Stirling Silliphant: The Fingers of God

by Nat Segaloff

  Meanwhile, the single-minded Irwin Allen was looking for his next film. His first idea, naturally, was a sequel to Poseidon, this time having Gene Hackman play his own identical twin brother, and setting the whole thing on a moving train. [216] Not only was Hackman not interested (while shooting Poseidon, he had won the Oscar for The French Connection and thereafter had his choice of projects), but a far better idea suddenly sparked Allen’s mind.

  The Towering Inferno came about by coincidence. Two separate books were bought in galley form by two different film companies in 1973: Richard Martin Stern’s The Tower by Warner Bros. for $390,000, and Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson’s The Glass Inferno by Twentieth Century-Fox for $400,000. Both were about fires in skyscrapers, and both promised to cost a fortune to make. At a time when the average studio film budget was $4 million plus $250,000 for prints and advertising, either of these blockbusters threatened to come in at three times that much just to light up. [217] According to legend, this is what was on the mind of Warner Bros’ Chairman Ted Ashley and Fox’s chief Gordon Stulberg during a casual tennis game in 1973. By the time it was over (no record of who won), the two men had agreed to co-finance what became known as The Towering Inferno. Others say it was the personal project of Frank Wells, the respected President of Warner Bros. Nevertheless, it was Fox that would distribute the film in North America and Warner Bros. internationally. Because Irwin Allen had just produced Fox’s mammoth hit The Poseidon Adventure, he was given the reins on The Towering Inferno.

  Another story has Fox and Warner Bros. in a staring contest over who would shoot first, at which point Allen invited a cadre of Warner executives to his Fox office where he had fabricated a poster, production boards, and a budget even before there was a script. The displays were hidden behind a curtain, and, when Allen dramatically parted the plush panels to reveal his massive preparation, his competitors were so gobsmacked that they stumbled back to Warner Bros. and, in effect, made the studio blink. From then on, Allen called the shots in the partnership which, by the time the film was finished, would have the two companies sharing a $15 million negative cost plus prints and advertising. [218]

  Allen had Silliphant write the first of many drafts so the budgeting, scheduling, and, above all, casting processes could commence. Plus the writer had two thick books to read. Or maybe not. “The Towering Inferno is, in fact, an original,” Silliphant maintained, “although I took elements from two novels, The Tower and The Glass Inferno, and combined them into my own screenplay working under Irwin Allen’s hands-on supervision and with reps from both Fox and Warners since this was, so far as I know, the first major motion picture ever to be co-financed and co-produced and co-released by two major Hollywood studios.” [219]

  The next trick was surviving the construction process. “It’s simple math,” Silliphant explained. “Take The Towering Inferno. Look at the ads Fox and Warners ran: a strip of star photos with shots of Paul Newman and Steve McQueen and Bill Holden and Faye Dunaway and Fred Astaire and Jennifer Jones and Robert Wagner and O. J. Simpson and Richard Chamberlain, etc. etc., each labeled ‘the fireman,’ ‘the architect,’ ‘the builder,’ ‘the contractor’, etc., etc., actually labeling the stereotype in advance for the potential viewer. Okay, we had seven major narrative thrusts to fold in — seven major separate personal relationships to be introduced, developed, strained, then resolved — along with their interaction with another group — Holden with Chamberlain, Holden with his daughter, Holden with Newman, Holden with McQueen — seven of the bloody things — and then the eighth character — the fire itself (which, while I wrote, I gave a name to — my secret — but my favorite character in the script). [220] I determined to let the fire win — make it the hero — but I always knew that, in the end, the good guys — the Architect and the Fireman — would have to triumph.

  “Now you have a script of 130 pages. You have eight major story/character blocks — 8 goes into 130 around 16+ times. So you know, going in, that you can only put Holden on 16 pages of the movie in terms of foreground action or any kind of meaningful dialogue, unless you unbalance everything and give him 22 pages and cut Chamberlain to 10, etc., etc., etc. Yes, I call that frustrating because what you are not doing is writing. What you are doing is juggling.”

  Set in San Francisco (the only major city with a skyline at the time roomy enough to superimpose the world’s tallest building) on the night of the skyscraper’s dedication, a fire breaks out and all the famous guests must be evacuated. But they can’t, because the builder’s son, Chamberlain, has cut corners on materials. So the fire chief, McQueen, and the architect, Newman, must work together to save everyone, which they do by exploding huge water tanks on the building’s roof that douse the fire — but not before many people die, are redeemed, or otherwise complete their character arcs.

  “That’s only the beginning of your problems,” Silliphant continues. “You have to deal with the logistics of the physical action, and this becomes a matter of charting, not of writing. If something blows up on the 57th floor and, in the scene before that, you had Paul Newman down on the 32nd floor and the elevators can’t be used, how are you going to get him up there? Simple, let him use the stairway. What if the stairway collapses on his way up? Okay, we need a scene about that. So before you can get the man up there to do his few pages, you now have to create a new scene out of the mechanical motivations of the action. Jesus, guys, where did we leave Steve McQueen in his last scene before we had to cut away to Fred Astaire looking for Jennifer Jones’s cat? What? He was on what floor? How in hell do we get him higher? We can get him lower; Steve loves to rappel down smoking elevator shafts with cowardly young firemen to whom he has to demonstrate unflinching macho so they too can rappel down smoking elevator shafts. We get him up there by chopper, dummy. Yeh, but in a previous scene we had the wind force up there to forty knots and no chopper could land on the roof. How about breeches buoy? Yeh. What in hell is a breeches buoy? See, we get the Coast Guard in and they shoot one of the bloody things up.” [221]

  Steve McQueen was initially offered the role of the architect, but he balked. His keen survival instinct told him that there was something wrong with the role even though it was heroic. Finally he realized what it was, and asked to play the fire chief instead. Cynics remarked that it was just the macho McQueen’s yearning for childhood wish-fulfillment. In truth, the savvy McQueen realized that the fire chief was the only character in the whole picture who did not in any way bear guilt for the disaster. [222] With McQueen set, Paul Newman — who had no need to prove himself — was engaged as the architect. Then came the billing squabble.

  “The Newman-McQueen thing was, who was first and who was higher,” explained David Forbes, who directed Inferno’s publicity onslaught. “Irwin sat in the middle of the negotiations, and it’s not normal — or at least it wasn’t then — for the producer to be doing those deals, and he ended up making one actor (McQueen) first so that he would be up on the screen first, and the other actor (Newman) higher, even thought he was on the other side of the screen. So one could say, ‘I’m higher’ and the other could say ‘I’m first.’”

  As soon as both McQueen and Newman were in place, Allen called Silliphant, who was on a Caribbean cruise, and summoned him back to rewrite yet again what had to be a Christmas 1974 release. Silliphant immediately realized that the new problems were diplomatic as well as creative.

  “The only ego problem I faced from all the actors, he said, “was an occasional (i.e. daily) ‘contact’ with either Paul Newman or with Steve, or, on blacker days, from both. There was never a problem when they were shooting separate scenes. (Incidentally, I was on the location throughout the filming and therefore, unluckily, in harm’s way). Given a scene with Faye Dunaway, Paul Newman was a dream, as he almost always is. It’s a pleasure just to be around this guy, he’s so bright, so instantaneous, so far ahead of everybody else. But you put Paul in a scene with Steve and we have an entirely different dynamic at work. I was tol
d, privately and separately, by both gentlemen on one occasion or another, ‘Don’t let Steve (or Paul) “blue-eye” me in this scene!’ [223] This meant that if you’d written the scene where the punch line which wraps the scene comes at the end, where the director is likely to cover with a close-up, you’d get Steve socking it across with one of my better lines and laying that cold blue stare right at the camera, and where does that leave Paul? With some kind of vapid reaction shot? No, damn it, Paul needs a last line. He needs that blue-eyed close-up. It wasn’t easy. I had a number of calls late at night when I was trying to enjoy a fine dinner in San Francisco at the expense of Fox/Warners about the scene to be shot the next day. I think I handled it decently because I love Paul and I loved Steve, and I just sort of danced around between them and tried to keep all three of us happy.

  “Despite this, The Towering Inferno did emerge as a powerful and engrossing film, I have to admit, despite all my assaults against having my writing driven by forces beyond my control. I believe this happened because we really took after the shoddy builders, the contractors who gamble with human lives to save a buck, so there was, underneath all the never-ending action, and despite the superficiality of the characters, a deeper dynamic, a humanistic point, which lifted the film an inch or two above its own genre. Naturally, I was astonished when it was nominated for an Academy Award as one of the five best movies of the season. There was no way it could ever win, but at least we all got to put on our tuxedos and eat the standard chicken dinner at one of the big-time hotels.”

  The Towering Inferno made Hollywood history for a reason other than its twin studio partnership, but few people knew at the time, and even fewer know about now: It was the first film to use modern marketing techniques.

  “Between The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno there was a period of experimentation where people were trying to figure out how to deal with the changing times,” said David Forbes, noting that, in the early 1970s, Hollywood was in a slump. “Up until that point, very little television advertising was used in marketing movies. There was some used, but it was peripheral, it was not scientific or substantial. But everybody in town wanted to understand the value of television. So I did a series of experiments at Fox where I would divide the country into parts and would book a whole bunch of theatres in an area according to ADIs. [224] I probably did that for a year, trying to determine how you got value out of television. It was about selling tickets, but it was also about learning how to use television. That led to a completely different kind of marketing when it came time for The Towering Inferno.”

  In other words, instead of having the sales department book the theatres and then have the advertising department find out what TV stations draw people into those theatres, Forbes got the sales department to book the film only in those theatres that fell under the TV broadcast umbrella. By not wasting advertising dollars, “at the time, that’s what helped turn around the industry.” [225]

  It worked. With a $140 million worldwide gross, Inferno set the world on fire, so to speak, and it was inevitable that Allen and Silliphant would be asked to make another disaster movie. They turned out two films that were exactly that: The Swarm and When Time Ran Out.

  “I have little to say about The Swarm,” Silliphant admits, “because I consider it among my worst credits. I thought it was stiff, boring, ridiculous and absolutely uninvolving for the viewer. My only regret is that I let myself be talked into writing it.” Based on the novel by Arthur Herzog about killer bees stinging their way through the country, it was directed by Irwin Allen, demonstrating that his real talent lay in producing. It was followed by one that was even more disappointing, and probably killed the genre: When Time Ran Out. From all reports, everyone involved with the picture knew it was going to be a stinker from the first day of shooting. “I believe this film scrapes the bottom layer off a nadir, assuming a nadir has a bottom layer,” Silliphant shuddered. “The incredible thing about this bomb is that it was written, in one form or another, by three — count ‘em — THREE Academy Award-winning screenwriters: Eddie Anhalt (Becket), Carl Foreman (The Bridge on the River Kwai) and me. Eddie wrote a fine script because he followed the book — written by the team who wrote Is Paris Burning? [226] — and told the fascinating story of the eruption of Mt. Pelee in Martinique. Apparently nobody had informed Warners or Irwin Allen that dark-skinned people inhabit Martinique. They may happen to speak French, and Martinique may, as it really is, be an actual state in the French union, but the people kill chickens and do ritualistic dances at full moons and beat drums and are often restless. It is awfully hard to assemble an all-star cast with ladies and gentlemen who remain to this day proud of their African origins. Once this outrageous oddity came to the attention of the proper authorities, namely the guys with the money, skin color had to be changed. Black had to become, well, brown. So Carl Foreman was brought in to switch locales and characters. Martinique now became a mythical South Sea island, as in South Pacific. Somehow, brown-skinned girls and guys aren’t going to raise hackles in Mississippi. And the next thing you knew, there were white guys and gals in the cast and everything was built around the opening of a new five-star hotel. Unfortunately, the hotel was sited much too close to a volcano, which obligingly has to start acting up as dignitaries arrive for the opening ceremonies.

  “At this point, Irwin Allen called me and invited me to lunch with Paul Newman. Irwin had already signed Paul, along with Jacqueline Bisset, Bill Holden, Barbara Carrera, James Franciscus, Red Buttons, and Ernie Borgnine, and had scouted his locations (on the big island of Hawaii) and signed a director (Jimmy Goldstone). What apparently had not been done was to send the script to Paul — only the contract for a great deal of money — enough to tempt any actor to shoot the Yellow Pages®.

  “But Paul did not feel the script was ready to shoot. He asked Irwin if I would come in and do some changes. Since both Eddie Anhalt and Carl Foreman were friends, I was not enchanted. I did agree to read Carl’s script and I perceived that Carl had simply done what Irwin had asked him to do. But now — in view of Paul’s concern — it wasn’t enough. The film was scheduled to start shooting in four weeks. Would I come to Hawaii and rewrite the script?

  “In one of those grievous decisions which I so often make, I agreed, but only after driving home one of the most lucrative per-week payments I have ever achieved in my career. It was a lot of money, and I was to be given a lavish suite at the hotel with a veranda opening onto the beach, permitted to bring my wife and then-toddler son, handed three first-class round-trip airline tickets, and told that I could sign for room service, etc, etc. up to an unlimited amount of credit.

  “Arriving in Hawaii, I discovered tension between Irwin and his director and a cast who, after the first run-through reading of the script I demanded so that I could then spot weaknesses and try to get ideas from the actors, was totally confused by the material and unhappy about their scenes. The only character not complaining was the goddamned volcano. I saw that the only way we could all live through this experience was for me go to work directly with the actors without either the producer or the director present. And believe it or not, Irwin — who disliked surrendering power or control as much as Napoleon — agreed. I started with Paul and Jackie — the three of us locked in a room taking the ‘worst’ of their scenes first — and trying to improvise a new circumstance and fresh dialogue. There was, for example, a love scene on the beach. We felt we’d seen it before, possibly in From Here to Eternity. What could we do to create an absolutely one-of-a-kind new love scene in the sand between two consenting adults? I wish now I had taped those sessions. They were worth the price of admission. Paul and Jackie were simply great. I felt I’d discovered a new way to write a movie. Then, when we were finished, I went on and worked with other combinations of actors and in one way or another put it all together by the time it came to roll.

  “What we all failed to perceive was that, while here and there, we had come up with some stuff that didn’t
sound too embarrassing, it seemed to lack unity, perspective, a single point-of-view. And no mater how we arranged the furniture, the room still looked shabby because of that volcano out there which had to kill some of our people and cause others to trek to the far side of the island where, we hope, rescue ships would be waiting in the bay as dawn comes on. Ghastly! So what can the writer do when he’s caught in the production juggernaut and you know your best efforts have failed? Smile, exhibit grace, blame nobody — especially yourself for taking the money — and try — in the future — to never fucking get into the same situation again.”

  When time ran out for When Time Ran Out, it ran out for Irwin Allen too. He never made another feature, although he did produce a number of television shows, including a series, Code Red, about his beloved fire fighters. He kept producing through 1986 and died in 1991.

  “Irwin liked everyone to think that he ran everything, that he was boss man in charge,” said Ronald Neame for a 2003 documentary. “He was also a frustrated director. He liked every shot on a storyboard, and he put the drawings all around the wall. When people came to visit him he’d say, ‘You see, we plan everything ahead.’ Now, I fought Irwin on that; I don’t like storyboards. I don’t use them, and I won’t. But I didn’t completely win because, the next day, when we had the rushes on the screen, he would send his sketch artists into the theatre and they would draw my shots and put them ‘round his wall because he had such an ego that he couldn’t bear the idea that he wasn’t in charge of everything.” [227]

  “He was, in some respects, like a bull in a china shop,” said Silliphant’s agent, Don Kopaloff. “He was Hollywood all the way. Everywhere he went, he had to be first class. There were limos everywhere. And to a lot of the younger executives in Hollywood, and to a lot of the young people who were just starting to come forward — don’t forget, this was the time when the old guard was on its way out and the new guard was coming in — they didn’t take him seriously.”