King Kong (1976) d. John Guillerman (USA) (134 min)
After Airport kicked off the all-star disaster-film craze, director Guillermin was tapped to helm Skyjacked, a fairly transparent riff on the Irwin Allen blockbuster, with Charlton Heston’s take-no-guff pilot contending with James Brolin’s mad bomber at 30,000 feet. Fittingly enough, Guillerman landed the next big bang boom, 1974’s The Towering Inferno, the success of which led to his assignment on the decade’s highest profile extravaganza to that point: Dino de Laurentiis’ then-staggering 24-million dollar remake of the classic Beauty and the Beast tale. It proved to be the perfect blend of 1970s big-budget mayhem and the “Nature Strikes Back” Eco-horror wave that was just hitting its peak with Jaws.
