Runaway (1973)

The ski train is heading back down the mountain and engineer Holly talks about how he’s been doing this run for years and is going to retire. Uh oh, that’s not a good sign.  Before you know it, the air brakes aren’t working and the train’s speed is increasing.

Meanwhile let’s meet the passengers.  Les is a ski bum who tries to get everything for free, utilizing such methods as hitting on wealthy women in hopes they’ll pay for his vacation or stealing someone’s train ticket. Ellen and her husband are planing to get divorced. John is with his young son who was afraid of something I can’t remember, maybe skiing.  There are some college students and a few professors making a racket, shouting and banging on things as if they’re drums.  Student Carol is declaring her love to Professor Dunn,  asking him to say he loves her and to sit with her. Dunn looks uncomfortable and brushes her off.

Based on these stereotypes, we can assume Les will grow as a person and stop thinking only of himself. Ellen and her husband will reconcile.  John’s son will learn to be brave and Carol will be rebuffed with extreme prejudice during the crisis.

Since the brakes fail within the first fifteen minutes, you wonder’s what sort of disaster is waiting for the rest of the movie. Well it’s mostly interpersonal disaster and a lot of people getting down on the floor to brace for a curve they’re going to hit at 60 mph.  Holly thinks he can make it but the guys in the office don’t believe him.  But damn it Holly’s been doing this run for years.  Plans include trying to use handbrakes or a faster train to catch up to them and attempt to help them brake.

This is a 1970s tv movie, it’s formulaic, and I’m all in. 

Ridiculous dialogue

Carol: I did it because you’re alone.  I don’t like it, being alone.

Les: That’s dumb.

Holly: We’ll try the emergency brakes in the coaches. If that doesn’t work, we’ll try the hand brake.  If that doesn’t work, by god, we’ve got a runaway coming off this mountain.

Les: I’m gonna be ready. I’m gonna make it. You run around pulling the shades, not me.

I like the graphic

Smarmy Les putting his arm around a woman who appears to have
money and suggesting they take a ski trip where she pays their way

The panic begins

Les proving he’s the weasel by hiding and refusing to help

The sketchy idea of hanging off the car to look at the brakes
while someone holds onto your jacket to keep you from falling

Smiles and horror in the same shot

Hurrah! Let’s mob the crippled train

The Elevator (1974)

Disaster movies follow a predictable pattern. Introduce a number of unrelated characters, stick them together in a stressful situation which could kill them all and see who gets out alive. Who will fall apart? Who will overcome their fears? Who will admit their flaws and become a better person? Who will reveal they are pretending to be something they’re not?

A Brinks truck makes a delivery to an office in a high rise, not realizing robbers know where they’re headed. Once the truck leaves, Pete and Eddie head upstairs while getaway driver Irene stays in the parking garage.  When Pete kills the man in the office, Eddie is upset but Pete says he saw their faces so it had to be done. 

As they try to act nonchalant and leave tthe scene of the crime, they find a number of people waiting for the elevator.  Eddie and the money get on, but there is no room for Pete who frantically asks Eddie for the briefcase full of money. When the doors close, Pete runs down to the garage to wait for Eddie but he never arrives. If only the workmen had used the freight elevator for their seven hundred pound safe, the bolts would have held and there’d be no damage to the mechanism.

Stuck in the elevator with claustrophobic Eddie are the rest of our cast of characters.  Mrs. Kenyon is looking for a penthouse for her son.  Marvin is the leasing agent who works for the building and showed her the penthouse. Dr. Reynolds is having an affair with his secretary, and is now trapped with her and his wife.  Robert is a young man who is upset with his fragile mother for trying to control the inheritance from his father. 

Questions you’ll have are why was Pete hiding in the trunk of the car, rather than sitting inside it with Eddie and Irene? Or why didn’t Eddie get out of the elevator since Pete couldn’t get on? Why was