A Look at The Towering Inferno Movie Poster

(aka ecarle.)

I remember being at a rock concert in December of 1974. The Los Angeles forum -- I don't think major concerts play there anymore, but back then they did. This one was Jethro Tull.

It was an arena with giant hallways from which doors led into the main area -- we all know the drill.

But this being Los Angeles, on the giant walls of the Forum, they had movie posters. The Forum was not a movie theater,...but there was a big crowd of attendees, so posters for current films were put up.

I stopped at the poster for The Towering Inferno. Despite the prestige political/sexual mystery of Chinatown the summer before, despite the coming of this Christmas season with Oscar bait like Godfather II and Lenny, despite a Mel Brooks end of the year hit(Young Frankenstein) when he had begun the year with Blazing Saddles...it was The Towering Inferno for which I'd been waiting all year, and here was the poster.

I'd been waiting because I was a person with a certain respect for movie stars -- top movie stars especially -- and here, FINALLY was the movie that would put Steve McQueen and Paul Newman together on screen. (They had almost been Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but McQueen dropped out.)

That poster is a marvel of studio politics.

Look first at the four names "above the title":

To solve billing problems that had sunk the "Butch Cassidy" deal... the deal was cut: Steve McQueen to the left, Paul Newman to the right BUT...Steve McQueen lower, Paul Newman higher.

I always felt that McQueen still got the better deal. One reads "left to right" and McQueen's name was the first name you read.

Next came William Holden. Holden had been one of the Number One stars of the 1950s, right up there with Cary Grant, James Stewart and Henry Fonda, and often more highly ranked per year. He declined over the course of the 60s, but right at the very end,1969 he got The Wild Bunch and newfound fame with a younger generation that found the movie violent and exciting. (Two decades later, Jack Nicholson got the same boost with the younger generation in "Batman.")

Still, Holden's name came a bit lower than McQueen AND Newman. They were stars minted in the 60s, Holden was from the 50s, Holden had to move down a notch.

Next came Faye Dunaway. Kinda shocking: she was a major female star, recently off the hit instant classic Chinatown, but she had to be lower than McQueen AND Newman AND Holden.

You look at the four names in a row and its like a "rise and fall" of screen clout, like a weird group of tumbling names. I recall those four "rising and falling names" on the marquee in West Los Angeles; it looked weird.

But check out the photos of the stars: as in the billing: McQueen left, Newman right..McQueen lower than Newman but still...you look at McQueen first.

Steve and Paul got great big giant photos to fill the poster(alongside the great "diaster art of the burning building itself" more on that below)...but William Holden(a huge star of the 50s), Faye Dunaway(a big star of the 60s and 70s) and Fred Astaire(a major star of the 30s through the 50s) were all "insultingly reduced" into a row of little tiny boxes at the bottom of the ad. They had to share space with TV Roberts Vaughn and Wagner. Same with returning star Jennifer Jones.

I recall thinking that the poster was basically saying: "The Towering Inferno is important because of McQueen and Newman ONLY. Greats like Holden and Astaire, and a contemporary star like Dunaway simply don't MATTER when you got Paul and Steve."

Now back to the central disaster art that shares the poster with Steve and Paul. Its classic: incorporating all the individual set-pieces of the movie into ONE SCENE: the outside elevator is breaking and the helicopter is trying to reach the roof and people are on the roof and the breeche's buoy is in action but mainly -- both the spectacle and the terrror of The Towering Inferno is there for all to see. Come see this movie! See Paul and Steve! (and also those other folks. And see this greatest disaster movie of all time.

That poster worked. The Towering Inferno was the biggest hit of 1974 ...with most of its earnings in 1975(it opened around Xmas.) I've seen Blazing Saddles recently listed as the biggest hit of 1974, but it took decades to earn that status.

Anyway, what a marvel of "Holllywood politics" that poster for The Towering Inferno was.

And every time I see the poster(like here at moviechat)...I'm back at the Forum going to see Jethro Tull.

We all get different memories.