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 If
one insists on wading into disaster films --
Hollywood's most malignant genre -- for a special
holiday treat, don't pussyfoot around. Go for the most
diabolical one of all, Jennings Lang's 1974 abattoir
"Earthquake," available on DVD from GoodTimes
(ironically enough). On the back of Good Times' DVD
case for "Earthquake," a blurb quotes Pauline Kael as
saying that "the picture is swell." But what she
actually wrote in her review was that "the picture is
swill." So powerful is the cynicism of the film's
original creators that it's tone of moral bankruptcy
spreads itself across three decades to infect even the
lowliest of DVD packaging. "Earthquake" depicts in
cumbersome and clichéd plotting, a horrific earthquake
imploding in the heart of Los Angeles, and it is so
awash in self-loathing and contempt you can feel the
glee of the Hollywood hacks as they ritualistically
destroy their industrial dystopia and all the aging
self-serving movie stars who populate it. The names in
the cast reads like the passenger list of the Love
Boat from Hell -- Ava Gardner, George Kennedy, Lorne
Greene, Richard Roundtree, Marjoe Gortner, Barry
Sullivan, Lloyd Nolan, Victoria Principal, Genevieve
Bujold, Gabriel Dell, and Charlton Heston (racked over
the coals here a good twenty-nine years before Michael
Moore got a-hold of him) -- and all are given
ignominious send offs. Heston and Gardner are washed
away in the sewer, Roundtreee is left alone on a
motorcycle to beat out a tidal wave, and Dr. Nolan
blithely dispatches Greene with "He's gone" and
quickly covers his face with a sheet. The gimmick of
"Earthquake" was "Sensurround" -- when the earthquake
kicked in the movie theater seats shook and the low
and loud audio rumble made you feel as if you were
receiving a group spinal tap. But the DVD dispenses
with the enveloping Sensurround effects, leaving the
hell hole scenes of carnage barren with remaining
simple audio tracks of screaming, crying, and
hollering adding an extra layer of insensitivity to
the proceedings. "Earthquake" is the disaster film at
its most minimal with no pretense of moral uplift
(there ain't no Fred Astaire or tributes to
firefighters in this one). Watching the film during
these post 9/11 times can be a chilling experience.
- PB
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