It was a genre that had its best moment in the 70s of the past twentieth century and then a lot was shown on television, after dinner parties, and then as it came it left. What times those in which The burning colossus (1974) was just another Christmas movie. For those who do not know, The burning colossus It’s about an ultramodern, crash-proof building, huge skyscrapers where they exist, that catches fire and people get trapped on the upper floors and that’s where Paul Newman, who is an architect, has to go to save everyone.
The same thing happened with The Poseidon Adventure (1972), of a ship that turns around in the middle of the sea and celebrating New Year’s Eve in its rooms.
Catastrophe movies had a certain Christmas flavor and we don’t know why.
And then they possessed (and possessed) another enormously attractive feature: There were a lot of old Hollywood glories coming out in the last few years and Ernest Borgnine was almost always coming out, that he is a very good actor of those days and what he did Wild groupSam Peckimpah’s western also great.
But come on, what do you have The swarm (1978), one of deliciously bad catastrophes and Henry Fonda comes and goes as the protagonist and they parade in episodic roles Olivia de Havilland and Fred McMurray or José Ferrer.
Special mention deserves the series Airport, which more or less repeats the scheme and inspired Land as you can.
And in Earthquake (1974) the protagonist is Charlton Heston and next to him is Ava Gardner. But it is that, suddenly, Pedro Armendáriz and the seventies star Victoria Principal appear, who was very famous although today nobody remembers.
If you were a star, it was time to do a catastrophe. Rock Hudson starred in Avalanche (1978) and there was also a very young Mia Farrow. Produced Roger Corman.
And another one: Meteor (1979), que reune a Sean Connery, Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, Martin Landau, Trevor Howard, Henry Fonda…
Many times the best were the posters.
It is a pity that these jewels are no longer put on the table and everything is German TV movies.
A fine.
We will always have Filmin or Amazon Prime, where these catastrophic pieces suddenly appear and make our nap happy.
ALSO: 7 Heterodox Westerns to Claim
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