Written by Mr. Mouseburger 4th Sep 2006
Kindly submitted by Kooshmeister
Senator Gary Parker is the senator of California invited to the Glass Tower's opening ceremony. He inadvertantly becomes one of roughly 300 people who are trapped in the ballroom at the top of the building after faulty wiring, installed by builder James Duncan's son-in-law, Roger Simmons, causes a towering inferno.
During the fire department's efforts to get people out of the building and onto the roof of an adjacent skyscraper via breeches buoy, Roger Simmons and several other guys have a collective freakout, and make a mad rush for the buoy all at once, putting too much weight on it and threatening to collapse it and thereby destroying any chance of the remaining survivors escaping.
In a noble but vain attempt at heroics, and not some cynical ploy to garner a few extra votes, Senator Parker runs to try and stop them, and grabs hold of the buoy,trying to pull it back in himself. All he succeeds in doing though is killing himself, as all of the weight pulls the buoy right out the window, with Parker clinging on for dear life with just his hands.
Seconds later, he loses his grip and falls over one-hundred storeys, ensuring that the people of California will be needing a new senator in the near future.
This is one of the two disaster movies I have watched and actually enjoyed. (along with The Poseidon Adventure)
This is one of the few deaths with only 1 category.
Oh, and to another point, what is his archetype?
I guess he's an Ambivalent (Minor). He's not really a Goody (the firefighters and Paul Newman are), but nor is he a baddy (which technically, belongs to the fire). He's just someone caught in the middle.
Innocent Bystander, then?
I consider him a Goody because earlier in the film he comes up with an escape plan which fails due to the stairwell being inaccessible.
Incidentally, Parker wasn't originally supposed to die. He was originally a more important character in the story but when they began fearing that the movie was getting too long they cut out a lot of scenes including a lot of Parker's, and so Robert Vaughn suggested having Parker get killed in an exciting manner.
at the end of the film how did they get out? and also what happened to mayor bob ramsay?
It's implied that Ramsay dies, and they get out by blowing up the building's water tanks to douse the fire.
I seem to remember that Roger Simmonds kicked the senator off the buoy, thus we need a killer here.
Actually, I'm fairly certain he just loses his grip and falls. Roger is still technically responsible for his death, though.
how did they get out? the lifts werent working and the staircases were broken werent they?
No clue. From what I remember after they douse the fire by exploding the water tanks the movie just sort of cuts ahead in time to when everyone is down at ground level.