Before Jaws, there was The Towering Inferno, a grand obelisk of a movie complete with music from John Williams. The strong human drama escalates with the discovery of a fire in a giant high-rise in San Francisco. Firefighters are quick to act under the aegis of chief Michael O'Hallorhan (Steve McQueen). Along with architect Doug Roberts (Paul Newman), they work to get control of the blaze before it reaches the occupants of the Promenade Room on floor 135.

In the wake of Papillon, McQueen counters the bloat produced by the special effects with a firm stance, lack of hesitation and a face born to be captured on the motion picture screen. He's the force or secret weapon behind The Towering Inferno. No amount of pyrotechnics can get in his way. A telling expression late in the game confirms my belief in the power and subtlety of visual storytelling.

Newman continues to redefine his heroic persona. He's smart, always looking out for the other guy and confident in his ability to take charge.

Composer John Williams surpasses himself in the first five minutes: he establishes tone, paints in the nascent dramatic landmarks and gives us the most indelible main titles of any disaster flick.

Another of my favourite touches involves the casting of William Holden as the owner of The Glass Tower. He brings a wealth of detail to the fore. From his initial doubt about the seriousness of the fire to a dreaded realization of the inevitable -- we can read his face without dialogue getting in the way.

Production values feature in the dynamic realism category. The scenes in which firefighters go to work represent classic filmmaking minimalism. As trucks descend on the building, the sound of sirens pierces through the inertia, ramping up the excitement to potent extremes.

Now for the bad news: the camera loves to linger on the suffering of human beings. For example, the demise of Dan Bigelow (Robert Wagner) and his secretary girlfriend ekes out the pain longer than necessary. This hurts the film, removing a lot of the escapist factor. After all, we're not supposed to feel uncomfortable with such entertainment. For me, The Towering Inferno has great technical dexterity -- you wonder how they did it -- but the filmmakers sacrifice common sense in favour of heavy-handed emotion. It's not a good tradeoff.

(Released by 20th Century Fox and rated "PG" by MPAA.)