"Earthquake" is a classic disaster film that shows the destruction of Los Angeles as well as its age. This one was pretty close to the first of a run of the large cast disaster films that filled theaters in those days. There's a solid ensemble cast of '70s stars including Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, and George Kennedy, and more. Performances are adiquate, but the real star is the earthquake of course.
The personal dramas and romantic subplots are comically contrived and melodramatic, as was the practice at the time. But, as I said, the star is the destruction spectacle anyway.
For its day, the film's special effects were quite good and hold up surprisingly well for the most part. There's a mix of self-destructing sets, miniatures and matte work that are (mostly) convincing. During a flooding sequence the miniatures are jarringly less realistic though, perhaps done by a different group. Also there's at least two uses of an out of place animated red spatter that is sure to get an out loud laugh from contemporary viewers.
1974 is before Lucas Film's THX program that triggered significant upgrades to theater sound systems. Movie audio was frankly pretty bad. "Earthquake" a new gimmick in the form of "Sensurround sound" that was supposed to add to the drama by literally shaking the theater. I saw "Earthquake" on its initial release when I was, I guess, early double digits. I remember Sensurround being a bit underwhelming. It's basically just a bass rumble during the earthquake scenes. The recent Blu-ray has a typical '70s barely stereo, low dynamic range, soundtrack but it does have a standout low end tone during the action. Nice touch...
Walter Matthau cameos as a colorful drunk in a bar, credited as "Walter Matuschanskayasky".
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