My friends, I need your help.
While I have no qualms about ‘fessing up to my passion for shark films, Exorcist rip-offs and manskirts, I am just a little shame-faced about admitting to an equal passion for disaster movies, whether the man’s-hubris kind, the nature-strikes-back kind, or the transportation-out-of-control kind – and worse still, particularly for the dreadful, last-gasp-of-the-first-wave ones, like Beyond The Poseidon Adventure, When Time Ran Out and Cave-In! But so it is; and today I make good on a long-standing promise to myself, and welcome disaster movies into the AYCYAS! reviewing fold.
How do you define a disaster film? The line between genres can be very thin, but to my mind the answer is, focus and attitude. Thus, Airport ’75 is a disaster movie; Die Hard 2 is not. The Poseidon Adventure is a disaster movie; Titantic is not. Earthquake is a disaster movie; San Francisco – despite having (in my opinion) the best realised film earthquake ever – is not.
The curious thing about the disaster movie is how long it took to find itself as a genre. After the first ever disaster movie, it was two decades before 1954’s The High And The Mighty inspired a crop of borderline, transportation-related disaster movies, Zero Hour! (1957), The Crowded Sky (1960) and The Last Voyage (1960) among them. The disaster movie as we know it today did not come into its own until Airport which, while not in fact a disaster movie itself, was certainly the catalyst for what followed.
So my first question to all of you is this: what other films, before Airport, would you classify as disaster movies? What have I missed?
My second question is more specific, and probably (unfortunately) much harder to answer. By now, pretty much everyone is aware that Flying High! / Airplane! is a twisted remake of Zero Hour! What you may not know, however, is that Zero Hour! was itself the remake of a teleplay called Flight Into Danger, filmed for and broadcast on Canadian TV in 1956, and starring as the reluctant hero – James Doohan. Since discovering this factoid, Flight Into Danger has become one of my film-hunting Holy Grails, although sadly I have discovered no evidence that it was ever commercially available, or even that it still exists. If anyone out there has any information, please drop me a line!
And now, our feature presentation:
DELUGE (1933)The great-granddaddy of all disaster movies, focussing upon a love triangle in the aftermath of a worldwide catastrophe, which climaxes with the destruction of New York City.
Some clichés have awfully deep roots…
#1 by Chad on January 25, 2009 - 9:41 pm
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That’s an interesting question. For me a disaster movie, beyond the obvious, is defined by its plot template. Unlike, say, Die Hard 2, a disaster movie has no “true” antagonist, beyond perhaps an anti-social jerk among the plucky survivors or a skeptical government scientist who refuses to believe the evidence, unless you count the event/Nature/etc. itself. There are other things I’m sure other comments will discuss, but for me that’s the characteristic that stands out.
This is why I sort of consider Romeronian zombie movies to be disaster movies with just a horror veneer, but I know people might disagree with me on that.
#2 by Tom Meade on January 25, 2009 - 9:54 pm
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I’m glad to see your coming clean about disaster films. They may not be particularly esteemed pictures but the late-90s revival sure kept me amused as a kid. I remember when Volcano first came out, no-one would shut-up about the 4WD that “sank” into the river of lava.
As to your query, I haven’t got any answers, but I do have a question. I remember reading in one of those big books of science fiction about a film in which the world is covered in another ice age – for some reason, all I remember is a still of what looked like Charlton Heston in a fur coat standing against a matte painting of what was probably supposed to be ice (he may also have been clutching some woman in a white parka). Charlton Heston has apparently never appeared in such a film (all those movies about Alaska not withstanding) and so I was wondering if you could tell me what it is? I am probably just confused about a still from One Million Years B.C
#3 by lyzard on January 25, 2009 - 10:46 pm
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That’s a great point, Chad, about the lack of a (defeatable) antagonist. The line is horribly thin, though, and in the end disaster movies are like pornography: I know one when I see it. But they certainly do mix. When Worlds Collide is a disaster film and science fiction; The Swarm is a disaster film and a killer animal film; and yeah, you could say the Romero films are both disaster and horror. And sociology, of course.
Tom, I’m not sure off-hand, but I’m wondering whether that still might have been from Virus? – that has blizzards and a big chunk of it set in Antarctica. No Chuck, but a bunch of actors of a similar vintage.
Ah, Volcano! Scratch everything I’ve said, you can define “disaster movie”:
“What’s magma?”
“Lava.”
#4 by Luke Blanchard on January 26, 2009 - 3:29 am
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Perhaps the elements that make a disaster movie a disaster movie are the theme of modern humanity’s finding that it can still be threatened by natural forces, and the transformation of familiar or safe environments into hostile environments. The protagonists are fairly ordinary people rather than larger than life figures. The film shows their efforts to cope with the disaster, either while it is in process or its aftermath.
In airplane disaster films the vulnerability of modern airplanes is shown, and the planes become traps. In Earthquake and the Poseidon Adventure the disasters transform an artificial environment into one that the characters have to struggle against with minimal resources, like humanity in the state of nature.
There are destruction sequences in a number of films set in ancient times, such as Noah’s Ark (1928), which I haven’t seen, and The Last Days of Pompeii (1935). In Pompeii the disaster comes at the film’s climax, so there isn’t the same focus on coping with it, but you could regard such films as related.
Would The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961) qualify as a disaster film? I’ve not seen it.
#5 by Derek O'Brien on January 26, 2009 - 4:00 am
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Well, another possible precursor was Carol Reed’s The Stars Look Down (1939), which featured a coal-mine disaster in England, brought about by mismanagement (a favourite theme of disaster movies). A more obvious one is The High and the Mighty (1954), with John Wayne as a pilot on a Trans-Pacific flight dealing with catastrophic engine failure, with focus on the soap opera lives of those onboard (though it’s been ages since I last saw it). Now, if they crash-landed on a certain island with hatches and smoke monsters…
#6 by David lee Ingersoll on January 26, 2009 - 2:15 pm
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Tom Meade – I think that the movie you’re thinking of is Quintet starring Paul Newman. I hear it’s a disaster of a movie but, since I haven’t seen it myself I can’t say for sure.
#7 by Chadly on January 26, 2009 - 2:57 pm
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Krakatoa: East of Java (1969) immediately springs to mind. As does a couple of Dorothy Lamour sarong ventures, Typhoon (1940) and Hurricane (1937), though they might not qualify. Maybe Crack in the World (1965)? Or maybe The Satan Bug (1965) if contagions count. I’m just finishing up a rehash of my Zero Hour! review, and my own efforts to track down Flight into Danger have turned up nothing — except that it was remade again as another MFTV flick in 1971 called “Terror in the Sky” with Doug Mclure in the Stryker role.
#8 by lbert on January 26, 2009 - 3:03 pm
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I’d never have thought of it before the comments thread, but how about Day of the Triffids? In a way it’s actually two disaster films in one – the comet and the killer plants (do killer plants qualify for inclusion under Killer Animal films?). Of course, the comet destroys civilization without destroying any infrastructure directly.
#9 by Richard on January 26, 2009 - 4:52 pm
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Here’s a nice list of Disaster Movies:
http://www.filmsite.org/disasterfilms.html
#10 by Tom Meade on January 26, 2009 - 10:12 pm
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Thank you David Lee Ingersoll!
#11 by supersonic on January 27, 2009 - 12:23 am
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Excellent as always… the attitudes you describe about rationing the postapocalyptic supply of nookie remind me of another author of around that same period or a bit later, Philip Wylie. Which makes me realize that one marginally possible candidate for a pre-Airport disaster movie would be When Worlds Collide.
Frank Herbert did an interesting look at a world with eight thousand men for every woman. A novel called “The White Plague”.
#12 by supersonic on January 27, 2009 - 12:24 am
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Woops, shoulda read the earlier comments first.
#13 by Blake Matthews on January 27, 2009 - 4:45 am
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I always find the idea of there being more men left than women kind of funny. Here in Brazil, the ratio is in favor of the women and in some states, like Minas Gerais, the disproportion is (relatively) high. But then, cinematically, it must not as dramatic for a apocalyptic disaster movie to end with one man and several women, which, if it were a Hollywood film, would all be coifed up and sexy.
#14 by El Santo on January 27, 2009 - 11:00 am
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Another marginal example from the pre-Airport era: Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Admittedly, it has several defeatable antagonists in succession (a giant squid, the attack submarine sent to intercept the Seaview, the giant octopus, MIchael Ansara), and the threatening force of nature (the inexplicable ignition of the Van Allen Belt) is circumvented in the end. However, none of those antagonists have anything to do with the real problem (they’re just incidental hassles to be overcome along the way), and more importantly, it was produced and directed by Irwin Allen. I’d say his involvement in any movie that has a disaster in it automatically marks that film for paleontological consideration, even if it doesn’t quite qualify for the genre by the standards of crown-oriented taxonomy.
#15 by MatthewF on January 27, 2009 - 12:12 pm
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One of the impressive things about the 70s wave of disaster movies was how they managed to fit more or less exactly the same characters and interactions into massively different situations. Burning towerblocks, over-turned cruiseships, earthquakes, you name it, these were essentially the same movie over and over again.
On the what is/what isn’t debate – I say that Armageddon isn’t (it’s a men-on-a-mission movie) but Deep Impact is, despite very similar plot lines.
Also, the coast is toast. I had to say it.
#16 by lyzard on January 27, 2009 - 6:07 pm
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Well, I think we’ve defined the spectrum, if not the content: “drama” at one end – films like The Hurricane and possibly Krakatoa, where the disaster is the dramatic climax rather than the dramatic impetus – and “science fiction” at the other, where the issue is less the disaster itself and more the nature of the response. Actual disaster movies sit somewhere in between. Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea is an interesting example. I tend to think of it as science fiction, but perhaps it actually isn’t; likewise Around The World Under The Sea, that masterpiece of sexism.
#17 by lyzard on January 27, 2009 - 6:16 pm
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Gender imbalance towards the male sex is rare in most circumstances – natural biological pressures favour an excess of females in any population – and when there is a major imbalance, it is usually the other way, and for an obvious reason: the population of Rwanda, for example, was at one stage pushing three-to-one female. The very fact that no clear reason was given in the novel, and hence the film,for this particular imbalance reveals it as another of Wright’s creepy personal fantasies.
#18 by Ken Begg on January 27, 2009 - 6:18 pm
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Good call on The Last Voyage, probably the first fully formed disaster movie, as we’ve come to know them. The film’s lead, Robert Stack, also starred in High and the Mighty, one of several proto-disaster films that were actually more about preventing a full-out aerial disaster (HatM, Zero Hour, Airport, etc.). High and the Mighty also starred John Wayne, who headlined as well Island in the Sky. This featured an actual plane crash, but is more of a survival epic than a disaster film proper. Last Voyage, though, that’s the complete package.
#19 by lyzard on January 27, 2009 - 6:23 pm
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Oh, good lord, look who’s here!!!! 🙂
By the way, I hope you appreciated my choice of quote for Deluge. There were any number I could have used, but for some reason – coming into B-Fest – Chicago is doomed seemed the most appropriate.
#20 by Sara on January 27, 2009 - 6:58 pm
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The Devil at 4 O’Clock may qualify. I remember it has Spencer Tracy, Frank Sinatra, kids with leperosy and a volcano. I remember it as a pretty cool movie, but these memories are about 40 years old.
#21 by Chadly on January 27, 2009 - 7:13 pm
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“No Highway in the Sky” (1951) has Jimmy Stewart as an engineer whose convinced the plane he’s flying in is about to suffer massive structural failure. Of course, no one except a plucky stewardess believes him. And would “Flight of the Phoenix” count?
#22 by supersonic on January 27, 2009 - 8:01 pm
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Criminy, how could I have forgotten A Night To Remember?
#23 by Gentle Benj on January 27, 2009 - 10:40 pm
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There’s something beautiful about the “It’s a Disaster” page as it stands now, with 25 blank letter headings. It’s like a desertscape.
#24 by Blake Matthews on January 28, 2009 - 5:50 am
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I assume that the Toho films “Deathquake” and “The Submersion of Japan” are disaster films.
#25 by Blake Matthews on January 30, 2009 - 9:31 am
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And old movie that has a natural disaster as its centerpiece but is still a drama is “Flame of Barbary Coast” starring John Wayne. It deals with the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Any thoughts on this film?
#26 by lyzard on January 30, 2009 - 3:28 pm
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I have seen Flame Of Barbary Coast but it’s been a while; as with most of the films mentioned here, it’s certainly drama rather than disaster (like its counterpart, San Francisco), particularly in view of the amount of story that happens after the quake (politicking and paralysis, right?). Still, John Wayne making a prize ass of himself at the gambling tables is worth looking at – as is Ann Dvorak’s bathtub.
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Thank you for bringing up the Japanese films – I wasn’t thinking in that direction.
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It seems that there actually isn’t much before 1970 that I *have* missed, so the question becomes, why the seventies? The rise of the blockbuster in concert with an increased cynicism, that didn’t have much faith in the ability of traditional heroes to triumph? (And, perhaps, didn’t particularly want them to.)
#27 by supersonic on January 30, 2009 - 3:38 pm
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Why the seventies? Well, this was the decade when ecological warnings finally penetrated into the mainstream consciousness. Which was part of a general breakdown of the ability of The Establishment to stick to a reassuring story about progress, technology, and social institutions in general. There was a sort of mass eye-opening to a multitude of problems that had been swept under the carpet in mainstream public discourse, which led to a lot of pessimism about what more might turn out to be wrong. (However, at the same time this was hardly a grumpy and miserable period; for a lot of people it also saw a joyous flowering of individuality and freed potential. Both aspects came from the assimilation of sixties counterculture, a textbook case of thesis-antithesis-synthesis.)
#28 by Alaric on January 30, 2009 - 11:41 pm
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Speaking of Japanese movies, shouldn’t Gorath count as a disaster movie? Admittedly, it’s been a very, very long time since I saw it, but according to Wikipedia it came out in 1962.
As for the ’70s, I think the disaster movie fad was just another part of the ’70s FAD fad- along with the Bigfoot fad, the UFO fad, the disco fad, etc. etc. It was a very strange decade (although, since I spent most of my childhood in it, part of me thinks that was the only time things were actually “normal”, whatever that means…), filled with more fads, trends, and crazes than any decade since the ’20s- at least, in my opinion.
#29 by supersonic on January 31, 2009 - 12:35 am
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I’m thinking that the proliferation of fads is part & parcel of what I was describing… it was a fairly abrupt transition from a relatively narrow set of accepted ideas to broad accepted ideas, and lots of the new stuff turned faddish. A lot of it was all new (for the mainstream) at the same time.
There’s probably some similar things going on in the twenties.
#30 by The Rev. D.D. on January 31, 2009 - 11:39 pm
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Admittedly I haven’t seen Gorath but I think it’s more sci-fi than disaster, since Gorath never hits the Earth (although I’m sure there’s some footage of earthquakes and such because of it) and the movie’s more about humanity trying to move Earth out of the way and therefore avoid the disaster. I’d thought about mentioning it earlier, but it seems to be more like Armageddon than Deep Impact.
#31 by lyzard on February 1, 2009 - 3:58 am
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That, and it has a giant walrus. (At least in the Japanese version.)
#32 by Blake on February 1, 2009 - 9:45 am
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Is “Fire in the Sky” (the 70s TV movie) considered a disaster film? How do meteor/comet films figure into the equation?
#33 by lyzard on February 1, 2009 - 3:27 pm
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It’s a borderline issue; generally it depends upon the handling of the crisis. Is it about dealing with the aftermath, or about hopping into a spaceship and either running away or blowing the thing up? A Fire In The Sky is the classic three-act disaster – Nobody Believes/Told You So/What A Mess. Thank you for reminding me about that one, it had slipped my mind.
#34 by Blake on February 1, 2009 - 5:54 pm
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The funny thing is, I found it lot more entertaining and intriguing than “Bay-a-geddon” and I’m almost certain that if I said that to any mainstream viewer, they’d think I was stupid.
#35 by Scott David Hamilton on February 1, 2009 - 10:26 pm
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What I find far more fascinating than the subject of disaster movies is that they’ve been filming bad genres movies at that one place in Bronson Canyon for 75 years. Not just 75 years ago, but the last 75 years inclusive.
#36 by supersonic on February 2, 2009 - 12:28 am
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The other day I was checking maps of Los Angeles so that whenever I next happen to go down there, I can make a Bronson Canyon pilgrimage. I learned it’s in Griffith Park, underlooking the observatory and, apparently, the Hollywood sign. And it’s formally named Brush Canyon on the park maps.
#37 by lyzard on February 2, 2009 - 3:39 pm
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The serials discovered Bronson Canyon first; a lot of the silent western ones were shot there, because it was close to home and cheap, and there were the caverns for the baddie’s hideout, and the cliffs for your (literal) cliffhangers, and the brush areas for foot chases, and the open rocky areas for horse chases. The movies seem to have been slower on the draw, and Deluge was one of the first to make significant use of the area.
#38 by supersonic on February 2, 2009 - 5:18 pm
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Some of the really early silent westerns were shot in Niles Canyon, in the present-day bay area suburb of Fremont.
#39 by maggiesmith on April 6, 2022 - 10:21 am
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Fight Into Danger started life as a teleplay, then the author, Arthur Hailey, turned it into a novel. I’m not sure if it had the same title. The novel was the basis for the movie Zero Hour. A similar thing happened with Dial M For Murder, which was originally a BBC teleplay, then I think there was a version on Canadian television. After that it became a play in London’s West End, then on Broadway, then came the Hitchcock film and there have been several remakes. Personally, I have never understood why, as it’s a mechanical piece full of weird people who keep their keys loose in their pockets instead of on key rings like normal human beings. The only good scene is the one where the heroine is attacked and manages to kill her assailant.