Steel (1979)

You won't be disappointed!

Just perfect...

A different way of telling a story

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Dangerous jobs are usually a sure source of inspiration for movie makers. There have been countless films down the years about mountaineers, racing drivers, bounty hunters, big game hunters and fire-fighters, to name but a few. Curiously, though, there are relatively few movies about men of the construction industry, in particular those brave souls who are involved in the building of towering skyscrapers. Steel goes some way toward putting that right – this simple but enjoyable yarn features some vertigo-inducing sequences as it charts the exploits of a gang of builders who are racing against time to complete the top nine storeys of a skyscraper in a mere three weeks. (Trivia time: the skyscraper in the building was a real building-under-construction – the 333 ft Kincaid Towers in Lexington, Kentucky).Wealthy construction mogul Big Lew Cassidy (George Kennedy) falls to his death in a tragic accident during the building of a skyscraper. His business empire is inherited by his inexperienced but spunky daughter Cass (Jennifer O'Neill). She has three weeks to over-see completion of the remaining nine floors of the building – if unfinished, the bank will pull the plug on the project, and her father's company will go bust. Rejecting an offer of help from her slimy uncle, Eddie Cassidy (Harris Yulin), Cass decides to hire a team of crack high-altitude construction workers to carry out the job. The main man is Mike Catton (Lee Majors), who pulls together a crew of the most legendary names in the profession to complete the job within the impossible deadline. It's a tough task getting these testosterone-fuelled personalities to work together, but doubly tough when Eddie tries to hijack their progress for his own greedy ends. And to top it all, Mike is desperately guarding a secret – that he "froze" (lost his head for heights) on a recent job, and is now terrified to the point of paralysis of working on high-rise structures.Steel is a film very much in the mould of other late 70s films like Smokey And The Bandit, Convoy and Hooper. The plot is different, but the overall tone and the good ol' boy hijinks on display are unmistakable. The script is just about as unsubtle as can be, but the actors seem to be having fun with it and their enthusiasm is infectious. Majors has never been the most versatile of actors but he's well within his comfort zone here… this is probably his most charismatic performance in a career notable for its lack of serious and demanding roles. Indeed, everyone is in high-spirited form which, considering the simplicity of the story, is a pleasant surprise. Steel will never win any awards and will never be on anyone's top-ten-of-all-time list, but if you're in the mood for unashamed and undemanding fun you could do a lot worse.

This movie was a big deal in Lexington when they were filming it in '79. It was a great visual taste for anybody who lived here during that time. From the filming of the horse farms, the historic Lexington Cemetery, not to mention the bar scene at the legendary, but now closed High on Rose, also Lee Majors picking up his trucker girlfriend just a stone's throw away from a well known lot-lizard truck stop. Classy.This movie had everything: -Lee Majors, The 6 Mil Dollar Man himself, playing the tortured hero of the tale. -Terry Kiser of Weekend at Bernie's fame playing Valentino who always had a different woman bring him to work each day. -Robert Tessier playing the tough Cherokee taking the end of a steel beam to his temple and still finishing the job. -Richard Lynch playing the bastard he plays so well as Dancer making Catton face his fears. -Roger E. Mosley of Magnum P.I. fame, playing Lionel who finishes the job even after his best friend dies trying to attach a steel bolt and falling to his death due to a bet on Valentino's girl of the day.Drama! Yeah it was Dallas-style, but it was 1979. My great-grandmother was an extra during the funeral scene. I was sitting on my father's shoulders on Vine St. twenty feet from the airbag that A.J. Bakunas went through when he performed his final stunt. How many of you have seen a stuntman die in front of you? This movie should not be forgotten for his sacrifice in filming it.The shot where the camera pans up West Main where you see Henry Clay's statue over the city and the helicopters bringing in the last floor to finish the job was beautiful.If anybody knows where I can find a copy of this, please get in touch with me. My family will get a great laugh at the macho-bravado drama, and my friends will finally see what I've been talking about all these years.

Lee Majors made several pictures during his stardom period of "The Six Million Dollar Man." Most weren't particularly good ("The Norseman" was the absolute pits), but this is a neat little surprise. It's along the same lines as "The Magnificent Seven" in that it brings together a disparate group of professionals in order to achieve a seemingly impossible goal--in this case they're a construction crew that has to finish off the top nine stories of a building in the short span of three weeks. The tone is a bit lighter than usual for this kind of film, with some welcome humorous touches, notably the antics of Terry Kiser and Albert Salmi as a libidinous steelworker and a prankish crane operator, respectively. Majors was never an actor with much range, but here he's actually quite good as the crew leader and plays well off the other actors. The movie has a roster of first-rate character actors whose presence raises its interest level several notches. It's also one of the few films where veteran heavy Richard Lynch gets to play against type as a good guy (albeit a tough one), and he's quite effective at it. Jennifer O'Neill is still as beautiful as ever and still can't act to save her life, but she doesn't drag the picture down as she did, for example, in the John Wayne western "Rio Lobo", in which she was so astoundingly inept it was actually embarrassing to watch her; she's better than that here. Director Steve Carver paid his dues with Roger Corman, and while he never attained the levels of success as fellow Corman alumni Martin Scorsese or Jonathan Demme, he was usually a more than competent filmmaker, and he's done a good job of putting this one together. It's well paced, with a few twists and turns, and the cast seems to be having a good time. You could do worse than rent this on a night when you have nothing much to do.

During construction of the Kincaid Tower in Lexington, Kentucky, a producer decided to make a movie about it. In the film, they are rushing to complete the building on schedule, they need to put up the top 9 stories in 3 weeks. This calls for some super construction workers-- the "only guy" for this job is a former construction whiz, now the truck-driving, womanizing Mike Catton (Lee Majors). He has to assemble his whole gang of super builders. The "Demolition Man" owes him a favor. Then there's "Dancer" for the last round-up, and others. Albert Salmi as "Tank" is the best of the lot, giving a stand-out performance; when we first see him, Albert is using his electromagnet crane to lift a metallic outhouse 60 feet in the air-- with someone in it! (The person inside the sky-high outhouse cusses a blue streak and throws newspapers at Albert.) There are countless innuendoes, comparing erecting Steel buildings to guys' other functions. In a scene in a bar, Lee Majors confesses to Art Carney that he "froze" on top of a building. Art Carney gives him the manly, double-meaning advice: "This building will give a you chance to 'get it up' again." Then, the Dream Team arrives at the construction site. This is the team they'll be talking about forever! Later, while socializing, Lee Majors says: "I get restless, maybe, just not used to all that sitting around." Jennifer O'Neill says: "You just tell me when you start 'stiffening' up... and I'll give you a massage." Still later, when they are discussing his fear problem, Jennifer asks him: "Why does yours have to be bigger than everyone else's?" As for Albert Salmi, he uses his big crane to drop a huge steel beam on (bad guy) R.G. Armstrong's car-- what a zany! (in real life, Albert Salmi and R.G. Armstrong had been friends for decades, back to when they starred together in the Broadway show "End As a Man" in 1954. R.G. even attended Albert's first wedding. This movie was like a reunion for them.)Will the Dream Team get the building finished before the deadline? Will Lee Majors overcome his construction erecting dysfunction? Watch the movie and find out.