Panic in Year Zero! (1962)

Aka Survival. All normal forms of communications appear to have broken down. Harry Baldwin (Ray Milland), his wife Ann (Jean Hagen), their son Rick (Frankie Avalon) and daughter Karen (Mary Mitchel) leave suburban Los Angeles at sunrise to go on a fishing trip to the Sierra Nevada wilderness, bringing with them a small camping trailer. After a couple of hours on the road, Harry and Ann are startled by an unusually bright light, accompanied by the radio station going to static. Tuning through stations, they hear a sporadic news report broadcast on CONELRAD that hint at the start of a nuclear war, confirmed when the Baldwins see a large mushroom cloud from a hydrogen bomb rising over Los Angeles, now many miles away. The family attempt to return home to rescue Ann’s mother but Harry soon realises that the roads will be clogged by panicked people and what is left of the city will be saturated in atomic fallout. Stopping at a small diner to get food and find out what is happening, Harry hears that Los Angeles was hit by two hydrogen bombs: One over Downtown Los Angeles, the other at the  Port of Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco were also targets. With this news, deciding that his family’s survival must come first, Harry decides to continue to their secluded holiday spot in the mountains, abandoning Ann’s mother back in LA and weather the crisis from there. In the next few days we’re going to have the kind of togetherness we never dreamt of. The Baldwins stop to buy supplies at a small town off the main road, which has not yet been inundated by refugees from the city. Harry attempts to purchase tools and guns from hardware store owner Ed Johnson (Richard Garland) with a combination of $200 cash and a personal cheque for the remainder. However, Johnson believes only Los Angeles has been hit and the government remains intact, so he insists on following state law and withholding the guns for a 24 hours while Harry’s cheques are verified. Harry absconds with the weapons with Rick’s help but he tells Johnson that he will eventually return and pay for them in full. Back on the road, the family encounter three threatening young hoodlums, Carl (Richard Bakalyan), Mickey (Rex Holman) and Andy (Neil Nephew) but manage to fend them off. There must be some good people left. After a harrowing journey, the Baldwins reach their destination. Realising their trailer offers no protection from radioactive fallout, they take the contents of the trailer and find shelter in a cave where they settle in and wait for civil order to be restored. On their portable radio, they listen to war news and learn that what remains of the UN has declared this to be Year Zero … I guess there’s no such thing as complete isolation. Based on a screenplay by John Morton and Jay Simms from a story by Simms, this is tough stuff, particularly for its era and feels rather close to the knuckle in these dangerous days. It pulls no punches in the rapid descent to aggressive and brutal dissent. This realistic portrait of the aftermath of an atomic bomb is notable for its commitment to the idea that society will immediately fragment and the term ‘civilisation’ figures largely. Director and star Milland as pragmatic Harry ruefully admits, I looked for the worst in others and I found it in myself. His relationship with wife Ann (an underused Hagen – initially!) fractures when he takes charge in a radical way and we can only presume Avalon was cast as his son due to his fan base, an attractive factor for producers American International Pictures who had him tour the US when it went out across the states after making its money back in LA. Mitchel is attacked horrifically by the violent hoodlums whose situation is finally avenged but in the doing another young woman is discovered and it is Rick’s idea to rescue her, not his father’s. It’s an unusual role for Milland and he’s the better for it, a wannabe warrior whose instincts are correct but sometime his judgment is lacking. Intelligent people don’t just turn their back on the rest of the world, Ann reasons. As much as Harry wants to protect his family he ultimately realises his limitations but there is humour here too. Nothing like eating under an open sky, even if it is radioactive, muses Rick. The use of sex as a weapon in what is essentially civil war has a grim outcome for this close knit family. And when mom Ann finally takes action in a story that deprives her of input or consequence for the first two-thirds of the story, it’s decisive. This isn’t exactly optimistic about mankind and save for a few obvious studio shots Milland the director marshals the action well. A striking, serious and atmospheric work, filled with foreboding – and guns. Our country is still full of thieving, murdering patriots

The Concorde: Airport ’79 (1979)

Aka Airport ’80: The Concorde. They don’t call it the cockpit for nothing honey! TV journalist Maggie Whelan (Susan Blakely) discovers that her married boyfriend Kevin Harrison (Robert Wagner) heads a company that is involved in illegal arms sales after a contact is murdered in her home. To stop her from going public with documents she managed to retrieve, Harrison decides to kill her by bringing down the American-owned Concorde she is taking from Paris and Moscow. It’s up to pilots Paul Metrand (Alain Delon) and Joe Patroni (George Kennedy) to keep the plane aloft and intact in the face of repeated missile attacks from jets sent by Harrison as the plane starts coming apart over Germany … It’s like trying to stop a bullet with crepe paper. Delon makes out with air hostess Sylvia Kristel, Kennedy (promoted to pilot following the previous three films) has it away with Bibi Andersson and poor David Warner is the third wheel up front who is on a permanent diet for his controlling girlfriend back home. Truly a fiesta for the Seventies jet set. It’s wittily written, there are not one but two endangered flights for the fabled vehicle which is shot from all angles as lovingly as a beautiful woman and there’s an ingenious landing in the middle of a ski resort in Austria. Daft disastrous fun with a cast that includes everyone from Charo to Mercedes McCambridge (as a Russian ice skating coach). What’s not to love?! Directed by David Lowell Rich from a screenplay by legendary Eric Roth based on a story by producer Jennings Lang. The last in the series. I’m gradually learning to accept most of life’s humiliations

Deep Impact (1998)

This is not a videogame, son. One year after teenage astronomer Leo Biederman (Elijah Wood) spots a comet the size of Mount Everest heading for Earth, journalist Jenny Lerner (Téa Leoni) mistakes the scoop of a lifetime for a story about the mistress of the US President Beck (Morgan Freeman). Once she’s allowed into the loop of the Extinction Level Event with the rest of the press pack she finds that with one year to go before it could hit the planet there’s a plan to build a system of caves while a joint US/Russian spacecraft nicknamed Messiah being led by veteran astronaut Captain Sturgeon Tanner (Robert Duvall) is going to try to intercept its path with nuclear weapons … People know you. They trust you. A disaster movie par excellence, this mixes up men on a mission and race against time tropes with ideas about God, friendship, family and the all-pervasive sense of doom that settles upon people learning of an entire planet’s imminent destruction and how they deal with it. Leoni doesn’t quite have the expressivity to offer a mature performance although her particular role is buttressed by the subplot of her unhappiness at her father Jason’s (Maximilian Schell) new marriage while her beloved mother Robin (Vanessa Redgrave) suffers. However the entire drama is well structured and tautly managed. Written by Bruce Joel Rubin and Michael Tolkin (as a vague remake of When Worlds Collide, 1951) and expertly handled by Mimi Leder, better known for TV’s ER, some of whose alumni feature here. Let’s go home

Skyscraper (2018)

Will Sawyer (Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson) is a former FBI agent and U.S. war veteran who lost his leg in active service and who now assesses security for skyscrapers. While he’s on assignment in Hong Kong, the world’s tallest and safest building catches on fire and Will gets framed for it. Now a wanted man and on the run, he must find those responsible, clear his name and somehow rescue his family members (Navy surgeon wife Neve Campbell and two kids) when they become trapped inside the inferno... A film whose matchbook pitch must have read, The Rock climbs up a burning building. Or, more concisely, a family-Oriented disaster film. Because this is a shameless attempt at the transnational market ie China wherein dialogue matters not a jot and the film doesn’t have a cast so much as cardboard cutouts. Villains? No need for characterisation, just give them faces only a mother could love: Pablo Schreiber, Roland Møller, Noah Taylor.  Job done.  Forty-five years ago critics laughed at The Towering Inferno, a thorough scrutiny of building safety with the biggest movie stars on the planet. They’re not laughing now. Keep scraping that barrel, Hollywood. This is what China deserves. Written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber who I don’t imagine could be related to James. Simply disgraceful.

The Medusa Touch (1978)

Talk about beating somebody’s brains out. French detective Brunel (Lino Ventura) working temporarily on assignment to Scotland Yard in London reconstructs the life of author John Morlar (Richard Burton) who is lying in hospital with severe head injuries following a brutal assault that has nearly killed him.  With the help of the man’s journals and psychiatrist Dr Zonfeld (Lee Remick) he realises that Morlar had powerful telekinetic abilities. His books make the link between evil and power and a pattern starts to emerge:  Brunel starts making uncanny connections with a series of disasters occurring in the outside world triggered initially perhaps by Morlar’s childhood brush with a terrible fire-breathing nanny (Frances Tomelty) whom he believes he willed to death …  If he believed himself involved in disasters he may have convinced someone else too. And they may have sought revenge. This oddly satisfying genre-splicing of psychological thriller/supernatural horror/disaster film/policier is aided immensely by Burton’s brilliant performance and Ventura’s charismatic presence, a real fish out of water navigating both a bizarre case and the politics of London policing. There are a number of significant alterations from the novel but the texture is enhanced by plugging into contemporary fears and layering them with cod-Freudianism to effectively channel several horror tropes and a heady dose of misanthropy. John Briley adapted Peter Van Greenaway’s source book and it was produced by the brilliant editor Anne V. Coates and shot by reliable veteran Arthur Ibbetson. Directed by Jack Gold.  I am the man with the power to create catastrophe

Gold (1974)

It’s gold, I hate the lousy stuff.  Following an underground explosion which killed his predecessor, Sonderditch gold mine’s newly appointed general manager Rod Slater (Roger Moore) is used as a stooge in the financiers’ plan to inflate the world’s gold prices by engineering a disaster. He is ordered by Manfred Steyner (Bradford Dillman) to break through underground into a dyke which will reveal a huge seam of gold – but it’s actually a lake that will flood the mine.  Meanwhile he meets Steyner’s wife Terry (Susannah York), granddaughter of the mine’s owner Harry ‘Poppsie’ Hirschfeld (Ray Milland), and they fall in love believing their affair is a secret while a London-based criminal syndicate led by Farrell (John Gielgud!!!) moves with their plan … Wilbur Smith’s source novel was based on a real-life flooding in a Johannesburg mine and this film races towards the inevitable with an exciting conclusion and a satisfying payoff. Adapted by Smith and Stanley Price, it’s a fairly straightforward action entertainment (with some brief explorations of racism) but no less enjoyable especially as a kind of footnote to the James Bond series – it’s directed by Peter Hunt (OHMSS), edited by John Glen (Licence to Kill et al), production design by Syd Cain and the titles are by Maurice Binder. The newest Bond, Moore, and the wonderful York make a very attractive romantic couple and for the sadists there’s an opportunity to watch little Patsy Kensit (who’s uncredited) get blown up at a party.  And you should see what happens to a Rolls Royce! This was shot on location at Buffelfontein and West Rand and apparently York went very public about the black workers’ conditions. Ripley’s: Steven Spielberg was producer Michael Klinger’s first choice for director but was vetoed by Moore!

Geostorm (2017)

I worked on this day in and day out, week after week, for years. What did they do? They turned it into a gun.  A few years after 2019 following an unprecedented series of natural disasters that threatened the planet, the world’s leaders’ intricate network of satellites to control the global climate and keep everyone safe is acting strangely.  Dutch Boy’s inventor Jake Lawson (Gerard Butler) is stroppy and a Senate Committee takes him off his own project and installs his younger brother Max (Jim Sturgess) in his place. But now, something has gone wrong: the system built to protect Earth is attacking it, and it becomes a race against the clock to uncover the real threat before a worldwide geostorm wipes out everything and everyone along with it. Jake has to go to back to outer space and Dutch Boy to try and suss out what’s gone wrong and finds himself in a political web with devastating outcomes as the machine designed to protect Planet Earth has become weaponised to destroy it and Max is the only person he can trust to get the POTUS to help as there’s a traitor in the crew … I don’t know about you but I’ve spent the last three weeks baking and I don’t mean cookie dough. Three months ago I was snowbound for a week and three months before that a huge storm nearly blew my house away. So even a trashy eco-disaster thriller with shonky FX, sibling rivalry, a barely-there political conspiracy and slim father-daughter story arc, compounded by some of the worst acting on the planet (take a bow, Mr Sturgess!) is somehow comforting in an era when some seriously smart people are arguing against climate change. Is it me?! Thank goodness the great Abbie Cornish is around to help save the world. Co-written by Paul Guyot with producer/director Dean Devlin. Batten down the hatches! And get me some ice…

The Devil at 4 O’Clock (1961)

I was a pretty good thief in my time. Father Matthew Doonan (Spencer Tracy), a hard-drinking eccentric priest on a South Sea island is being supplanted by a younger, virtuous replacement cleric Father Joseph Perreau (Kerwin Matthews). He recruits three reluctant convicts, Harry (Frank Sinatra) Marcel (Gregoire Aslan) and Charlie (Bernie Hamilton) from their hellhole prison to help him rescue a children’s leper colony from a Pacific island near Tahiti which is menaced by a smouldering volcano. When the Governor orders an evacuation bringing the sick children to safety on the last boat means a life-threatening trip up the mountains… A priest who’s lost his faith, a convict who wants to make good:  this morality tale has the fundaments of the disaster films which it predated by a decade. Sinatra falls for the blind Camille (Barbara Luna) and the romance underscores the issues of choice for this disparate group on a mission when action speaks much louder than empty words. Max Catto’s novel was adapted by Liam O’Brien, brother of actor Edmond and it layers in religious references with not a little wit and sympathy. Directed by Mervyn LeRoy.

The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

My God I’ve never seen anything like it – a gigantic wall of water heading directly for the ship! The SS Poseidon is on its last voyage from New York to Athens before retirement. Reverend Scott (Gene Hackman) is a troublesome priest being sent to Africa as punishment. Detective Rogo (Ernest Borgnine) and his ex-prostitute wife Linda (Stella Stevens) are dealing with her seasickness and a man who recognises her. Susan Shelby (Pamela Sue Martin) and her little brother Robin (Eric Shea) are squabbling on the trip that will see them meet with their parents. Manny Rosen (Jack Albertson) and his wife Belle (Shelley Winters) are going to Israel to meet their new grandson. Nonnie (Carol Lynley) is rehearsing songs with her brother in the ballroom for the New Year’s Eve dance. Bachelor James Martin (Red Buttons) confesses his shyness at the captain’s table at dinner. And then a tidal wave (what we now call a tsunami) capsizes the ship and their whole world is upside down and flooding quickly … Paul Gallico’s 1969 novel gets a great adaptation by Stirling Silliphant and Wendell Mayes who distill people’s essential characters into pithy exchanges and lines of action – let’s face it in a situation like this there’s no time for sweet nothings. Producer Irwin Allen assembled a star-ridden cast for this disaster movie to end them all. A raft of Oscar winners – Borgnine, Winters, Buttons, Albertson – make it into the final half dozen who swim, climb and beat their way to the engine room on the upturned vessel and the pressure (water, religious and otherwise) is intense as they are led by Scott who is invested with crazed levels of commitment by Hackman. But before they can be saved there are terrible personal sacrifices… And you thought you’ve had bad New Year’s Eves! This is thrilling from start to finish! Directed by Ronald Neame with a lot of interiors done on the Queen Mary docked at Long Beach and a resonant score by John Williams. You see Mr Scott in the water I’m a very skinny lady!

Hellfighters (1968)

He’s not too smart about which fires to walk away from. Chance Buckman (John Wayne) is injured fighting an oil field fire and his assistant Greg (Jim Hutton) brings his boss’ estranged daughter Tish (Katharine Ross) to visit him in hospital – they’ve just got married a mere five days after meeting and Chance isn’t too pleased given Greg’s promiscuous ways. His marriage to Tish’s mom Madelyn (Vera Miles) ended because she couldn’t take the pressure of his work and Tish swears it’ll be different for her.  After seeing Greg get hurt she starts to fray at the edges and play solitaire a lot. When he takes over a gig in Venezuela and the team comes under fire from revolutionaries it’s time for Chance to return and his remarriage to Madelyn is postponed … A fascinating premise derived from the biography of legendary firefighter Red Adair, this moots the potential of examining the process and plumps for the melodrama of being the woman on the sidelines. Ross’ gorgeous sorrowfulness isn’t exploited but there are some good, colourful scenes and a nice barroom brawl to keep Wayne’s donnybrooking fans happy in between the talking shops. Written by Clair Huffaker and directed by Andrew V. McLaglen who had worked with Wayne in McLintock! Wayne got a million dollars to star.