BSFN12 - Earthquake

The 1974 film with the unique title ‘Earthquake’ was the topic of Bad Science Film night number 12! With high expectations, we started watching this classic and many saw were disappointed as the film was merely an ‘event’ instead of a story. However, as the film managed to win an Oscar, directed by Mark Robson, and is featuring Charles Heston and Ava Garner, something must be right in this film (although the Oscar was for best sound..)! In addition, in 1975 it was awarded a Golden Globe and a BAFTA film award, ok, again for best sound track and best original score. The IMDB users have voted for it with a 5.6/10, giving it a better score than most BSF.

(Image courtesy of Wikipedia).

So what was the film about then? We start with images of a water dam, which is situated just in the hills above Los Angeles. From this moment, all the viewers just knew that dam would get destroyed at some point in this film! The main character, a construction engineer, who is having an affair with a younger woman, with possible even a son, is followed in the film. He is struggling with his wife who tries to convince her dad to use his influence to stop her husband from seeing his mistress. At the same time, there is a stunt man who is going after the sister of his friend, and a grocery shopkeeper who goes mental in the film when he has to join the reserve army. And meanwhile, while this is all going on, basically a major, unimaginable large earthquake strikes Los Angeles. One little PhD student saw it coming and tried to get the mayor to evacuate the city, but without success as his supervisor is jealous and doesn’t believe him.

The remainder of the film sees devastation, people hurt, houses falling, sometimes twice (!), others dropping out of buildings and a great scene in which people are lowered two floors down tied to a desk chair using a fire hose – next to a completely open building as the earthquake has torn off the side wall and part of the staircase. Not the best time to have a heart attack! One of the silliest things in the film was the fact that the emergency hospital was established in the basement of a 20 stories high shopping mall, with 3 floors of parking garage. Of course, an aftershock occurs, which buries all the wounded and doctors in this building, leaving us with Charles Heston to be the hero. Getting underground, he manages to find his loved ones, both his wife and his mistress and he has to choose who to save. But he knows what he is supposed to do for which he pays with his life…

The history of this film is actually quite interesting, and specially its impact on the cinema viewers as well. The film was inspired by the San Fernando Earthquake, which shook Los Angeles in the early morning hours of February 9, 1971, which led the director to create a disaster film that would not be confined to just one area. Special effects were developed especially for the film, including a revolutionary “Shaker Mount” camera system, where the entire camera was moved around. The film set the Hollywood record for the most stunt artists involved in any film production up until then: 141. In some scenes, 6 tons of reinforced concrete was dropped to flatten cars, with stunt men just a few feet away.

Most interestingly, Universal Studios wanted Earthquake to be an “Event film” – which would keep drawing in the public. They came up with a process called Sensurround – a series of large speakers and a 1500 Watt amplifier, that would pump up the infra bass sound waves at 120 dB, (equivalent to a jet airplane at takeoff) giving the viewer the sensation of an earthquake. Upon testing, the system already managed to crack the plaster in the ceiling for which nets where placed to catch any falling debris. However, when the film was released, the system caused quite a few nosebleeds, safety issues in numerous buildings and loss of inventory in nearby shops as the shelves were thrown down during the quake scenes.

• Favourite quote: What’s the point about learning how to predict earthquakes if you don’t do anything once you know how to predict them?! (poor PhD student).
• Hero: The PhD student that tries to convince all the big grown-ups that he can predict an earthquake, but no one listens…
• Best save: Climbing up a fire hose 20 floors above the streets to save the father of your wife who you’re cheating on and who is having a heart attack anyway.  
• Best piece of science: They had three component seismographs! On the other hand though, they think they can predict earthquakes…
• Overall review: The opinions differed greatly. Personally, I thought it was a nice film, but most BSFN-ites disagreed and didn’t like the fact that nothing more than 1 earthquake happened. Definitely not worse than SharktopuS!
• Total number of BSFN-ites: 9? Still confined space compatible.
 (Written by Vulkaantje).