Made long before the advent of CGI, disaster movie Earthquake relies on a combination of full-scale chaos, clever miniatures, green-screen work and matte paintings to convince the viewers that Los Angeles is being torn apart by the force of nature. And it works brilliantly, the damage caused by the film's devastating quake (and the subsequent aftershocks) just as impressive as many a modern day disaster flick.The drawn out drama might drag the film down a bit, making it slightly less successful than those benchmark classics of the genre, The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure, but Earthquake is still essential viewing for fans of cinematic catastrophe, with collapsing buildings, raging fires, a burst dam, and plenty of extras meeting grisly fates making for a whole lot of fun (who can forget that elevator crashing to the ground with a comical red splat?).Of course, the all-star cast doesn't hurt either: Charlton Heston ably plays the hero, engineer Graff, whose life intertwines with numerous other characters during the course of the movie, including his estranged wife Remy (Ava Gardner), single mum Denise (Geneviève Bujold), tough cop Slade (George Kennedy), stunt motorcyclist Miles (Richard Roundtree), Graff's boss Royce (Lorne Green), and sexy babe with a ridiculously massive fro, Rosa (Victoria Principal). Smaller, but no less important parts are played by Marjoe Gortner as a psychotic national guardsman, and Monica Lewis as Royce's secretary Barbara.All that and a rather downbeat ending to boot! 8/10

My main complaint with this movie is the fact that it is very, very, very slow, and there are some silly, silly decisions. I would be interested in the relationships between the characters in terms of the love interest, but sadly it's not particularly interesting and it has to be truncated by a massive natural disaster which does sort of throw things off.So what's the artichoke? Stewart Graff is a Los Angeles architect, who tires of his dead-end marriage with his argumentative and attention grubbing wife Remy. Secretly he has an affair with the widow of a friend and actress Denise, who has a young son named Corry (at this point it could be a completely different movie!). We're then introduced to a Policeman named Slade, a Daredevil named Miles, and a grocery store owner/National Guard officer named Jody. What follows are a series of quite long winded character introductions that go on for the best part of an hour, which would be okay if it weren't for the fact that it goes on for too long! Anyway, about an hour in the horrible Earthquake strikes, and sends our characters into dismay and a fight for survival as their city crumbles around them, both socially and physically.Now, the good points. The parts involving the earthquake are played very well. The practical effects involving the destruction of the city are very well done, although with the cases of obvious models taking you out of it a bit. Also, some of the characters we meet you do find yourself siding with, like George Kennedy as Officer Slade, trying to keep order and justice in a city ravaged with destruction.But as for the rest, aside from the long drawn out character moments, there are some superbly dumb moments. For example, after the earthquake has struck, they setup a temporary refugee centre in an underground car park, at a time when violent aftershocks are bound to happen! And sure enough...Also, some of the characters act stupidly too, like Slade is suspended from his job for chasing down a criminal although he leaves his department's jurisdiction. The higher ranking officials seem to have a thing for dismissing evidence of an upcoming disaster even though there's nothing to deny the fact that it's going to happen. Although these may be personal peeves, they are ones that do take you out of the movie because you can't help but notice how stupid some of these characters are.Bottom line, this movie is a fairly generic natural disaster film, but sadly laden with very slow character moments and very silly decisions that do become quite jarring. But I will say this, when the disasters do happen, the practical effects are very good and will keep you gripped, but the problem is you have to go through a lot of very slow and quite dull moments. If you can survive those, then I'd say give it a watch if you want just a silly disaster film.

To the point, while on a binge of disaster films, it occurred to me that Earthquake quite simply had no story other than the disaster itself. The first half refuses to engage, with characters that undergo a dull drama. I am not impatient--in fact, I don't mind the wait in The Towering Inferno, which some may find tedious. However, once all the pieces are put into place for the big one in this film, you get eight solid minutes of destruction. The second half, including aftermath, gives you what you wanted from a movie called Earthquake, even with some dated effects. You still get that 70's oomph.It's not The Poseidon Adventure by a long shot, but for those seeking destruction, this delivers the goods, and certainly better than others of the genre such as Airport and its sequels. This film is underrated here on IMDb. In conclusion, if I could give Earthquake a 6.5, I would; but I like to round up. Thanks for reading, and remember; it's all IMO.

For a brief time within the 1970s, so-called "disaster films" became something of a genre all their own, and the heroic Charlton Heston was often featured in most of them. This one is Heston's first, as he plays a middle-aged architect in L.A. who realizes that the types of buildings he's helped erect should have been an obvious mistake for an area plagued by regular earthquakes. He's stuck in a dead pseudo marriage with a real bitch of a wife who you'd just love to slap (the aged but once-gorgeous Ava Gardner). Her dad (BONANZA's Lorne Greene) is Heston's boss and father-in-law (hold on a second... Greene and daughter Gardner are only a few years off in age ... what, did Lorne father her when he was seven??). Anyway, Heston's character is smart enough to be openly cheating on his old battle-ax with a younger chickie pooh (Genevieve Bujold).Of course the bizarre castings are always part of the charm of these "jeopardy pictures". So we've also got side plots with Richard Roundtree as an Evel Kenieval type of motorcycle daredevil, whose partner is played by Gabriel Dell (of the old Bowery Boys comedies). George Kennedy is a lot of fun as a hot-tempered cop who gets suspended from the police force for anger management issues. Marjoe Gotner plays a nerdy supermarket cashier who becomes a crazed gun-happy National Guardsman when pressed into public crisis mode -- and he's got the hots for a young and bosomy Victoria Principal (sporting a terrible afro). Walter Matthau provides intermittent comic relief as a drunk at a bar who remains oblivious to anything that's occurring around him in this disaster.There are a few earthquakes, with the Big Rumble being one occurring mid-movie that lasts several minutes, and levels all of Los Angeles. Chuck Heston joins Lorne Greene and George Kennedy in trying to save everybody else. The special effects still are mostly impressive and deliver the goods, except for an occasional misfire (like the spattered blood in a falling elevator). The main draw of a movie such as this is the catastrophic tragedy of it all, and this is well realized even if the sub stories going on around it are mainly fodder. When EARTHQUAKE was released in theaters in 1974, a special audio trick called "Sensurround" was developed to give the effect of the movie seats rumbling as if during an actual earthquake. **1/2 out of ****