Earthquake (1974)

User Rating:

5.7/10   

Director:

Mark Robson

Writers:

George Fox (written by)
Mario Puzo (written by)

Release Date:

15 November 1974 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

An Event...

Plot:

Various stories of various people as an earthquake of un-imagineable magnitude hits Los Angeles.

Plot Keywords:

Earthquake | Policeman | Police | Widow | Daredevil

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 1 win & 7 nominations

Cast

Charlton Heston	...	Stewart Graff
Ava Gardner	...	Remy Royce-Graff
George Kennedy	...	Sgt. Lew Slade
Lorne Greene	...	Sam Royce
Geneviève Bujold	...	Denise Marshall (as Genevieve Bujold)
Richard Roundtree	...	Miles Quade
Marjoe Gortner	...	Jody
Barry Sullivan	...	Dr. Willis Stockle
Lloyd Nolan	...	Dr. James Vance
Victoria Principal	...	Rosa Amici
Walter Matthau	...	Drunk (as Walter Matuschanskayasky)
Monica Lewis	...	Barbara
Gabriel Dell	...	Sal Amici
Pedro Armendáriz Jr.	...	Officer Emilio Chavez (as Pedro Armendariz Jr.)
Lloyd Gough	...	Bill Cameron

Runtime:

123 min | USA:160 min (TV version) | Canada:121 min (Ontario)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

4-Track Stereo (35 mm magnetic prints) | Sensurround (70 mm and 35 mm magnetic prints) | Mono (35 mm optical prints) | 70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Canada:PG (Ontario) | Singapore:PG | Iceland:16 | Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 (1976) | Sweden:15 | UK:PG | USA:PG (Certificate #24032)

Filming Locations:

1329 Carroll Avenue, Central Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

The Filmakers Group

Trivia:

The movie that Rosa is watching in the theater is High Plains Drifter (1973).

Goofs:

Continuity: During the escape from the underground garage, you can see Geneviève Bujold crawling through the tunnel behind the stretcher carrying her son. In the next shot, you can see Geneviève Bujold and the stretcher carrying her son entering the hole in the wall that leads to the tunnel.

Quotes:

[last lines]
Dr. James Vance: This used to be a helluva town, officer.
Sgt. Lew Slade: [on the edge of tears] Yeah...

Movie Connections:

Featured in Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003)

Not really that bad

Earthquake almost realistically shows us the devastating effects of such "an event" on a large modern day city. Since movie studios didn't have the resources in 1974 to add expensive computerized effects, miniatures, camera trickery and a few large-scale destructions were used to simulate the quake. However even by today's standards, most (but not all) effects work pretty well. Many of the buildings we see crumbling to the ground are actual locals in Los Angeles and anyone who ever lived is this area (myself included) would still find watching this film chilling to say the least. The sets are very impressive - they made one helluva mess of Universal Studios making this film. The acting is so-so and the ending is disappointing and leaves us with a lot of unanswered questions: what ever happened to Miles and Rosa's brother anyway? And the scenes with Jody the weirdo are just plain uncomfortable. But as far as pure "end of the world" disaster entertainment goes, this film has it all.