TCMFF 2026: Craig Barron and Ben Burtt Present The Towering Inferno
July 29, 2026
Craig Barron and Ben Burtt’s special effects presentations at the TCM Classic Film Festival have grown bigger and bigger every year. So, it’s fitting that at the 2026 fest they went all out with one of the most epic disaster films, The Towering Inferno (1974), opening with a video that placed them back in the 1970s—and working on the movie!
Below are some highlights from their event, where they discussed the film's visual effects (Barron's specialty) and sound effects (Burtt's specialty). Sadly, I don’t have all the amazing outtakes and behind-the-scenes snapshots they shared, but I was able to find a few that will help illustrate some of the fascinating facts they presented!
Ben Burtt and Craig Barron taking the stage in firemen suits to present The Towering Inferno at the 2026 TCM Classic Film Festival. (Photo by Kim Luperi)
The beginning
It all began with the “master of disaster,” Irwin Allen, a trained journalist who directed The Sea Around Us (1953), which won him an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. Allen found fame on TV, creating The Time Tunnel in 1966 and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea in 1964, and rose the ranks of 20th Century Fox. In 1972, he produced The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and, ready for something bigger, he acquired the rights to Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson’s The Glass Inferno. Meanwhile, though, Warner Brothers obtained the rights to Richard Martin Stern’s The Tower. Both books had a similar theme, which means they’d compete at the box office, so Allen had a big idea: join forces for one gigantic movie based on both works. Surprisingly, the studios went for it, the first major joint production of its kind! Stirling Silliphant penned the screenplay, John Guillermin directed, and Allen produced and also helmed (uncredited) the action sequences.
One of the novels was based in New York, but Allen chose to set the film in San Francisco. In the 1970s, the skyline was less developed, and the movie could easily spotlight the infamous glass tower that appears in the film, which was an enormous 138 stories tall. (For comparison, the Salesforce Tower, which dominates the San Francisco skyline today, is 61 stories!)
The cast
Talk about an epic cast: Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Fred Astaire, Jennifer Jones, and many more appeared in the film. McQueen was initially cast as the architect, Doug, and Ernest Borgnine, who co-starred in The Poseidon Adventure, was set to play the fire chief. McQueen preferred the blue-collar role, though, and moved into Borgnine’s spot. For the architect, he suggested Newman, who arguably was a bigger star than Borgnine at the time. Both men garnered an epic $1 million salary—each!—but consideration was made to ensure they were represented equally. For instance, in the credits McQueen’s name comes first… but Newman’s is higher. So technically they both received top billing, Barron and Burtt joked.
Those are some large miniatures!
The sets
Fifty-seven sets were crafted for the movie, almost all of them built to endure fire and special effects. L. B. “Bill” Abbott, the visual effects supervisor, was the head of the Fox visual effects department and won several Oscars, including for Doctor Doolittle (1967), Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), and special awards for The Poseidon Adventure and Logan’s Run (1976).
One of the most awe-inspiring pieces created was a miniature glass tower, built at 1:24 scale, which was still 70 feet tall! It had internal lighting for nighttime sequences, and countless gas jets were ignited by spark plugs behind its small windows for the fire scenes; they produced flames that looked real when captured at 72 frames per second. (Fun fact: To get a shot from a human’s point of view looking up at the miniature tower, they placed a mirror angled at 45 degrees in front of the camera. The camera recorded right into the mirror to produce a view looking straight up.) The production team also utilized 1:8 scale radio-controlled helicopters to fly by the tower as it burned. Burtt and Barron played some outtakes from a nighttime shoot with the helicopters, which featured a mini Steve McQueen puppet humorously flopping around a little too much in the wind!
No, this scene isn't from The Towering Inferno. Well... that painted cityscape you see outside the window is!
Another production element they pointed out was a 25-foot-high, 340-foot-wide painted backdrop looking across the Oakland Bay, painted by Gary Coakley and his team of scenic artists. You can spot it several times throughout the movie, and it even included Christmas tree lights to mimic real city lights! Burtt pointed out that the backdrop was the same view from Captain Kirk’s apartment in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), which Barron worked on. “But here’s the bigger question,” Burtt quipped. “Does this mean that Admiral Kirk is living perhaps in Fred Astaire’s apartment?”
On another personal note for the presenters, Burtt shared that he was a USC film student when The Towering Inferno was in production. On weekends he ventured out to Malibu Fox Ranch, where the movie was shot, to see what was there. One day, he spotted some odd-looking sets, and he eventually realized they were the remnants to the tower, something he called true “movie magic” for him to discover. (A year later, they were gone!)
The sounds
Originally conceived with more horrific fires, Allen toned things down to get a PG rating to allow families to see the movie. Speaking of fire though, several people on set confirmed they used actual fire. “So it really helped the performances for everyone to feel that they were in danger because they probably slightly were,” Burtt remarked.
Supervising sound editor Don Hall worked on many projects with Allen, including Patton (1970), Young Frankenstein (1974), and The French Connection (1971). (He was also a teacher at USC and helped Burtt out on the original Star Wars!) While so many of the fire and flame sounds were real, Burtt confessed that it can be boring if it’s just one crackling sound over and over; the sound needs to be built up. Burtt did just that with pre-recorded footage of a Styrofoam cup burning up close while playing with the frequencies, adding stereo, etc. Those layers introduce an orchestration to the sound that is always changing, making the final effect more realistic.
The stunts
Because The Towering Inferno was produced in the pre-CGI days, they captured as much as they could live on set in front of the camera, which included many of the fire scenes. This required an all-star stunt team, the movie’s “unsung heroes,” according to Burtt and Barron, ably led by Paul Stader. The design of each stunt was carefully planned, with clear instructions for each department so everyone was on the same page. The most dangerous stunts, particularly those with characters on fire, called full body burns, required a whole team of technicians to ensure safety.
Burtt and Barron shared clips of stuntman Mike Johnson shooting a scene in a fireproof suit that featured a scuba regulator and two oxygen tanks so Johnson could breathe under his helmet… which was designed to look like a particular actor’s head! His back was covered with rubber cement—a standard (dangerous) practice back then because it burned at a low temperature and could sustain a flame. These scenes were captured at a faster frame rate so they could be slowed down to get more out of the effect. For practical reasons, they also couldn’t safely have people on fire for more than a few seconds. Thankfully, the crew’s safety was taken into consideration, too; for some scenes, the crew was kept behind a thick piece of heat-resistant Perspex plexiglass.
Glynn Rubin, the stunt double for Susan Flannery, was one of the first to perform a fire stunt in the film and part of a team responsible for pioneering new ways of setting people on fire. (That sounds wild, doesn't it!) In the scene Burtt and Barron shared, she dove off camera onto an (unseen) pole vault pit. Allen rejected the first take because “she wasn’t on fire enough,” but luckily they got it on the second take. While waiting to shoot, Rubin had to stand around with rubber cement on her back, which made her hot and lightheaded. Lesson learned: For future stunts they figured out better ventilation.
One of Burtt and Barron’s favorite fire stunts comes near the film’s climax: a man, aflame, leaps through a glass window with rushing water behind him, which involved a high-pressure fire hose, breakaway glass (no sharp edges!) and a crash mat. The duo was intrigued to find the stuntman, and wouldn’t you know, he was in the audience—and a friend to TCM and a well-known director—John Landis. Landis explained that back then, they used candy glass for breakaway glass, which is basically sugar. (Productions now use silicone, which is easier to break.) In 1974, candy glass panes had never been produced that big, so when the panes were transported from the Fox lot to Malibu Ranch, half cracked. Then, when they put them in the windows, another half shattered. Of the few remaining ones, several broke on set once the bright lights were turned on! It sounds like they didn’t have many opportunities to get the shot, but they ultimately were successful.
I had to leave for my book signing before the movie started, so unfortunately I couldn’t see many of these sets, sounds, and stunts in action. But as always, it was a pleasure learning about them!
thanks for stopping by!
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