It Was Hideous But I Couldn't Turn Away
Did you ever see a movie that was so bad you just had to keep watching it because you couldn't believe how bad it was? Last night I was cable surfing when I stumbled across the AMC channel showing the movie Earthquake.
This movie was simply awful. Bad acting, bad script, really bad special effects (like when the earthquake hits there's a lot of shaking of the camera to convey the motion caused by the quake.) There's a scene with an airplane attempting to land during the quake. Pathetic. And Ava Gardner plays Lorne Greene's daughter for crying out loud. Charleton Heston was in the movie; I can only guess he needed a paycheck. (Although my Leonard Maltin guide tells me that this movie actually won Academy Awards for pioneering the Sensuround special effect.)
My favorite line came when some quake victims stuck in a skyscraper were lowered one by one to the floor below. They used a fire hose and an office chair to perform the actual lowering but they needed something to keep the people safely strapped in the chair. So Lorne Greene turns to some woman behind him and snaps "Barbara, give me your pantyhose, dammit!"
Well I just lost it.
K-
My boss and I sat through a weekend of disaster movies, including The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, and ending with this gem. I was appalled at the story, but even more so when Heston's wife dies in the sewer at the end. I mean, she hung on until the last second and then simply let go? Ridiculous. And you're right, though, I couldn't not watch it. Sometime I even feel emotions for characters in movies, you know..."I hope they get out of this alive," but for the characters in Earthquake, I was all, "hurry up and die so I can watch something else!"
Someone will probably be offended when I say this, but the worst movie I ever saw was on the Hunter's and my first date. The Cotton Club. If we could get through that, we could get through anything. We laugh about it now, but we've never been able to even try to watch it again.
Congrats to A on his Eagle award, and congrats to you on getting a first round bye in the BlogMadness.
Thank you, TW. A- has to get through his Board of Review but he's done everything that he must to get Eagle. The bye was dumb luck obviously. I don't recall ever seeing The Cotton Club. S- and I saw Popeye on our first date. It was nowhere near as bad as Earthquake.
K-