Mark Robson

The film opens on Stewart Graff (Charleton Heston) jogging underneath the Hollywood sign. Back home, as he finishes his workout on a resistance machine, his shrewd wife Remy Royce-Graff (Ava Gardner) starts her morning by picking a fight with him. At the peak of their argument, Stewart says to Remy, "You'd hardly call this a marriage wouldn't you?" After he's showered and preparing to leave, Stewart finds Remy unconscious with a bottle of pills nearby. Accustomed to her periodic suicide attempts, Stewart prepares to induce vomiting when a violent tremor shakes the bedroom. Remy bolts out of bed, revealing that she was faking. At the Mulholland Dam, two workers begin a routine inspection of the structure in response to the tremor. One of them is drowned in an elevator shaft which has filled with water after the quake. In downtown Los Angeles, Sgt. Lou Slade (George Kennedy) and his partner Emilio Chavez (Pedro Armendáriz, Jr.) are in pursuit of a suspect. They chase him out of their jurisdiction, finally crashing into the hedges at Zsa Zsa Gabor's house. After a Beverly Hills Sheriff yells at Lou for ruining Gabor's hedges, the angry Lou punches him out. When reprimanded, Lou explains to his supervisor that the suspect had stolen the car, gotten stoned, and then driven over a 6-year old Mexican girl without stopping. To his disgust, he receives a temporary suspension from his unfeeling superior. On his way to work, Stewart visits Denise Marshall (Geneviève Bujold), an actress who is the widow of one of his friends and co-workers. He drops off an autographed football for her son and helps Denise run her lines for a scene she is shooting later that day. A junior staffer, Walter Russell (Kip Niven), at the California Seismological Institute has calculated that Los Angeles will suffer a major earthquake in the next day or two. He frantically tries to reach his superior, Dr. Frank Adams (Bob Cunningham), who is busy placing seismic sensors in the field. Another tremor hits as Adams and his assistant are working in a deep trench and they are buried alive. The scientists at the center argue about whether or not to go public with their prediction of a major quake. The acting supervisor, Dr. Willis Stockle (Barry Sullivan), insists that if they are wrong their funding will be jeopardized. He also argues that the panic such a warning would cause could be worse than the earthquake itself. They agree on a compromise to alert the National Guard and police so that they can at least mobilize to help deal with the fallout. While checking out at a grocery store, a poor young woman named Rosa Amici (Victoria Principal) realizes she does not have enough money to pay for all her items. Jody Joad (Marjoe Gortner), the seemingly kind store manager, insists that she keep the items and make up the deficit the next time she shops. Later, when he hears that the National Guard reserves are being called up on the radio, Jody leaves the store in the middle of his shift, revealing himself to be part of the reserve army. He goes to his run-down boarding house and changes into his NCO uniform, enduring the abuse and harassment of his bullying housemates who accuse him of being homosexual because he's got pictures of bodybuilders on his wall. Blowing off steam at a bar, Lou orders a double bourbon and ignores all the illegal activity he sees. A drunk (Walter Matthau) periodically wakes up to toast random people like 'Bobby Riggs'. Daredevil motorcyclist Miles Quade (Richard Roundtree) arrives with his partner Sal Amici (Gabriel Dell) and his sister Rosa. A pool shark collects $50 that Miles owes him, leaving him short for the propane tank he needs to do a stunt for a talent scout. Miles convinces Lou to loan him the money by having Rosa reveal a tight-fitting t-shirt he's marketing with his name on it. The tremor cancelled Denise's shoot; so, she heads to Stewart's office, pretending to meet with a friend. When she runs into him, he is headed out for a drink. They go back to Denise's house for the drink and end up making love. He promises to come back later that night and invites her to spend the summer with him in Oregon, where he will be overseeing a project. Back at the office, his boss Sam Royce offers to hand over the company presidency to Stewart. He asks for some time to consider the idea. Stewart calls Denise and breaks off their plans for later that night. He goes to Sam's office to accept his offer but is stunned to see Remy there. He assumes she has convinced her father, Sam (Lorne Greene), to offer the promotion to Stewart in order to save their marriage. He storms out and she follows him, accusing him of cheating with Denise. He explains that he never had until that day. When they get outside the building, the main earthquake begins, rupturing the San Andreas Fault, and causing thousands of buildings to collapse and causing hundreds of thousands of people to die while shaking Southern California for nearly six to nine minutes. The earthquake is measured 9.9 on the richter scale at the Seismological Institute. When the earthquake subsides, Sam and most of his employees are trapped on the upper floors of their skyscraper, as the elevators have crashed to the ground. They descend most of the way by the stairs, but the earthquake has sheared off a portion of the building, leaving an impasse of about two stories. Sam rigs a fire hose to a chair and lowers his staff down one at a time. When everyone is safe, he suffers a heart attack, and Stewart climbs up to lower him down in the chair. Meanwhile, Denise's son was caught on a bridge over a freeway causeway when the quake struck. She spies him unconscious on the concrete and climbs down to save him. Unable to climb back out with her son, she hails Miles and Sal who are passing by in their truck. After saving Denise and her son, they drive in search of help, coming across Lou who is organizing rescue efforts in the street. Lou commandeers their truck to use it as an ambulance. After nibbling on a donut in a ruined diner, Rosa has been arrested by the National Guard for looting. Jody, now a sergeant, picks her out of a group of prisoners. Recognizing him from the grocery store, Rosa assumes he is going to let her go, but he claims that the streets are too unsafe for her to go anywhere and he orders her to stay inside a secluded store. Another group of troops arrive with Jody's housemates as prisoners. Jody executes them in an act of revenge for all the long time bullying he endured from them, terrifying Rosa and his subordinates as they now see his dark psychopathic side. Once Stewart gets everyone from his office safely to a shopping center named Wilson Plaza, which has been converted into a triage center, he goes off in search of Denise and her son. He ends up driving Lou around in search of survivors and they come across Jody and his regiment. Jody threatens to fire on them if they come any closer and Rosa emerges when she sees Lou, begging for his help. Lou and Stewart pretend to comply with Jody by driving off while Sgt. Joad's scared men look for an officer to have him face a court martial and detainment. But Lou sneaks back and gets the jump on Jody, who's enraged at Rosa for betraying and rejecting him and tries to rape her. Lou shoots Jody dead in self-defense when Jody tries to kill him with his rifle and rescues Rosa. As they drive away, they hear that another aftershock has threatened Wilson Plaza. After a quick survey of the building, Stewart realizes there are survivors trapped in an underground garage. He and Lou crawl into the sewer and through some rubble with a jackhammer, which they use to drill through to the garage. Stewart is overjoyed to find Denise, who is one of the people trapped inside. As he hugs her, he sees his wife standing just behind her. During the rescue, the Mulholland Dam finally gives way, sending water down the sewers. Lou and Denise make it up the ladder to safety, but as Remy climbs out, a man steps on her hand. She falls back into the water which is sweeping people away. Stewart looks up at Denise, but he cannot bring himself to abandon his wife to her death. He sacrifices himself when he swims after her and both of them are swept away and presumably drown. Denise walks away from the manhole in shock and grief. Lou is holding Rosa when a doctor walks up to him and says, "This used to be a helluva town, officer." Lou mumbles, "Yeah" as he tries not to cry. The camera pans back to reveal a completely destroyed Los Angeles.

Humphrey Bogart is Eddie Willis an older washed up unemployed sports writer hired by Nick Benko (Rod Steiger) a gangster fight promoter to publicize an unknown hulking South American heavyweight boxer Toro Moreno (Mike Lane). In the sparring session it is obvious that Moreno has no boxing skills. The scheme is to get out of New York and build up Toro against fighters who are being paid to take a dive so Steiger can cash in down the line in a big fight by betting against Toro. Bogart goes along reluctantly for the money but is constantly at odds with Steiger and his crooked henchmen's tactics. Bogarts wife (Jan Sterling) tries to convince him to go back to writing but he has been seduced by the promise of money and his share of the fighter. When one of Toro's opponents is knocked out in the ring and later dies, the fighter's fatal injuries were sustained in a previous fight, Toro wants to go back home. Bogart convinces him to stay and fight one more bout against the champion by leveling with him about his skills and that he couldn't hurt anyone. To prove this he has Toro's sparing partner (Jersey Joe Walcott) knock Toro down in the hotel room. His final opponent, played by real heavyweight fighter Max Baer, vows to hurt Toro to prove he was the one who injured the deceased fighter and administers a brutal beating in the fight to Toro. When Bogart tries to get Toro's share of the purse he is rebuffed by Steiger and his crooked accountant (Nehemiah Persoff) and told the fighter's net share is basically zero. Steiger sells Toro's contract to another lowlife promoter but Bogart spirits Toro to the airport and ends up giving him his share of the fighter's proceeds so Toro won't go home broke. Despite threats from Steiger, Bogart decides to write an expose on the fight game and the crooked promoters and gangsters involved.

The captain of an Antarctic whaling ship falls overboard in mysterious circumstances and his daughter, aided by a sympathetic American, decides to investigate the accident. Duncan Craig signs on a whaling ship, partly because his own business deal has fallen through, partly to help Judie Nordhall find her father. Rumor has it that her father may have been murdered by Erik Bland, son of her father's partner and her one-time lover. Duncan and Erik find themselves on rival whaleboats and, ultimately, on an ice floe. —Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>

U.S. Navy Lieutenant Harry Brubaker (William Holden) is a pilot who previously fought during World War II, went back to his civilian job as an attorney, and is now a recalled naval reservist further engaged in the Korean War flying F9F Panthers in the Korean War from carriers. He is returning from a mission where his jet sustained battle damage and he has to ditch it into the bone chilling cold of the Sea of Japan. Brubaker is about to freeze to death when a Navy rescue helicopter a Sikorsky HO3S-1 appears. The rescue helicopter that saves Brubaker is flown by an enlisted Naval Aviation Pilot (NAP), the eccentric green top hat-and-scarf wearing Chief Petty Officer Mike Forney (Mickey Rooney), with Forney's crewman AD2 Nestor Gamidge (Earl Holliman) jumping into the freezing water to hook Brubaker to the rescue harness. Forney had often been in trouble for brawling and sporting a non-regulation green top hat and scarf while flying his helicopter as encouragement to downed pilots in the water. Back aboard his ship, the aircraft carrier USS Savo Island Brubaker is called to the quarters of Rear Admiral Tarrant, the Carrier Task Force 77 commander, who has taken an interest in Brubaker. Rear Admiral Tarrant (Fredric March) lost his own son at the Battle of Midway during World War II and Brubaker's manner and bearing brings back memories of his lost son. Brubaker complains about the unfairness of his recall when most actively flying/actively drilling Naval Reserve pilots weren't recalled (Brubaker hadn't been flying in the Reserve), America is not actually "at war", and most Americans have no involvement. Tarrant advises that, "All through history, men have had to fight the wrong war in the wrong place, but that's the one they're stuck with." The admiral finds the pilot is tired of war and just wants to return to civilian life to be with his family and the legal career he left behind. Nevertheless, they both agree to the necessity of seeing this conflict through to its conclusion. A new mission is set. The target is a group of bridges used by Communist forces. Commander Wayne Lee (Charles McGraw), the Commander of the Carrier Air Group ("CAG"), is dedicated to his men, but Tarrant would rather see him dedicated to his mission. Lee had come to Tarrant with a complaint over the carrier captain's overuse of engines on tied-down aircraft during docking. However, when reminded that the captain would be writing his performance review, Lee backs down -- a weakness which prompts Tarrant to decide not to recommend Lee for promotion. The Savo Island returns to port in Japan. Brubaker is told that his wife Nancy (Grace Kelly) and children have arrived in Tokyo on an unexpected visit, and he is given a three-day pass during a port visit. Their reunion is interrupted when Nestor shows up at their hotel asking Brubaker's help in bailing Forney out of the guardhouse after a brawl with another sailor. Nancy, anxious to have her husband back home, is terrified to discover the signs of a man ready to crack from combat fatigue. Nancy is deep into thoughts of being left as a widow. Tarrant tries to support her, although he, too, remembers how his own daughter-in-law had almost turned insane after losing her husband, Tarrant's son. Back on a carrier off Korea, Brubaker flies as wing-man for Commander Lee, the carrier air group commander known as "CAG" (from his position as Commander, Air Group in the carrier), on a dangerous reconnaissance to photograph the bridges. Back to the carrier, Lee presents to his pilots the air photos taken from a low pass over Toko-Ri. The flak is extremely dense, and the pilots have to fly very low into the banks of the river while receiving fire from all sides. Brubaker gets sick after this briefing and believes his days are numbered. He is ready to write a letter to Nancy predicting his own death. Forney crosses the captain of Savo Island once too often, and then he is exiled to a helicopter scow. As he is leaving the ship, he notices Brubaker's distress and relates a "cure" for bad nerves that have worked for him, standing on the bow of the ship and facing the waves. Brubaker follows his advice and finds renewed strength within himself. Lee tries to boost the pilot's morale by asking him to stay behind if he feels he cannot accomplish his mission. Brubaker vows to do his duty. The initial attack is on a series of bridges. Lee organizes two formations, the second one to be led by Brubaker. The results from the first attack are incomplete, so he orders the second group led by Brubaker to attack. Brubaker's team dashes in low and completes the destruction of the last bridge. In the attack on the bridges, the antiaircraft fire is intense, but the jets destroy the bridges without a loss. Lee then directs the air group to attack a secondary target, an ammunition dump. As Brubaker completes the run, his fighter aircraft receives a hit that creates a fuel leak. Lee escorts Brubaker, guiding him back to the carrier, but the fuel loss will not allow Brubaker to overcome the last hill before the sea. He belly-lands onto a relatively flat area. The rescue helicopter and his faithful friends Mike and Nestor land close by to pick him up, but North Korean ground troops arrive and machine gun the helicopter, killing Nestor and eliminating any chance of flying out of danger. They try to hold off the enemy with pistols and Forney's and Gamidge's M1 carbines until they can be rescued, but both are killed by the North Korean and Red Chinese soldiers. After getting confirmation from the U.S. Army that the three Americans are killed, Admiral Tarrant is shattered by the news and demands an explanation from Commander Lee of why he attacked the second target. Lee retorts that despite the losses, the mission was a success. Tarrant sorrowfully must accept that Lee has "matured", recommending him for promotion. The film ends with Tarrant alone, wondering where Brubaker and all the others under his command could have found the bravery to do what is asked from them.

While pursuing new love interests, a former married couple keep running into each other all over town. Robert and Nina divorce after eight years of marriage. He takes up with his womanizing Navy buddy Charlie Nelson while she looks to her interfering mother for guidance. Both start dating other people, but although they try to ignore each other whenever they accidentally meet, it is obvious the past is not dead. Then one night they find themselves in a nightclub doing the mambo together. —Jeremy Perkins {J-26} After months of each feeling but not stating outwardly to the other that they have been dissatisfied with their marriage, lawyer Robert Tracey and soap opera creator and writer Nina Tracey née Chapman, after eight years of marriage, decide to get an uncontested divorce. They are at the stage of hating the other so much that despite the divorce being uncontested on both sides, each is irked that the break-up isn't causing the other any grief. Each also feels that the downfall of their marriage is in large part due to the advice and support of their primary confidantes, Robert's being his womanizing best friend, plagiarizing playwright and old army buddy Charlie Nelson, and Nina's being her mother, interior designer Edith Chapman, who is further advised by who Robert considers Edith's quack of a therapist, Dr. Van Kessel. During the post-divorce period, Robert and Nina constantly run into each other. Their individual lives also seem to parallel each other, including the satisfaction of their respective dates with others, which are encouraged by Charlie and Edith. That parallel also includes an eventual realization about their true feeling for the other. The question becomes if their pre-divorce behavior of not stating what they're feeling will kibosh what each really wants in life. —Huggo

Boxer Midge Kelly rises to fame...mainly by stepping on other people. Hitchhiking west with his lame brother Connie, Midge Kelly is hustled unprepared into a pro boxing match. Though he's severely beaten, manager Tommy Haley finds him promising. In California, Midge and Connie find nothing but a menial job from which Midge gets relief by seducing Emma, a lovely young waitress. One shotgun marriage later, ambitious Midge falls back on the only option he knows: boxing. Seduced by cheering crowds, money, and a succession of blondes, Midge becomes more and more of a hero in public...and a heel in private.