Ah, the 1970s disaster movies. Grew up with those. Love the genre!

"You'll have to pry my Blu-ray copy of Earthquake out of my cold, dead hand!"- Chuck Heston.

This movie came out when a lot of larger single auditorium theaters were "twinning," that is, building a wall down the center of the auditorium to turn it into two theaters. I saw “The Godfather Part II” in such a theater in Omaha, NE, where “Earthquake” was playing next door. When Michael Corleone grabs his brother Fredo's face, gives him a long kiss on the lips and says, "I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!" I felt this deep rumbling in my gut. At first, I thought it my visceral reaction to the scene. Then I realized it was the Sensaround from "Earthquake" bleeding through the paper-thin wall. Weirdly, I actually think it added to the experience.

Earthquake, Towering Inferno and Poseidon Adventure are the triple crown for 70's disaster movies.

Anyone else love Stam Fine?

RIP Tuvix.. may we never forget

Not a bad film, but it has one major fault.

that’s one hell of a deep cut Star Trek joke my dude!

Victoria Principal's incredible ta ta's shake very nicely. Earthquake sure ain't in the same league as Towering Inferno, but it still has Chuck Heston, George Kennedy and Lorne Greene which makes it imminently watchable...that bizarre Walter Matthau cameo also rocks.

I went with my father to see this movie . The big deal about this one was " SENSUROUND " which used speakers to vibrate the seats when the earthquake hits . For me , the " SENSUROUND " was barely noticeable . However , my poor father was sitting directly over a speaker and he looked like a RAG DOLL being bounced around and was almost thrown out of his seat . For the next thirty years , any time someone mentioned going to the movies , he brought up his experience seeing EARTHQUAKE !

I'd put The Towering Inferno (the gold standard for mainstream '70s cheese) above this, but Earthquake is still a perfectly serviceable time. 7/10 sounds about right.

I was 12 years old and in junior high when this movie came out and this was my favorite movie ever. My first visit to Los Angeles at 19 years old I just had to find the Hollywood reservoir which wasn't that easy back then before GPS. People probably thought I was a terrorist but I found it. ❤

Earthquake was shown in an Immersive Format called Sensurround. The Theater Seats would Vibrate whenever there was an Earthquake on film, Creating the Illusion of experiencing an Earth Tremor while watching the Movie. This was probably a big reason why the film was so successful.

Actually saw this in Sensurround when it opened in London. And yes, it *really* worked.

I'm glad to see you're shaking things up around here

Ava Gardner is amazing in this. Everybody else is playing this like the tepid soap opera it is, she’s there performing her own rendition of Martha from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. I think Gardner’s film is much more interesting than what we actually got.

I saw the film at the Ziegfeld in NYC. We were held in the lobby while the previous show was running waiting out turn. Senserround went off and you could feel it... when it stopped you could see the chandeliers swaying. Everyone was looking at one another like WTF? :D

Every time a clip of Airport comes on, I am convinced Stam Fine snuck in Airplane ! instead.

My friend and I spent a day with the shoot while they were at Western and Oxford. It was an incredible feat of set dressing. Practical effects. Rubble, crushed cars, twisted light poles and the camera mounted in a special shaker rig.

They used to put these on TV on friday evenings in the 1980s. A school mate used to sleep over and we'd watch these and other films that were probably not for kids our age. The only one that got shown regularly after that was the Poseidon adventure.

I grew up watching these on TV and never failed to sit through Earthquake whenever it was on. One Christmas in the 90’s i had a girlfriend kick off at me because i wanted to watch,she went that made she kicked me outta her house but luckily for me i had time to get back to mine mine and catch the beginning. She did it again when the Peter Benchley two parter Creature aired, that time she was at mine and i said i don’t care what you do I’m watching this. Well she’s still single and I’ve been happily married for twenty years so things played out pretty well

I loved this movie because of the destruction on visual effects that makes it realistically disastrous. It won 4 Academy Awards including Best Visual Effects and Best Sound. Universal Studios made a wonderful film in style of the 1970s. 😊

Did you know? This was the film in the background during the "chainsaw" scene in Scarface 1983.

Some of the effects sequences were later used in Battlestar Galactica 1980 to depict a hypothetical Cylon attack on Earth, with the Cylon Raiders matted into the destruction.

They had the ride at Universal Florida way into the 21st Century. It was impressive but the amount of people who actually remember the film must have been small

I didn't know who Genevieve Bujold was but then you said that she was, "very nearly the murderer of Tuvix." Then i knew exactly who you were talking about. Nicely done!

The Sensurround was amazing at the time. It gave you a sense the the theater was vibrating during the earthquake sequences.

I remember this film and it's great. Still entertaining today for some reason.

Quaking in my boots for this one

It's good that this film didn't have Plot Armour for some of its big stars. Thanks for the great review.

I saw it in the theater and the Sensurround speakers fizzled and farted, but produced no vibrations!

How did I miss this? I thought I saw all the 1970s disaster films…back in the day. As these disaster films age, they gradually turn into comedies.

I remember sort of watching it on late night TV a long time ago. Watching this made me remember why I never wanted to see it ever again.

I lived through the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area, far to the North of LOS Angeles. Measured roughly at 7.0 on the Richter scale, the devastation was nowhere near as bad as this movie. Lives were lost and many structures were damaged. I remember being rather stunned by the event. Movies like this are a good reminder of how life can change instantly!

Love the footage of later shows reusing the movie's visual effects!

I enjoyed this movie when it came out in theaters. When I was a kid, the elevator scene scared the crap out of me when it fell.

What is fun about these movies, it was before computers took over special effects and everything was done either by models or large sets. I saw Earthquake when I was 13 in 1975. The lines to get in that movie were really long! My friend and I went to see Earthquake during winter break, but the line was so long, we saw Airport 75 instead at the same theater complex. Airport 75 also came out at the same time. Both movies stared Charlton Heston and George Kennedy. Speaking of the tacky 70's, I hate seeing old photos of me wearing my ugly plaid Sears Toughskin jeans!

Poor George Kennedy: great character actor stuck in so many bad movies.

9:53 Gotta LOVE Victoria Principal in this movie, with her ‘70s hair style and black leather pantsuit.

I was Obsessed with Earthquake when it came out in theaters - Went to see it many times - Loved the Sensurround sound system - I saw The Towering Inferno many times as well - Watched Inferno around 5 years ago and it still holds up and is still terrifying

" Very nearly the murderer of Tuvix". That is a DEEP cut.

I remember seeing this great film and hearing the thunderstorm rag8ng outside the cinema. It was a strange experience.

I remember Mad Magazine’s satire of this movie. It stated that the comic strip was written using new technology called “Quakearound” and there was an instruction that appeared every time there was an earthquake scene - please shake the magazine 😂

"The Poseidon Adventure" was a borderline mind-blowing experience for me at the theater when I was 11, but I think "Earthquake" may be the best of the 1970's disaster movies as it was a believable situation and I think there were fairly believable characters with some back story. The sets and the special effects have held up very well through the decades.

Saw this in theaters in a double bill with Airport '75! Huge screen in an old theater, for $1.

I saw Earthquake in its first release and fondly recall the tall Sensurround speakers lining the sides of the theater. Rumors flew that if you put your hand in the speakers when they started rumbling -- your arm would be blown off! Years later, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art had a film series of soundtrack breakthroughs where the programmer/projectionist hunted down the original electronics used for the Sensurround process. A number of years after that, there was a screening in a cinema on the ground floor of an art museum which was relocated to a nearby university because the museum administrators were concerned that the Sensurround effect could damage objets d'art in their collection.

Matte paintings by the great Albert Whitlock. It's pretty entertaining and moves along well. It does feel a bit like a TV movie with a film budget though. Film gets George Kennedy bonus point.

I remember going to see this three times when I was 12. The sensurround was touted as the next big thing but it was only used in one other big release, Midway.

This movie was one of the best of the 1970s disaster movies.

I chanced upon your channel 2 weeks ago and I've been binge watching since because your output is superb! You are by far the best of the multitude of similar reviewers that I've viewed and your scripts and creativity are marvellous as is your sense of humour. Your Knight Rider review had me laughing out loud repeatedly; excellent work! ❤

I love the disaster movies! They're so much fun

I see Charlton Heston exercised the "bare chest" clause included in every contract he ever signed.

They had an earthquake ride at Universal Studios in Florida in the mid to late 80's. It was amazing, it scared the crap out of me when I was a kid.

😂😂😂, i know i shouldn't laugh, but when that daredevil motorbike rider comes off that loop and just crashes i was in hysterics when i first saw this film.

I loved that film when i was a kid. 👍👍

Sensurround was the gimmick in Earthquake, Midway, and Rollercoaster...

I worked at the building where Lorne Greene's office was (Hollywood and Sunset) lol. That building was closed down by the LAFD, none of fire alarms work, mismanagement

Hey Stam... Stam Fine! You gots to check out disaster movie "Avalanche" (1978) with Rock Hudson, Mia Farrow, Robert Forster etc. etc. etc... It's "Earthquake" with snow... lots of snow; and it's unintentionally funny too. Go get 'em Stam! I know you can do it because I believe in you!

Seeing this for the first time on TV as a little kid in 1980-something scared the sht out of me

The fault is not in our stars, but in the tectonic plate.

Stam, sometimes you are good. Occasionally you are good. On this one, you were GOOD! (But your best one is still Fantastic Voyage.)

My eldest brother took me to see Earthquake and it was promoted as being in "SENSOR ROUND" and your seats seemed to rumble. Shown at Hoyts Cinema Bourke St, Melbourne. I remember it clearly as an 8 year old. I had nightmares about Earthquakes for several years after. 😂 Ps, I loved Quantum leap. Never saw that episode. Now I will have to get the series.

Saw the great double feature out in LA on La Tijera while I was going to school - Earthquake and The Towering Inferno - we called it Shake and Bake.

THE EARTHQUAKE MOVIE ALSO HAD A SPECIAL (SURROUND SOUND) SPECIAL THEATER SPEAKERS WERE INSTALLED IN THE THEATRE TO MAKE YOU FEEL THE SOUND IN YOUR SEATS.

Given the movie's end, at least we weren't subjected to "Smell-O-Vision".

Gortner in Starcrash. 😅

There's an episode of Quantum Leap where Sam leaps into the body of a stunt man during the 70s and the character of that show gets incorporated into the filming of Earthquake. Apparently the stunt man that's gripping on for dear life after he falls from the damaged staircase.

Good movie. Reminds me of Christmas. It always seemed to be on tv over Christmas when I was a kid in the uk.

Being a lifelong California kid, this movie was never far from my consciousness my whole life. Then, when it appeared on Netflix last year, I realized I had never sat down and watched the whole thing all at once. So I did. I was shocked at how hilarious it was at times. It was difficult to work out whether some of the comedy was as intentional as it seemed, but the overall effect of seemingly slapstick moments juxtaposed to the serious melodrama, was rather disjointed and weird. I will say that a lot of the acting was really top notch, and while some of the special effects were a bit dodgy (and the elevator blood splatter was ridiculous), a majority of the miniatures work was just fantastic. But in the end, the whole exercise felt really cynical. Not in the exploitative sense, but just kind of mean-spirited and empty. I hadn't expected that.

Earthquake is ABSOLUTELY AWESOME and STUNNINGLY AMAZING

I have two perspectives on this movie! When I saw it as a kid it was spectacular and a must see! As an adult I still enjoy it, but take some of the special effects of that era with a grain of salt! Like when Denise is out by the hillside houses and the guy on the balcony's place starts tumbling down.... but where were all of the electrical and plumbing connections going haywire?! Haha! Another rather useless bit of the movie was the television version that added Deboralee Scott and her husband on the plane flying into LAX and "nearly missing" a plane disaster when the runway cracks up and the pilots pull up at the last seconds to land somewhere else! Sheesh! Her cards predicted something like that!

A funny fact, Lorne Green, played a building contractor in Earthquake, and in 1980 he reprised his role as Commander Adama, in Galactica 1980. Which used scenes from Earthquake, when they depicted a Cylon Attack on Earth.

At least Geneviève Bujold didn't lose her head in this one.

Rollercoaster from 1977 was another popular film that could fall under the disaster umbrella.

See this when I was 10yrs old wish I could find the dvd

Only 4 movies were released with Sensurround: Earthquake, Midway, Battlestar Galactica and Rollercoaster.

I liked this movie as a kid.

Two pieces of trivia for this film: 1) In the earthquake sequence, there is real-life footage of real houses being destroyed. Excluding the one where the house blows up (which was filmed on a studio lot), the other houses were slated for demolition of the 210 freeway (the Foothill Freeway), so Universal had a whole lot of nearly-free buildings to film being destroyed by "the earthquake". 2) Ava Gardener took the role so she could spend summer in Los Angeles. In MY opinion, she was terribly miscast, but like movie stars did back then, she showed up on time, she knew their lines, and she was ready to work every single time without exception before their official call time, and never once wasted any of anyone's time. If you want to critique anything, critique the script - but Ms. Gardner did her job as requested, and did so marvelously.

Thanks for walking me down memory lane. I'd forgotten how popular those disaster films were. And I did see Earthquake when it first came out. The 'sensurround' was this big box set up in the front of the theater, and frankly I don't remember it doing much of anything - I WISH it had rattled my teeth!

I watched this on a rainy afternoon on New Zealand maybe 30 years ago

I recall being 16 in 1974 and my friends and I snuck in through the exit. We still complained later, in the parking lot, that we felt cheated.

This was so much fun seeing it at the theater in Sensurround.

The special effects for this movie hold up prettier darn good up to this day and they had no CGI to rely on back then.

This morning on my way to work at 4:34 am the word “Moneymaker” was stuck in my mind and didn’t know why. At 6:17 am arrived near my job to get some coffee ☕️ and sat down to enjoy my breakfast then came across this on YT app. Now it makes sense!!! It probably has meaning for me today! 😆

It's unfortunate you were not able to see this in the theaters to actually experience the built-in "Sensurround" and feel the quake along with the rest of the audience.

Best special effects-Ava Gardner

The thing I always remember about this film for some reason is the National Guardsmen ridiculed by by his fellows going off to training who later wastes them as looters! If your going to watch probably makes for a good double header with 'The Towering Inferno' or if your really going for it add in one of the 'Airport' movies!

Being a former Southern California resident living in the county of Los angeles, when I went to go see this movie at the grauman's Chinese theater after waiting for at least 3 to 4 hours in line as was the custom back in those days four movies like this in Star wars etc, it was pretty good sound effects for the mid-70s. I agree that when the elevator crashed in earthquake and the blood split it out on the screen that was pretty much laughable. It was good for the day and it would be really interesting to see a remake of these movies done well with the sound effects that they have today and since Hollywood is really into making remakes of movies of the past why not start with the Irwin Allen master of disaster movies? Although I have to admit that when you live in Southern California in the San Fernando valley, the best thing was driving down the street and watching them film part of a movie or a commercial. Which was pretty much an everyday thing. But it was still fun.

My dad took me to see this on my 9th birthday, upon my insistence. I wanted to experience SENSE-A-ROUND and witness an earthquake. My mistake. It scared me to tears. I sat with my hands over my ears, and my eyes shut tight for most of the movie.

Glad it was mentioned of the slight age difference between father(Lorne Greene) and daughter (Eva Gardner), noticeably odd. My favorite disaster movie was The Poseidon Adventure.

I went to see it when it first came out ,the theater had Sensurround was something else ,I think 50 years later my butt is still buzzing from it,oddly the movie Midway had the same system

I remembered watching this movie as a small child & it scared the hell out of me. I'd love to find it on DVD to add to my DVD collection. I recently finally found The Towering Inferno.. 💯

Have you done a review of "Logan's Run" (1976)? Definitely worth a watch, even just to see Farrah Fawcett's hair. (shame on anyone who might mutter, "Farrah who?")

I was an excited 12 year old when i saw this..in senseround..it consisted of a low bass through the speakers in the cinema..seemed to do something..😮

I thought for a moment that Walter Matthau was Sid James...

It was the first movie to have "Sensurround" which was done by large base speakers at theaters. The Bethany Theater in Phoenix Arizona was damaged when the brick structure had cracks appear due to the vibrations.

Lovin' me some disasters...

So it’s a stuntman movie. Hooper and The Stunt Man are great watches as well.

8:20 -"The chances are a hundred to one that everybody in that building is dead!" -"Oh. Well, I guess that means we're almost certain to find survivors then. Let's go, everybody!" -"No! No, I actually meant the exact opposite of the thing that I said!"

There are many unintentionally hilarious moments in this movie. Besides Walter Matthau's bizarre role, there's a guy with a lit cigarette running into a house with a gas leak, a woman getting glass shards in her face before the glass falls on her, and a helpful Lorne Green pulling someone off a scaffold to fall to their death. I'll re-watch this movie just to catch those moments.