James Duncan: "Oh, come on. Now just how bad is it?"
Chief O'Hallorhan: "It's a fire, mister, and all fires are bad."
Everything goes to blazes when the world's tallest skyscraper catches fire... but it's no surprise that architect Steve McQueen and fire chief Paul Newman manage to keep their cool.
You have to feel for William Holden, Faye Dunaway and Fred Astaire as panic takes hold, but even the most forgiving of souls will feel a certain glee at the demise of arch-rotter Richard Chamberlain.
The movie's production was notable for the tit-for-tat rivalry of MvQueen and Newman. McQueen insisted they both had the same numbers of lines of dialogue, they were both paid exactly the same and their credits were staggered on posters so they both appeared to get top billing.
