When it comes to genre, there is one especially that is instantly recognisable. The moment someone says, “This ship cannot sink/this building cannot burn/this plane cannot crash!”, you know you’re in a disaster movie. The genre flourished for a brief period in the 1970s, but it never reached those heights again: even if there is the occasional disaster movie these days, it doesn’t have the draw of the classics of the genre, and it certainly doesn’t have the same kind of cross-generational star power that seems right out of a ’70s Agatha Christie film. In the third episode of our Summer of Genre, Sam, Matt and Alan look at three undisputed classics of disaster movies: Airport (1970), The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974). How do these films hold up more than 50 years later? What made the genre tick, and why was it such a staple of Hollywood cinema in the ’70s? Why was its reign so brief? And what place has big-screen disaster in today’s movie landscape?
P.S.: For more on disaster movies, make sure to check out Sam’s Six Damn Degrees post on “Pandemic and Disaster in The Cassandra Crossing”!
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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #107: Summer of Genre – Disaster!
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture 