The film is based on two novels, The Tower by Richard Martin Stern and The Glass Inferno by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson.
If you have read them would you recommend them? How similar are they to the film?
Go to bed Frank or this is going to get ugly .
Boring reads
shareI remember reading The Tower a couple of years after the movie was released and thought it was very boring but then again I was very young then, probably should read it again, I would also like to read The Glass Inferno.
shareThe Glass Inferno was a very engaging read, about on par with the movie itself.
The Tower was a bit more complicated but it has an ending that will blow your socks off!
Key parts from each book were basically modulated by the screenwriter to come up with the screenplay as we know it now.
Yes I have. Made an effort out of curiosity.The party at the top of the building,the substandard components, the corrupt son-in-law, the elevator with all the cooked passengers and the breeches buoy are all from "The Tower" In that novel the building is in New York City and the breeches buoy is sent over from the north tower of the WTC. In "The Glass Inferno' they blow the water tanks to drench the fire, but a whole bunch of people die in the process. Both novels are cautionary tales about overreach and falling victim to the unsinkable Titanic syndrome.
Some additional weird trivia for you. Richard Stern,author of "The Tower" finalized the sale of his novel to Hollywood on 9/11/73. The movie wrapped production on 9/11/1974. Oh and the ground was broken for the Pentagon on 9/11/1941 - sixty years to the day before 9/11/2001. I can see why there are some folks who are big believers in numerology.
Thanks everyone. From what you describe Jefbecco-1 I think I'm more interested now in reading The Tower but I should probably read both.
Go to bed Frank or this is going to get ugly .
I reviewed "The Tower" on Goodread a couple years ago. I go by Checkman over there. You read my review and others of the novel if you follow this link. Enjoy.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1772.The_Tower
I've read both of them. "The Glass Inferno" is the better book, but I'd recommend both of them highly. Together, they provide the basis for the film, and the film is quite close to the story and characterizations presented by the two books in combo.
As an example, the part in the film played by Richard Chamberlain is an almost perfect representation of the character in "The Tower."
Not really a perfect representation because in "The Tower" Simmons isn't a party guest and doesn't die.
These are some of the major features that comes from the respective novels.
Tower
-World's tallest building dedication.
-Characters of Simmons (Paul in the novel), Patty, Will Giddings, Mayor Ramsey, and the two firemen who go up the stairs to unblock the stair door. The architect's unfaithful wife "Zib" (who is having an affair with Simmons) is the original template for Faye Dunaway's character.
-The breeches buoy rescue
Glass Inferno
-The SF setting.
-Characters of Harlee, Lisolette, Jernigan, Bigalow (who meets the same end).
-The water tank finale.
The lead character architect in both novels was basically combined into a single character for the film, and in the first draft script the character's name was a combination of both books "Craig Wilson" (Nat Wilson in "Tower", Craig Barton in "Glass Inferno").
I have read both books several times and recently. And you are right on the details. Perhaps I misled you by my comments that certain characters in the movie like Roger Simmons were "perfect representations" of the characters in the two books. It is very rare that there is a perfect representation. However, in this situation the movie matched the concepts and some of the details quite well.
I believe I gave Roger Simmons as an example. In "The Tower," he was Paul Simmons. And yes, he was not a guest at the party, but that is not really relevant. What is relevant is that in both the book and the movie he was the son-in-law of the developer, he was a young electrical engineer and a contractor, he had a young, pretty wife, and he skimped on the electrical standards to get healthy on the cost. In the book, of course, we know he resorted to what would probably be considered criminal activity, e.g., bribery of his foreman and a building inspector, forging of the architect’s name on the change orders, etc. There is even a suggestion that he may have been involved in a supposed accident whereby a young electrical worker who complained about the questionable change orders fell into a subway train.
In the movie, Roger Simmons does not appear to have been involved in criminal activity in the quality of the electrical work. But we see him pushing people off of the breeches buoy.
Simmons is not the only one where there is a lot of similarity in the movie and book characters. I thought there was a lot of similarity in the Harley Claiborne (sp?) character in "The Glass Inferno" and the Fred Astaire character in the book. Not so much on what he did, but on his age, gigilo profession (lol) and personality. Concerning the architect, it's been said that Doug Roberts reflected a combination of Craig Barton in "The Glass Inferno" and Nat Wilson in "The Tower." However, in "The Tower", Wilson was more behind the scenes in planning the rescue of the people. Barton, however, seemed to do almost everything Doug Roberts did, including planting the explosives that drowned the fire.
The Claiborne character is indeed the basis of Astaire's character in the movie.
In the book, he finds he has an attack of conscience because he's genuinely fallen for Lisolette -who has looked into his past, knows what he's about and apparently was waiting/hoping he'd come clean with her.
Lisolette survives in the book, and tells Harley that his previous "ladies" who he fleeced will likely drop charges they've filed against him if they're reimbursed. She says that she knows a travel agent who would love to have someone like Harley working them at selling tours of historical sites to the older crowd -essentially he'd be using his charms to sell legitimate services. Harley, who'd grown to loath himself for what he'd become, happily jumps at the chance to make an honest living and be with her.
The Glass Inferno is a close template for the film. There's even the scene with Jernigan and Lisolette in the stairwell that's collapsed.
One of the things I found noteworthy about the book was the Paul Douglas character. He was a homosexual interior decorator about to go bankrupt and almost starts a fire himself in his shop for the insurance money. You think that he's going to be a stereotypical character from the era. But, when the real fire breaks out...He turns out to be one of the heroes. He's strong, forceful, decisive and completely competent. A subplot is that he catches a young junkee -whose mother is a cleaning lady in the building- trying to rob his shop. He quickly stops him and shuts down the kids attempt to blackmail him into letting him go. (The kid threatens to lie that Douglas is using him for sex. Douglas replies "Sodomy isn't a crime in this state kid, and you're over 18...But blackmail IS a crime.")
In the end, Douglas not only saves the kid and his mother by getting them to the rooftop restaurant via the stairwell, but he helps organize the evacuation of the restaurant and even turns out to help the kid once they're down on the street. (He thinks of a few methadone clinics that could help him, as well as some people he know who can give the kid a job. He then realizes with a smile that's just taken up the role of substitute father, which is what the kid really needs.)
Overall, I found that to be the most memorable part of the book. It was well ahead of its time.
The fire chief character was also from TGI. In there he's Italian rather than Irish -supposedly Ernest Borgnine was tapped to play the part originally. As well, he and the architect character know each other beforehand as they're both part of the same National Guard (or is it Army Reserve?) unit.
Wasn't the heavyset interior decorator in "The Glass Inferno" named Ian Douglas, not Paul Douglas? Paul Douglas is the classic film actor.
Both the arhitect and fire chief in "The Glass Inferno" had very significant roles, wiht maybe the arhitect's role being a tad stronger. The architect in the film seemes to be based largely on Craig Barton, the arcitect in "The Glass Inferno." Some people also have suggested the arciterct in the film was also based in part on the architect in "The Tower," Nat Wilson. But I think Newman's personality was closer to that of Craig Barton than Nat Wilson.
The two elements of the "Nat Wilson" character that ported over to Roberts was the desire to leave the city and go off to a new job out in the country, and the conflict/tension with his partner over it. In the Tower, Wilson's wife "Zib" is like Dunaway an ambitious magazine editor who doesn't like the idea of giving up the job. She's also having an affair with Simmons and a vestige of that remains in the movie with Simmons' attempt to seduce Susan. By novel's end, Wilson has decided to dump Zib and is about to start a relationship with Patty Simmons (if that comes across as a stretch the "Tower's" worst implausible budding romance is the one the doomed Governor of NY forms over the course of just a few hours with one of the party guests!)
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