Skip to main content
Earthquake film image; people panic in a flooding subway station

Earthquake

50th Anniversary

Total Cinema

This event has passed

This is the Big One: Who doesn’t want to see Los Angeles burn? There is an awful lot of falling debris in Universal’s contribution to the 70s Disaster Movie craze; much of it directed at Charlton Heston’s noble brow. Mario Puzo cowrote the human interest stuff. but the real selling point here is concrete, crumbling; dams cracking; fly overs collapsing; the city of Angels reduced to rubble. All recorded in glorious Sensurround, a sound system heavy on the bass and meant to put you right in the middle of the action.

Although no one has yet produced the feelies that Aldous Huxley evoked in “Brave New World” — in which a love scene on a bearskin rug transmitted every hair of the bear, and there were aromas of newmown hay and kidney pudding, while a kiss on the lips or a blow on the skull were felt by everyone in the audience — Mark Robson’s “Earthquake” makes an awesome stab in that direction. The dam breaking, floods rising, bodies falling, towers crashing or burning, the earth heaving, pavements parting and the random explosions are all enhanced by Sensurround: special vibrations on the soundtrack cause your spine and your throat to tingle. (You may also wonder if they curdle the brain cells.)

Nora Sayre, New York Times

High drama, tension, special effects, carnage, camp drama, afro-tastic kidnapping and so much 70s hippy mania – it is a guilty pleasure. This is one of those films that gets better on each watch.

Simon Smith, I Love Disaster Movies!

The picture is swill, but it isn’t a cheat. It’s an entertaining marathon of Grade-A destruction effects, with B-picture stock characters spinning through it.

Pauline Kael, New Yorker

 

Media Partner

Director

Mark Robson

Cast

Charlton Heston, Genevieve Bujold, Ava Gardner, George Kennedy, Lorne Green, Victoria Pincipal, Richard Roundtree, plus the City of Los Angeles

Credits
Country of Origin

USA

Year

1974

Language

English

Focus
19+
129 min

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits

Screenwriter

George Fox, Mario Puzo

Also in This Series

The Fall (4K Restoration)

Dir. Tarsem Singh
119 min

Shot over four years across 24 countries, cowritten by a six year old girl, and entirely self-financed by commercials director Tarsem, The Fall is such a mind- (and eye) boggling movie it's hard to believe it actually exists. Yet here it is!

VIFF Centre - Vancity Theatre

The Manchurian Candidate

Dir. Jonathan Demme
130 min

Jonathan Demme's superbly orchestrated take on Richard Condon's 1959 paranoia novel feels weirdly prescient in its anxieties around global corporate brainwashing, war profiteering, assassination and election fixing.

VIFF Centre - Vancity Theatre

Winter Kills

Dir. William Richert
97 min

An inspired black comic adaptation of the ultimate conspiracy theory, based on a novel by Richard (Manchurian Candidate) Condon. It's a lunatic riff on the Kennedy assassination(s), with Jeff Bridges finding who really killed his brother, the President. Screening in 35mm print.

VIFF Centre - Vancity Theatre

Come and See

Dir. Elem Klimov
142 min

One of the most powerful war films ever made, Elem Klimov's Come and See is an overwhelming and unforgettable experience.

VIFF Centre - Vancity Theatre