when McQueen was dressing down OJ. You could hear the frustration in his voice explaining these things to OJ’s character like I’ve got work to just do as I command. And once OJ got it O’Halleran moved on but didn’t embarrass the OJ character
Thought that part was brilliant
I'm OK with being disagreed with, for sure.
I wonder if I'm discovering my own "biases" towards movie star acting and line reading.
I DID notice how Newman said that line in the elevator(Are you here to fight me or the fire?)
I DID notice McQueen seeming to struggle a bit with his lines to OJ.
But remember, I eagerly awaited The Towering Inferno -- disaster movie or no disaster movie -- because I had the highest regard for McQueen and Newman as "the top of the list" as movie stars went. It didn't MATTER if i personally had trouble with the line readings.
And that is a great scene between McQueen and OJ, when McQueen says "I'm not interested in where they are, I'm interested in what they are?" And OJ (such a sports superstar at the time, he was part of that all-star cast) is good in response.
I'd like to note that The Towering Inferno wasn't written by a hack. He was Sterling Siliphant, who had won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for the Best Picture of 1967, In the Heat of the Night, and his words helped Rod Steiger win the Best Actor Oscar for that movie.
Before that, Silliphant created and wrote many episodes of "Route 66." Like his fellow famous TV writer Rod Sterling with The Twilight Zone, not every episode was "great drama," but Silliphant hit more runs than strike-outs(just like Serling.)
The most "tinny" Silliphant line is in The Poseidon Adventure before all the trouble starts, when Hackman's renegade preacher says something like "Some call me a rebel! I accept that!" or something corny like that.
But I think Newman and especially McQueen pushed Silliphant to deliver for Inferno.
Plus: it must be HARD to write nothing but good lines, one after another after another. Sometimes a stinker slips through.
I'm going to disagree that the architect character is "villainized", others are the real villains. I think the architect presented as a basically decent person who's made a few mistakes, he'd never knowingly hurt anyone, he's just let his success go to his head a bit, and he's definitely trusted the wrong people. Well, lessons in humility are delivered, and he risks his own life to save others, even if he isn't legally responsible for the disaster.
And BTW, I think the old Mad Magazine parody ended its parody with exactly this scenario! Where the movie presented a happy ending of everyone planning fire-safe building, in the Mad parody the lawyers were already moving in...
I'm going to disagree that the architect character is "villainized", others are the real villains.
---
Well, it looks like I used the word villainized or "semi-villainized" about Newman's character so I better clarify myself. He never does anything "villainous." And he's pretty heroic.
Surely in his first half hour of screen time(before McQueen arrives) Newman is running around confronting Chamberlain and Holden on the substandard wiring, even as Holden is saying "Now calm down, everything's fine, we are going to HAVE this party." And Newman finds out about the turning on of all the lights in the building and protests THAT. He's noble.
---
I think the architect presented as a basically decent person who's made a few mistakes, he'd never knowingly hurt anyone, he's just let his success go to his head a bit, and he's definitely trusted the wrong people. Well, lessons in humility are delivered, and he risks his own life to save others, even if he isn't legally responsible for the disaster.
---
Agreed on all of that. Newman actually gets a more "layered character to play" than McQueen, who is all confidence and command. Newman clearly didn't like The Towering Inferno(though he liked the money it gave him -- coming one year after The Sting, Newman was now super-rich from two blockbusters back to back.) But for that dough he bravely took on a character who had SOME culpability and some guilt -- when he rages at Holden late in the movie during the disaster, some of that rage is from a man who knows he had SOMETHING to do with all this, if only by accident.
CONT
When McQueen berates Newman for building such a super-tall tower, I'm reminded that, in the decades since then, plenty of other architects in real life have built TALLER towers (one is in one of the Mission Impossible movies -- Dubai? -- another is in...some Asian city?) So whether or not it is villainous to "just keep buliding them as high as you can" is ...open to question.
---
And BTW, I think the old Mad Magazine parody ended its parody with exactly this scenario! Where the movie presented a happy ending of everyone planning fire-safe building, in the Mad parody the lawyers were already moving in...
---
Mad Magazine called 'em as it saw it. Remember, too, that while 70s disaster movies were pretty lightweight as stories, The Towering Inferno was meant to show "American capitalism corruption" and Watergate was bandied about as relevant to that movie(in reviews) when that was pretty much slapped on every movie being made as "part of the theme." Other than Vietnam. Which, hell, might be here too...William Holden as LBJ?
Recall that part of the reason the ship flips in Poseidon Adventure is the evil corporate capitalist who demands it move at full speed with light ballast....
Roger E. Carl, you have taken this movie far more seriously than the writers ever did! I swear, they were laughing as they typed, and the result is a ridiculously enjoyable campfest.
And BTW, I've suggested several times that they remake this movie... and set it in Dubai, or some other ultra-capitalist dystopia. Because that's where the real-life Towering Inferno will eventually happen, and BTW I was saying it before there was a real-life skyscraper fire there (no deaths admitted to).
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-22346184
Roger E. Carl,
---
I like it. My personalities are merging...though no desire of mine. I can still post both ways! But at different computers.
---
you have taken this movie far more seriously than the writers ever did! I swear, they were laughing as they typed, and the result is a ridiculously enjoyable campfest.
---
Well, this is entirely personal to me, but while I felt that Airport 1975 WAS a campfest(we here have the singing nun and the girl needing the kidney transplant that were spoofed in Airplane), and while I felt that Earthquake was a campfest(Charlton Heston and George Kennedy again, and an aged Ava Gardner as Lorne Greene's daughter)...
...I really truly honestly feel that The Towering Inferno was made with a certain seriousness of purpose and ATTEMPT to be serious that was driven almost entirely by Paul Newman and Steve McQueen agreeing to star. Neither man was going to countenance too many bad lines , and McQueen really got a "soap free role" -- all his talk was clipped and authoritative, just like his cop Bullitt 6 years before(with the same sidekick!)
I felt the first time that Newman and McQueen meet and exchange jargon(architecture, firefighting) it was the most authoritative "disaster movie talk" I had ever heard.
Two studios -- Warners and Fox - put together the money to hire two superstars(Paul and Steve), two directors(John Guillerman for drama; producer Irwin Allen for action), from two novels(The Tower and The Glass Inferno.) It was BIG. Classy. With Bill Holden, Fred Astaire and Faye Dunaway thrown in for good measure.
CONT
Also, it was clearly -- and perhaps sadly -- the peak of Irwin Allen's career. He had used "not so all star casts" in B movies like The Big Circus, The Lost World and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea before switching to the TV version of "Voyage" and then Lost in Space(his big TV hit) and Land of the Giants and THOSE were all cheese.
Then he lucked out with The Poseidon Adventure, which was such a big hit(with some Oscar winners plus new star Gene Hackman) that....he now had the clout to make a REALLY big movie...and to attract Newman and McQueen.
Yep, The Towering Inferno is the best movie Irwin Allen ever made and he almost IMMEDIATELY reverted to cheese and collapsed. Michael Caine in BOTH The Swarm and Beyond the Poseidon Adventure. Newman and Holden back in "When Time Ran Out' which was awful. Noticable: Newman goes through about the final ten minutes of the movie not saying a word. He probably refused to say any more words from the script.
So as you can see -- whether crazy or not -- I give The Towering Inferno all sorts of value far above other disaster movies and far above Irwin Allen's output(with the possible exception of The Posedion Adventure.)
And its time for me to take my meds now.
And BTW, I've suggested several times that they remake this movie... and set it in Dubai, or some other ultra-capitalist dystopia. Because that's where the real-life Towering Inferno will eventually happen, and BTW I was saying it before there was a real-life skyscraper fire there (no deaths admitted to).
---
It would be the logical place and story...what modern stars would be big enough for the two leads -- The Rock and Ryan Reynolds? (Heh.)
Of course, a real-life disaster -- 9/11 -- played the "trapped at the top of a skyscraper" motif out in real life horror. I don't think Towering Inferno got played a lot in the years after 9/11 and I can't say I see it offered on streaming much.
I may be wrong.
IMHO the fact that Allen, Newman, and Dunaway took the material absolutely seriously is what pushes the movie into Unintentional Camp territory. Now in some of the hilariously bad disaster movies of the era, like "Orca" and "When Time Ran Out" you knew that someone in the writer's room had been having a laugh and some of the actors weren't taking things very seriously (or were getting hammered in their dressing rooms), and are edging into Intentional Camp. But "TI", totally unintentional!
And BTW, you probably noticed that I didn't list McQueen among the actors taking things absolutely seriously. He was very serious about upstaging Newman, that's it.
Otter, I'll cut and paste this from a reply of mine to a different post and see if I can make it fit:
BEGIN:
I'd like to note that The Towering Inferno wasn't written by a hack. He was Sterling Siliphant, who had won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for the Best Picture of 1967, In the Heat of the Night, and his words helped Rod Steiger win the Best Actor Oscar for that movie.
Before that, Silliphant created and wrote many episodes of "Route 66." Like his fellow famous TV writer Rod Sterling with The Twilight Zone, not every episode was "great drama," but Silliphant hit more runs than strike-outs(just like Serling.)
The most "tinny" Silliphant line is in The Poseidon Adventure before all the trouble starts, when Hackman's renegade preacher says something like "Some call me a rebel! I accept that!" or something corny like that.
But I think Newman and especially McQueen pushed Silliphant to deliver for Inferno.
Plus: it must be HARD to write nothing but good lines, one after another after another. Sometimes a stinker slips through.
END
And now on to your other comments for response.
CONT
IMHO the fact that Allen, Newman, and Dunaway took the material absolutely seriously is what pushes the movie into Unintentional Camp territory.
---
Well, having said that TTI was written by an Oscar winner(Silliphant) I can't argue that a fair amount of the script isn't very "classic." Faye Dunaway in particular is given an understandable dilemma(career woman can't follow boyfriend Newman to Alaska) but its pretty mundane dialogue for a woman who was just in Chinatown to utter. What helps the scene immesaurably is that Newman and Dunaway are such respected actors that we can FEEL their embarrassment there.
---
Now in some of the hilariously bad disaster movies of the era, like "Orca" and "When Time Ran Out" you knew that someone in the writer's room had been having a laugh and some of the actors weren't taking things very seriously (or were getting hammered in their dressing rooms),
---
Absolutely. Though I swear Newman must have been DISGUSTED with his Time Ran Out dialogue - he says NOTHING for the last ten minutes, just leads people to safety.
But what of Airport 75 and Earthquake? I figure that Heston and Kennedy just showed up for nice paychecks and got through it, neither caring about the camp elements of the story.
--
and are edging into Intentional Camp. But "TI", totally unintentional!
---
Unintentional camp...what happens when good actors try to deliver bad Sterling Silliphant lines. (Look I just turned on Silliphant.)
Though I did think that Robert Wagner was surprisingly moving going into his death scene("I used to run the 100 in ten seconds flat.")
---
CONT
And BTW, you probably noticed that I didn't list McQueen among the actors taking things absolutely seriously. He was very serious about upstaging Newman, that's it.
--
You know McQueen quit Butch Cassidy and perhaps one reason is that Butch and Sundance are TOGETHER (close) all the time. They even ride one horse together, arms wrapped around the rider. That may have been too close for comfort.
Meanwhile, in TTI, Newman is the lone leading man on screen for almost 30 minutes, then McQueen shows up and takes over and then -- the two men are literally separated by a phone for almost the entire movie except for their first meet-up and their joint delivery of the explosives at the end. It was perfect: the two men could star together without having to BE together.
(There is footage of a press conference before TII started filming of Newman and McQueen given giant ten-foot foam rubber foams and placing them at their ears -- literally about to "phone it in.")
Well, Otter, thank you for engaging me -- or maybe humoring me . I suppose to me The Towering inferno is a perfect example of a "guilty pleasure." McQueen and Newman and Holden and Dunaway and the rest were A-list to me so that made the movie better than it had any right to be. I blow hot and cold on Silliphant's writing talent.
One more thing: I did like how Steve McQueen brought along Don Gordon and Robert Vaughn from Bullitt -- the big hit of 1968. Vaughn was a villainous politician in Bullitt -- in TI he surprises by being a good pollitician -- and a sacrificial one. McQueen and Gordon look like they simply transferred from SF PD to SF FD.
Roger-Carl, a person may be capable of both great work, and hackwork that pays the bills. Especially if the half-serious hackwork is a huge moneymaker, the kind that guarantees loads of future income, every freelancer needs those on their resume.
That makes sense. As I recall, McQueen's demand that more lines be written into the script so he was even with Newman got to Silliphant -- while he was sailing his sailboat off of Catalina Island.
I can bet he paid the bills for that boat with some schlock scripts! No brainpower required.
And it occurs to me that Silliphant wrote the line -- "They call me MISTER TIBBS," unless that was in the book of In the Heat of the Night.
I'm starting to dig on this Roger-Carl thing. Its the truth of my life here at the moment.
Wow, so someone on the net who’ve you never met, hands you a load of shit and you believe it? Hahaha you really are a DOLT! Too funny
shareAnd you're a sock puppet.
And I'm tired of baiting you. Just go sit on a traffic cone and push down, if you can't get a girlfriend you'll find it's the next best thing. Push off!
No offense but just pointing out what an internet sucker you are. I know where to go when I want to sell a bridge
share