The Towering Inferno » Trivia (Movie)

The large sculpture that is part of the bar design in the Promenade Room was originally used in the Harmonia Gardens set in Hello, Dolly! (1969).

At first 'Irwin Allen' did not want to use music at the first 5 minutes of the Helicopter Sequence. John Williams told Allen that he could come up with 5 minutes of music for the beginning. When Allen heard it, he agreed with Williams.

# # The Towering Inferno's scenic elevator is actually one of two in the Hyatt Regency Hotel in San Francisco. This elevator was used in numerous movies including Time After Time (1979).

For years, during the 80's and 90's, this is the movie Swedish TV used to show on New Years Eve, just after midnight.

The HH-1N helicopters are in the original paint scheme used by NAS Lemoore's Search and Rescue Flight. Later on, they were painted Red and White. Up until the unit's disbandment in 2004, the Flight was still pointing out it was their helicopters used in the movie.

Irwin Allen directed all the action sequences in the film, including the climactic final explosions to put the fire out.

According to Esther Williams in her memoirs, she was personally contacted by Irwin Allen and offered roles in both this film and The Poseidon Adventure (1972), but declined both.

# In the original script the role of the fire chief (known at the time as Mario Infantino) was considerably smaller. According to director John Guillermin, the role was offered to Ernest Borgnine with Steve McQueen playing the architect. McQueen later said, "If somebody of my caliber can play the architect, I'll play the fire chief," and Paul Newman was brought onto the project as the architect

The building used in the film was a series of miniatures and matte paintings. Only sections of the building were actually constructed for the actors and stunt people to perform their scenes. Exterior shots of the building were of San Francisco's Hyatt Rejency with an additional 50 stories of matte paintings added.

Of the 57 sets built for the production, only eight remained standing when filming ended.

Paul Newman did most of his own stunts, including climbing up and down the bent stairwell railing.

The fancy "blinkenlights" computer which runs the Glass Tower is, in fact, composed of parts leftover from an obsolete Air Force system which, in the 1960s and '70s, protected the US from Soviet bomber attack. The computer was named AN/FSQ-7, and about a dozen of them were installed around the US. Based on vacuum tube technology, the 'Q-7 in action took up the whole first floor of a "bomb-proof" concrete blockhouse, and generated as much raw heat as five single-family houses. The whole system became obsolete when missiles replaced manned bombers as the main threat. In the film, only the main control and maintenance consoles are used. As an ironic afterthought, the only reliable source today of vacuum tubes is the former Soviet Union.

During filming an actual fire broke out on one of the sets and Steve McQueen found himself briefly helping real firemen put it out. One of the firemen, not recognizing McQueen, said to the actor, "My wife is not going to believe this." To this McQueen replied, "Neither is mine."

# # Steve McQueen did most of his stunts for the film, including having 7,000 gallons of water dumped on him in the climactic final attempt to put out the fire.

Jennifer Jones's final film to date (2008).