The Towering Inferno The Towering Inferno The Towering Inferno is a 1974 American drama disaster film produced by Irwin Allen featuring an all-star cast led by Paul Newman and Steve McQueen. The picture was directed by John Guillermin. A co-production between 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros., it was the first film to be a joint venture by two major Hollywood studios. It was adapted by Stirling Silliphant from a pair of novels, "The Tower" by Richard Martin Stern and "The Glass Inferno" by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson. The film earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Picture
The Towering Inferno 20th Century Fox on April 15, 2003, with a special edition released on May 9, 2006. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film three out of four stars and praised it as "the best of the mid-1970s wave of disaster films". "Variety" praised the film as "one of the greatest disaster pictures made, a personal and professional triumph for producer Irwin Allen. The $14 million cost has yielded a truly magnificent production which complements but does not at all overwhelm a thoughtful personal drama." Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" wrote that the film is "overwrought and