MovieChat Forums > The Towering Inferno (1974) Discussion > I think Carlos' death was the most distu...

I think Carlos' death was the most disturbing.

posted 10 years ago by chicago103
41 replies | jump to latest

People love talking about the deaths of the couple that die in the fire with the woman jumping out like 9/11 or Lisolette's death falling out of the scenic elevator as being among the most tragic and emotional in The Towering Inferno and I agree they are but I actually have always found Carlos' death the most disturbing for some reason. In the water tank blast scene at the end of the movie his character is killed when a huge statue is toppled by explosions and rushing water and a large chunk of it breaks off and falls on his chest and he heaves over and dies in a matter of seconds.

The Towering Inferno is filled with disturbing and emotional death sequences of secondary characters but for some reason I found Carlos' death to be particularly disturbing. Maybe it was in part due to the fact that his character seemed like such a decent and helpful guy but also because he died when he was only minutes away from safety and he just happened to have the horrifically bad luck of being in the exact trajectory of the falling statue.

Most of the deaths in the water blast scene are of people flying out of windows from the water and there is a detachment among all the chaotic carnage but Carlos' death is the most up close and personal of this climactic scene. If you watch closely the scene you will see that Paul Newman's character is tied up very close to Carlos. After the statue is toppled the camera goes from showing the statue fall on Carlos and then he tries in vain to push the fatal chunk of concrete off his chest then it cuts to Paul Newman's face implying that he is looking helplessly at Carlos then it cuts to Carlos heaving over and dying and then it cuts to Newman again looking.

It is a very brief death scene, its all over in about 15 seconds and yet it is one of the most dramatic death sequences in cinema I have seen. I have always been a fan of the movie but I long dreaded watching that part, I don't know why but for some reason I always found it very disturbing because it is just such an incredibly *beep* way to die. In that sense it was incredibly shot by director Irwin Allen.

Does anyone else agree with me or any other thoughts about his death scene?

[–] hobnob53 10 years ago

I completely agree with you. Especially this thought:

Maybe it was in part due to the fact that his character seemed like such a decent and helpful guy but also because he died when he was only minutes away from safety and he just happened to have the horrifically bad luck of being in the exact trajectory of the falling statue.

I think those two elements are the main reason we particularly feel Carlos's death. As you say, most of the victims are too remote, just bodies...apart from the stars, some of whom we know "have" to be killed off.

I don't know whether I'd call Carlos's death a "cheap shot" by Irwin Allen but considering that the top four stars all survive (which was not the case with Allen's The Poseidon Adventure), he may have felt the need to kill off a last few second-rank characters (Carlos, the Mayor, etc.) just to evoke a more personal reaction from the audience. But I agree, Carlos should have been spared. Let O.J. get squashed -- after he gets the cat to safety.

I don't know, maybe Carlos's death was a cheap shot. But a good post, chicago103.

[–] jl-riley 10 years ago

I agree.

I think a lot of people may not find his death so shocking because falling objects and debris are not one of the main methods of death when you think of a high rise fire.

Normally it's smoke/flames/jumping.

Although Carlos was unfortunate to tie himself where he did ironically after Duncan told him not to tie himself to the wine before the water tank explosions, it does highlight the danger of falling debris in an out of control fire. Who know's, if he did tie himself to the wine crates it might have saved him if he piled them high enough.

Also, because his death was so quick and silent without much struggle people might not think it's a bad way to go compared to some of the other deaths we see. I think Carlos' was quite haunting and realistic, we only see a trickle of blood stream down the corner of his mouth suggesting massive internal damage. Another director might have over done it by using close up's of him spitting and choking on his own blood while struggling to remove the statue like Quint's death in Jaws.

''If it bleeds, we can kill it.''

[–] hobnob53 10 years ago

You're right about the irony of Duncan telling Carlos to tie himself up to a bunch of glass, only to see him killed anyway, but if he had stayed tied to the case of wine he would probably still have been killed by the falling statue.

When it fell it would have first hit the case, smashing it and sending shards of glass all over the place, including into Carlos...and the statue would still have struck Carlos anyway. The case would have taken the initial blow before Carlos was directly struck, but the impact on him would have been only marginally less severe, and the broken case and bottles would have done their own damage.

Too bad no one thought to try to pull the statue down before the explosion, since it was an obvious hazard and they did clear away some other problematic furnishings.

[–] Eric-62-2 10 years ago

I do remember reading on a board devoted to the film that Carlos's death was a late script change decided during filming, and that originally he was supposed to survive and then notice the '29 case had been destroyed. I forget whether the change was made because they had nixed Holden dying, or because they'd planned first on bumping off Vaughn's senator and then gotten rid of him earlier (in order to also get rid of Vaughn sooner from filming).

[–] hobnob53 10 years ago

Yes, come to think of it I read that about Carlos's alternate (and happier) fate too -- somewhere on this board, wasn't it? Quite some time ago. Whether or not his life was exchanged for someone else's, which may well be the case (of '29?), I still think he should have lived. The joke about the smashed wine would have been neat, though perhaps out of keeping with the otherwise uniformly glum resolution of the film, even among the survivors.

Were they trying to "get rid of" Robert Vaughn quickly? I mean the actor, not his character of Senator Parker. Or were you just using an off-hand expression?

[–] lm362 8 years ago

Totally agree with you. I hate it when directors have a character die with blood pouring/spewing out of their mouth. Yes, it might be accurate, but in that case, I'd rather have the death be a little inaccurate.

"Do All Things For God's Glory"-1 Corinthians 10:31
I try doing this with my posts

[–] chicago103 8 years ago

I think it is indicitive of disaster movies of the 1970's to have more gory realism in death scenes. While not impressive by today's standards Carlos' death scene was pretty bold both for killing off such a likeable character and his manner of death and 42 years later it still holds up IMO. Even the Posieden Adventure just two years earlier doesn't have any death quite like it IMO.

[–] chicago103 8 years ago

I think it is also the actor Gregory Sierra, he always plays likeable characters even when they are somewhat shady. This clip is another death scene he is playing a shady Cardassian in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine starting at 4:32 and the reaction of the character who kills him "A pity, I rather liked him" kind of sums up perfectly how I react to his death in The Towering Inferno and here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MX8_lt8iTo

[–] andremarshna2003 10 years ago

Robert Vaughn's role was cut to bits durning filming he was very annoyed about it.

[–] Eric-62-2 10 years ago

I relocated the info on who was responsible for bumping off Carlos. This comes the "Towering Inferno Archive" site which is where I remembered seeing it before. http://www.thetoweringinferno.info/preprod.html

The decision was made not by Stirling Silliphant, Irwin Allen, John Guillermin or the actors, it was made at the suggestion of storyboard artist Joe Musso. Here it is in his own words:

"I'm the one that suggested that they bump off Carlos the Bartender. The studio heads felt that some other important sympathetic character should die in the Promenade Room flooding at the end for a little more emotional impact. They were considering that either Steve McQueen, Paul Newman or William Holden's character should die. However, after deliberating on it, Irwin called his staff together. Irwin was rightfully concerned that since he killed off Gene Hackman's character in "The Poseidon Adventure," that the critics would accuse Irwin of always killing off his hero. Who else, Irwin asked us, can we kill off? To which I replied, "How about Carlos the Bartender, Carlos is an equally sympathetic character, but not one of the three main heroes." Irwin liked the idea and the studio heads bought it, so Carlos was sacrificed, while Steve, Paul and Bill lived on."

And here's what he had to say about other casting choices for the main parts:

"Irwin's original casting choices were that Steve McQueen would play the architect and Ernest Borgnine the fire chief as you correctly noted, but with Burt Lancaster as the builder, David Niven as the con artist, Olivia de Havilland as the art dealer and either James Franciscus or John Forsyth as the senator. Then Steve suddenly decided that he wanted to play the fire chief and personally suggested Paul Newman. Fox and Warners then ruled out Burt in favor of Holden. Olivia turned Irwin and the studios down and Niven wasn't available on the filming dates, nor was their next choice, Peter Ustinov--obviously Fred and Jennifer filled in rather nicely. And yes, Ginger Rogers was suggested, but we were told that Fred should costar with someone else. I honestly don't know if that was Fred's decision or that the studios feared it would seem like a cliched parody to the critics. Franciscus and Forsythe were both turned down because it was felt that they closely resembled the then California senator, John Tunney, and governor, Ronald Reagan. Since Tunney was a Democrat and Reagan a Republican it was felt that politics should be kept out of it--hence Robert Vaughn, who didn't resemble anybody political at the time."

We had this conversation before on this board, Hob, where I'd remembered the Franciscus/Forsythe thing and I don't know what Tunney looked like, but I can't see the resemblance between Forsythe and Reagan even when Forsythe had dark hair!

[–] chicago103 10 years ago

It is even debatable if the statue topple as seen in the movie would have killed someone, the website moviemistakes.com says this: "Watch carefully as the statue falls on the bartender. It barely touches his chest and rests on his left thigh. As the bartender slumps dead you can see a wide open gap between his whole upper body and the statue. Even if it crushed his thigh it would not have killed him so quickly. When the bartender slumps down the statue rocks freely as he brushes against it; obviously a styrofoam replica." http://www.moviemistakes.com/film1316

That was probably another thing that made the scene disturbing, the chunk of statue that fell on Carlos was just barely big enough to be plausibly fatal, remember the main statue didn't hit him, the main part impacted and then a chunk broke off and only fell like three feet onto Carlos. Maybe Mythbusters should do an episode about The Towering Inferno and investigate Carlos' death with one of their ballistic dummies.

I was also annoyed that it was just some generic statue of Victorian female figures falling on Carlos of all people, nothing ironic like a statue of the Tower of Babel falling on Duncan or something.

[–] timothy-5 10 years ago

Before we get to Carlos: She didn't purposely jump out the window. When she was choking on smoke, she threw a chair through the window so she could breathe the fresh air. After a few seconds, it created a backdraft (fire rushes to where the oxygen is) and it blew her out of the window. I heard that on 9/11, people didn't purposely jump out the window - they got blown out of the window sort of like what happened to Susan. But I don't know for sure.

You're right about Carlos! I had forgotten all about that scene, but now I remember. He was a nice guy, and he made it that far, only to die so close to when the fire got put out. Ten more minutes and he would have been saved. The reason they put death scenes like these in is so that it doesn't seem like a little fairy, CBN movie where nobody dies and everybody lives happily ever after. CBN is Christian Broadcasting Network. However, in a film where ALL the likable characters get killed, and it's a fictional story, it's the result of writers with sick minds in my opinion.

[–] glennh69 10 years ago

I heard that on 9/11, people didn't purposely jump out the window - they got blown out of the window sort of like what happened to Susan. But I don't know for sure.

There is footage of this tragic event, taken from news helicopters and nearby buildings (for good reason, rarely rerun). The vast majority of people jumped intentionally from the North Tower. Due to the angle of the plane impact (dead center), there were no accessible stairwells, ergo no escape up or down. In an effort to breathe, the windows had already been broken out, and people can be seen huddling around the openings (some even hanging onto the building itself, as they stood in the window frames). As the fire continued to rage and consume the oxygen, many chose to jump rather than suffocate. There is speculation that some may have fallen accidentally due to the crowding around the windows and others "blown out" by the backdraft. However, this isn't validated from any film footage.

Casualties in the South Tower were markedly less, as many people began to evacuate the moment the first plane impacted the North. The second plane also struck off-center, so there was one available stairwell from the top of the building to the bottom. Passage was extremely challenging due to the fire in the interim floors, but it was possible, and some folks made it to the plaza---only to lose some of their companions when the building subsequently collapsed.

[–] timothy-5 10 years ago

Some people who died had made it out of the building, but were killed by falling debris. But I think most people who made it out of the building survived. In both towers, didn't most people who were on the lower floors escape? There must have been a stairwell from the lower floors to the bottom, but not all the way from the top to bottom (in the North tower). And the lower floor somebody was on, the fewer floors that person had to get through to get to the bottom. I know somebody who died in the North Tower, so it's a comfort knowing there's nothing he could have done to escape. No "if only's". Someone else I read about who died in the South Tower was thinking about leaving the building when the first plane hit, but wanted to be there when the morning bell rang (or something like that). For people that were close to him, they might think "if only he left immediately when the thought first crossed his mind." I don't know how I make this connection, but it reminds me of a scene from the movie "Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon." When you think of a movie with Liza Minnelli in it, you probably think of a movie where people just sit and talk at a table and nothing happens in it, or skip across the screen doing *beep* dances and singing *beep* songs. But this scene was very frightening. She went on a date with a seemingly mild-mannered man, but he took her to a graveyard and told her to take off her clothes. She did (they didn't show her nudity, but they showed enough that you knew she wasn't wearing anything). You heard what was going on in her mind: Why don't you run? Why don't you run away from here? Run! Why don't you run? (That's similar to what went through the mind of the guy in the South Tower).

But she didn't listen to her instincts. She should have run (taking her clothes with her). She got back into the car with him and started laughing hysterically. She was laughing at the situation, not at him. But he thought she was laughing at him. He drove her to a junkyard, beat her up and she was lying on the ground. He then took a battery out of a car and poured battery acid on her face. She should have run when she had the chance.

How did they know what he was thinking if he didn't survive to tell them? Probably somebody who was with him in the room heard him say he was thinking of leaving the building. That person escaped, and he probably would have escaped too if he had come along.

[–] glennh69 10 years ago

Tim, you are correct on both counts. The overwhelming majority of people who made it out of the buildings ran immediately as far & fast as they could, so a relative few were actually killed by falling debris. Also true is that the majority of people below the impact zone survived in both towers. 100% of those above the impact zone in the North Tower perished. Although it was terrible tragedy, there were several factors that mitigated the loss of life enormously:

1. Before 9am was still relatively early in the day. Windows on the World (restaurant) and the Observation deck weren't open yet (fewer tourists), and many businesses don't receive a lot of visitors (i.e.appointments) until later in the morning--once everyone is 'settled in'.

2. A substantial number of workers were employed there during the '93 bombing, just 7 years earlier. They had the 'instinct' you referenced, had evacuated before, and knew to disregard any "reassurances" by building security and, instead, headed for the nearest stairwell immediately.

3. The 100% inescapable "death zone" in the North was relatively small compared to the entire complex. Probably by no planning on the amateur-pilot terrorist, the North Tower was struck relatively high up (I believe above 90+ floor--easy to research). Had such a dead-center impact occurred on, say, the 50th floor, the number of casualties would've probably doubled.

[–] timothy-5 10 years ago

Of the people that were in the towers at the time of the first impact, what percentage would you say escaped safely? I know it's not 0 or 100%.

[–] chicago103 10 years ago

I also wonder if the camera cutting back and forth to Paul Newman was meant to convey that maybe his character was contemplating untying himself to help Carlos but if he did he knew he would risk being swept out the windows by the rush of water. Maybe I am reading too much into the scene but I imagine his character being most disturbed by Carlos' death than anyone else, both just from watching it and over a sense of survivor's guilt.

[–] timothy-5 10 years ago

Remember the first guy to die who caught on fire when they first discovered the fire in a room? Paul Newman was almost in tears. He really cared about people. Richard Chamberlain only cared about himself and he got what he deserved when he died. Susan Blakely was so upset - I don't know why. She didn't need to be married to that fairy anyway.

[–] chicago103 10 years ago

I also imagine Duncan being quite upset when he saw Carlos' body afterwards. Carlos seemed to be rather helpful to him and he even gave him advise on how not to tie himself up to the crate of wine. I also find Carlos tragic because he was just a working class guy (bartender) who was good at his job with all these wealthy(ish) people, a number of whom are indirectly responsible for his death. Carlos is kind of the equivalent of Acres in The Poseiden Adventure, albeit Acres died much earlier, but just the idea of a worker good at his job getting killed.

[–] timothy-5 10 years ago

I know. In the song Maxwell's Silver Hammer, "Joan was quizzical, studied metaphysical science in the home. Late at night alone with a test tube, Oh-oh-oh-oh." Maxwell kills her, and were so few lady scientists in the 1960's, it's a sin one of the few of them got killed. It's the same kind of thing here.

Carlos' death is more upsetting than Acres' because Carlos survived a great deal of the length of the movie and then died just before the end. It was kind of a heartbreaker. You hardly got to know Acres so it wasn't as upsetting. The ship suddenly shook and he fell under the water, never to resurface. Then Nonnie was scared stiff and couldn't move. Mr. Rogo criticized her "What are you taking - a coffee break?" She just saw someone get killed right before her eyes - give the poor girl a break! As a policeman, he was desensitized towards death because he saw so much of it.

[–] !!!deleted!!! (49761343) 10 years ago

Tim, you are correct on both counts. The overwhelming majority of people who made it out of the buildings ran immediately as far & fast as they could, so a relative few were actually killed by falling debris. Also true is that the majority of people below the impact zone survived in both towers.

The sickest thing about all this is that many of the people who died above the impact zone in the second tower had made it safely downstairs just moments before it was struck. The reason why they went back upstairs again was that they had been told that it was safe. I just don't understand what would've possessed security to tell people in tower 2 to not evacuate immediately but if it hadn't, several hundred more of them would've made it out alive.

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Emojis=💩 Emoticons=

[–] !!!deleted!!! (49761343) 10 years ago

I don't understand how people could find Carlos' death "most disturbing." It's the saddest death but it's definitely not the most disturbing. I can't think of anything more disturbing than spending the last minutes of your life watching someone you love die and then knowing you're about to face a horrific death yourself in a matter of minutes, with no one else there to comfort you.

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Emojis=💩 Emoticons=

[–] jl-riley 10 years ago

Character development is a funny thing when it comes to feeling empathy for certain characters. Senator Parker and Jennifer Jones suffered the same fate shortly after selfless brave acts. The Senator risked his life trying to pull Simmons out the chair, he fell with the chair and his demise almost goes unnoticed. Also Will Giddings death was hard to emphasize with even though he saved that naive security guard's life. I felt more for Newman after Duncan broke the news to him over the phone.

Several couples had memorable music themes or a love jingle that could be heard in the background whenever they interacted that subconsciously made you connect with them more than the rest. The main ones were Newman & Dunaway, Dan & Lorrie and Fred & Jones. I can't remember if there was any music for the Mayor and his wife or for Patty and Simmons.

Lorrie and Dan's theme played heavily during their final scene which made their last moments together more tragic and upsetting because it blended into the intense John Williams music right before their deaths. Remove the music and that scene is just tragic but not as upsetting. It's like the last scene in Ghost, the scene is sad but it's the music that makes people tear up because it's the main characters theme music.

If one of McQueen or Newman were killed off at the end I think people would feel less for McQueen and more for Newman even though both characters were equally heroic throughout the movie. Newman had Family and let us into his personal life and blamed himself for the fire whereas McQueen didn't really give much away, just saw a brave bad a*s fire chief doing his job. McQueen also got the heroic music that sounded like the main opening titles music which fit his role perfectly and help remove any emotional attachment to his character.

''If it bleeds, we can kill it.''

[–] chicago103 10 years ago

Every death in The Towering Inferno: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNc92OUHqPQ

Watching them all in short succession I still think Carlos' is the most disturbing, actually a few seconds of his death scene was cut out. Also with all the other deaths we don't actually watch them die, we see them falling (we see Lisolette's body hit the side of the building then she stops screaming but it is far away), in the process of burning but die off screen (I guess the guy that gets out of the elevator on fire and Fred Astaire puts his jacket over him is close to watching him die but we really don't get a good shot of his face), falling out the window from the rush of water or already dead. With Carlos we actually watch him die, his death starts at 1:19 and you can actually see Paul Newman's character a few feet away and the camera angle we see of Carlos dying actually would be pretty much exactly what Newman's character would see. So the audience is seeing through the eyes of of one character watching another character die horribly. Everything from the horrible thud sound the chunk of statue hitting Carlos makes to watching him die helpless surrounding by other people amidst the chaos of the water blasts is disturbing, for Newman's character watching that alone must have been post traumatic stress inducing.

[–] Bogmeister 10 years ago

What might really be disturbing is that actor Sierra also had a small role opposite Steve McQueen in the previous year's Papillon and he ended up even worse in that one - grisly! For some reason, acting with McQueen meant bloody death for Sierra's characters.

[–] chicago103 10 years ago

That is interesting because it is not mentioned in this list of Gregory Sierra's death scenes: http://cinemorgue.wikia.com/wiki/Gregory_Sierra

The description of his death scene in The Towering Inferno on that website is this: "Crushed underneath a falling piece of statue when the Ball Room is flooded by a million gallons of water, and bleeds to death moments later as Paul Newman looks on."

Actually the blood gushing out of his mouth can really only be seen on DVD or Blu-Ray and I imagine on the big screen, on low res TV or VCR you could probably not see it. However watching blood gush out of his mouth no matter how brief and even from a bit of a distance I found quite disturbing. I think that touch was put in there just to demonstrate to the audience how severe the impact was and that he did indeed die because unlike falling over 100 stories, being in the middle of an explosion or burning in a raging inferno it is not clear someone would die from that for certain, especially that quickly.

That "I think he could have maybe survived that, so what happened where he died so quickly?" takes my mind to think about how exactly someone could die from that as in grisly thinking about how the blow from the statue must have crushed his rib cage, punctured his heart and lungs causing him to gush blood out of his mouth and die like that so quickly. Whereas if someone falls from a great height, blows up in an explosion or gets shot in the head in a movie I don't think about it because it is obvious how those injuries result in sudden death. On the other hand Carlos' death scene pushes plausibility of sudden death but not enough that you can say "no way someone could die from that" and dismiss as unrealistic movie schtick.

So it is not obvious one would die but it is not implausible either and that leads thinking people like me to ponder the disturbing scenarios how someone could die from that.

[–] Bogmeister 10 years ago

That is interesting because it is not mentioned in this list of Gregory Sierra's death scenes: http://cinemorgue.wikia.com/wiki/Gregory_Sierra

Well, it is now.  (as of two minutes ago)

[–] chicago103 9 years ago

Nice, that sounds similar to Stapito's death (Indiana Jones's guide in the South American jungle) in Raider's of the Lost Ark, he was also impaled by spikes from a booby trap. I would have to see it to decide how disturbing it really is, it depends on how it is shot, in Raider's we don't see the death itself but we see Indiana Jones stumbling upon his impaled body, also that character was a backstabber to Indiana Jones so there really isn't any sympathy or sadness for his fate. With Carlos in Towering Inferno you watch a sympathetic character die on screen. I saw both on screen deaths as a kid many times on TV, in Raider's I thought it was kind of cool looking, in Towering Inferno I always dreaded watching Carlos die.

[–] Bogmeister 9 years ago

Sierra's role in Papillon was more brief and he played a prisoner on the run, hence some kind of criminal, but he was still sympathetic in the role. If readers here haven't seen Papillon and prefer not to know more, I cover up the details: I found his death in Papillon more disturbing - it was an unpleasant way to go and... let's put it this way: he didn't die instantly or at least it didn't look like death was instantaneous. It was also kind of a shock, since it was unexpected.

[–] chicago103 9 years ago

I will have to watch Papillon sometime, apparently his character Antonio's death was significant enough that composer Jerry Goldsmith created a track for it:
http://my-music-base.ru/get.asp?music=Jerry%20Goldsmith%20-%20Antonio%27s%20Death%20(OST%20Papillon)

[–] lm362 8 years ago

There is no right or wrong here. What a disturbing death is to you might be totally different for another person. Basically, all the deaths were disturbing and tragic.

"Do All Things For God's Glory"-1 Corinthians 10:31
I try doing this with my posts

[–] chicago103 8 years ago

Carlos' death scene by itself, he dies within 13 seconds of the statue falling on him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8r9wiaY4Uc

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] puirt-a-beul 9 years ago

For me the effect of his death scene is somewhat diminished by the fact that you can see the "statue" clearly only weighs a couple of pounds or so -- as Carlos "dies", his elbow brushes against it and it wobbles in a way that shows it has no substantive mass to it. It's not the actor's fault, but it's not very convincing.

You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

[–] chicago103 9 years ago

Yes, that is often listed in lists I have seen of movie "mistakes" for The Towering Inferno. As I think I mentioned before he is killed by a piece of statue that breaks off of the main chunk and falls only a few feet onto him. I often wonder how heavy a statue would have to be and what it would have to be made out of for a chunk of that size to cause such a fatal blow. Then again even that flaw within the context of the movie makes it even more disturbing, thinking he could have survived that but didn't.

That notwithstanding Gregory Sierra did a good job at expressing the horror of the statue about to fall on him, after the blow of the statue his expression was more one of shock than pain as he didn't really live long enough for the latter, that might make the disturbing scene slightly more comforting for the audience. Also if your remember earlier as the people are all getting ready for the explosion they show people several of the characters waiting anxiously for what is about to happen and Carlos is one of them, having seen the film already and knowing his fate I also find that disturbing every time. So poor statue prop notwithstanding I found his death scene pretty effective.

[–] chicago103 9 years ago

Tips hat to the recently deceased director John Guillermin for shooting the visually and emotionally effective death scene for Carlos. Not sure of the extent of the input he had as far as the story idea or even if he was the one behind the camera but as the main director he certainly at least gave the OK to have it in the film.

[–] chicago103 8 years ago

Carlos anxiously awaiting his fate before the water tanks are blasted:

http://www.iann.net/movies/towering_inferno/cast/gregory_sierra.htm

[–] darryl-tahirali 8 years ago

Does anyone else agree with me or any other thoughts about his death scene?

I agree. I remember feeling sad about seeing Carlos die when I watched this as a kid (and then glad that "Carlos" returned a couple of years later as "Chano" in Barney Miller!), and during a re-watch a few years ago I still had an emotional reaction at the fateful scene, much as you describe quite nicely here.

I think it may be because Carlos is a decent guy, a working stiff just doing his job, and doing it with grace and a willingness to help in a bad situation. He is not one of San Francisco's elite celebrating Jim Duncan's triumph; he's there to serve them, just a guy trying to earn an honest day's wages. I'm not trying to inject too much social significance into this, but there isn't much emphasis on others except the glitterati, so Carlos stands out in that regard.

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"The past is never dead. It isn't even past." -- William Faulkner

[–] chicago103 8 years ago

Yes it is strange that off all the deaths I saw in movies as a kid few disturbed me the way Carlos died in this movies and when I see Gregory Sierra in other things like Barney Miller I can't help but think of him as Carlos.

Also in terms of what you said about his place as a guy just doing his job. I found it quite interesting how cheerful and upbeat he was even as things were going wrong in the tower. Like when Paul Newman's character comes back up from the staircase Carlos says "Mr. Robert's how did you get up here?" or how he made the sundaes for those kids or how he said to Duncan "but those are the 29's!" as he tied himself up before the water blasts, he always was upbeat and never panicked or became irate and selfish to save his own ass, like he could have as soon as they started taking the elevators down just said "the hell this job, I am getting out of here" but he didn't and that is tragically ironic because as it turns out if anybody was justified in being concerned for his life it was Carlos. Whereas Richard Chamberlain's character Simmons got himself killed for his selfishness by falling in the breaches boy and there is a certain poetic justice in that, in contrast Carlos died for being self-less, for doing the right thing in staying behind and helping others, it is like a lesson in the randomness of fate.

[–] chicago103 8 years ago

The Towering Inferno finished principal photography 42 years ago on September 11, 1974, kind of creepy exactly 27 years before the infamous September 11th. The water tank blasting scenes including Carlos' death were filmed near this date and in the movie like in real life on 9/11/01 we learn about the randomness of death in disasters, just ordinary people going about their business and just dying because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. That is what makes The Towering Inferno and other Irwin Allen disaster films better than some other disaster films in my view, we actually feel something when characters die, it isn't like some modern disaster films like 2012 or Independence Day Insurgence where lots of people die but it is so distant and just some big CGI fest.

The water tank blasting scene in particular shows us well the chaos that happens in the midst of a disaster, nearly everyone is tied down and struggling for their own lives without time to really even think about what is happening to others and Carlos faces his own death alone in spite of being surrounded by other people with only architect Doug Roberts (Paul Newman) witnessing his death.