Charlton Heston has got to be the king of end-of-world cinematic. While this film isn't necessarily the apocalypse, during certain scenes of earthquakin' nastiness it at least seems comparable. It's hard for me to pick a favorite from the vast amount of 70s disaster flicks because they are all pretty similar in terms of quality(even the made-for-T.V. ones). This one follows the formula pretty closely with a bunch of guest stars, Ava Gardner(as the bitchy wife of ol' Chuck H.), George Kennedy(as a badass cop), Richard"SHAFT" Roundtree(as a black version of Evel Knievel!) and my personal favorite, Walter Matthau( as a perpetually drunken barfly!). Lots of destruction porn ensues after about 40 minutes with lots of debris taking folks out. Unfortunately the movie then drags on for an over 2 hour runtime which was a bit much. You do get a somewhat nihilistic 70s ending though if you tough it out.
When this played theatrically it was shown in SENSURROUND which was a new sound system that shook the audience up to recreate the quake experience. It made a few people sick so it wan't used on too many movies after this.
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