"Dante's Peak" (1997), Pierce Brosnan, Linda Hamilton

[Ed Augusts]

What does "Dante's Peak" (1997) have in common with "Star
Trek" (original series), "Dracula" (1931), "The Cisco Kid", "Buffy,
Vampire Slayer", "Gunsmoke", " "Babes in Bondage" and "Blazing
Saddles?" They were all filmed in Agua Dulce, California, (trans:
Sweet Water). I just had to look this place up on Google Maps. Just
before you start driving 'up the grapevine' on Interstate 5 at Santa
Clarita you turn onto Hwy 14 toward Palmdale. About halfway to
Palmdale, hang a left. Lucky producers and directors discovered this
out-of-the-way site is no more than 40 miles northeast of Burbank and
Universal Studios, remote and yet accessible. They've been filming
there since the 1920's, it appears. It has the authentic look of the
wild, wild west. Which must be why the series "Wild,Wild West" was
filmed here, too. Bela did "Dracula" here, as well, how cool is
that? Just remember, for "Dante's Peak" any shots of Cascade Range
volcanoes, glacial lakes and lofty pine trees were shot off-site and
doctored-in.

Now as to today's victim, "Dante's Peak"... I have been justly
criticizing myself for not running the list of actors, so here's a
few, anyway: Pierce Brosnan plays dashing young Dr. Harry Dalton, who
was widowed at the very start of the this movie, when his scientist
wife had a flaming volcanic boulder land on her head in the
Philippines, so you know the action in this movie is going to be
considerable. What the heck does he see in average, klutzy, Linda
Hamilton, though? She plays town mayor & coffee delivery girl, Rachel
Wando. Once he sees her, they are practically inseparable, as if he's
never seen a woman before in his life, and Rachel's two kids, Graham
and Lauren, played well by Jamie Renee Smith and Jeremy Foley, are no
impediment to the navigation of the forthcoming love affair; both kids
seem keen on Harry, no friction, no sullen moods, no tricks. You can
see I'm skeptical of whether a man dropping in on mom's life would
work this well with 2 real-life kids! Harry plays little games with
them and on Day One of being in town, he saves Graham's life,
snatching him off the ground just as he's taking a running leap into
the toxic molten soup of a pond! Ruth is the crusty ol' grandma,
who's boy fled the scene years ago, leaving Rachel to fend for herself
and the kids, although Rachel seems to have done admirably well,
being the mayor of the town as well as running a business. Ruth lives
in a venerable old ranch house on a lake on the very edge of Dante's
Peak, and her refusal to leave, and insistence that nothing bad will
happen, reminds me of the old-timer who lived in his cottage on the
edge of Spirit Lake, right next to Mt. St. Helens before it blew him,
his cottage, and the lake, right off the map.

The rising tension of people living and working near a volcano that
has been inactive for many centuries but is now starting to show signs
of life, is poised against the disbelief of the 'doubting Thomases',
including Charles Hallahan who plays Harry's boss, Paul Dreyfus, who
doesn't think anything's going to happen at Dante's Peak, feels
usurped by Harry's actions in warning the town (which he sees as mere
paranoia), and is ready to pull-out the geologic team which he heads.
There are also inevitable business interests who want to clamp a lid
on any talk that could lead to real estate prices going down and/or
the 'big company coming into town investing millions'. Yeah, right!
Right into the equivalent of downtown Pompeii or Herculaneum.

Volcanic Interlude from the
Volcano Movie

This movie is a vision of what might just about have exactly happened
if a town of 8,000 had existed at the foot of Mt. St. Helens when it
'blew' 25 or so years ago. It is a good lesson in “if the volcano is
not extinct – if it is only dormant – then DO NOT build towns and
cities on its edges!” Fortunately Americans have not made the
mistake of building next to, or on top of, a volcano, not a
potentially active-any-day-now volcano, anyway. Or have they? On
the one good highway that leads from California to Oregon, you find a
series of towns nestled at the foot of Mt. Shasta. Mt. Shasta,
according to Indian lore, won a great battle which it waged against
Mr. Mazama. Mt. Mazama collapsed and became nothing but a crater, and
gradually filled with water and is now Crater Lake National Park.
Imagine two dueling volcanos, cluttering up the sky with ash for a
thousand miles down-wind!

Mt. Lassen, within sight of Shasta, has no such towns of any size
nearby, maybe because an eruption occurred there in the 1915—1917
period and people got wise and never built a real town or city within
40 miles of the place. Alongside the highway that goes up and around
Lassen Peak you'll see a house-sized boulder that popped right out of
the volcano back then! Mammoth in the Central Sierras is built on
top of magma, and earthquakes bigger than San Andreas quakes have
shaken the Central and Southern Sierra, such as the great one in 1872
that was felt and described by naturalist John Muir who happened to be
in Yosemite Valley at the time, a quake that brought down a rock
formation, Eagle's Peak, a mile above the valley floor... Read his
stirring account when you have time to find it.

There is also the quaint wine-country area of Northern California
which enjoys constant micro-quakes all coming from a circular area
about 10 miles by 10 miles in size, right under some towns like
Calistoga, I believe. Industry is trying to tap-into the geothermal
bonanza by generating power there, and the scientists and geologists
over in Golden, Colorado call it the "Geysers Geothermal Area", a
"live one" if there ever was one... I wonder if realtors disclose the
risk when new residents buy homes and ranches there.

There was another volcano movie that came out at the exact same time
as Dante's Peak, about a volcano popping up on, oh, Wilshire Blvd.
between MacArthur Park and the La Brea Tar Pits. Ha, ha, ha! There
IS seismology at work in the L.A. basin but there is NO vulcanology,
there are NO volcanos nothing even possibly approaching MAYBE a
volcano, anywhere near L.A. Or the S.F. Bay Area, for that matter,
except past the far, far "North Bay" and beyond...

But everyone knows Yellowstone is a disaster waiting to happen, as
well. Anyplace you see geysers and hot springs, you know there is
some hot magma tucked just a few miles underneath. And, if we want to
frighten even more people, the eastern suburbs of Seattle come awfully
close to Mt. Rainier, and nobody's saying that elegant peak
overlooking Bill Gates and the Microsoft 'campus' in Redmond is
extinct, are they?

Back to the Show!

But the eruption in "Dante's Peak" is inevitable, as nude swimmers
turn-up boiled to death when a little pond turns into a bubbling
sauna, and the city water supply turns a muddy brown, all of which
leads inevitably to the explosive eruption of the dormant volcano,
accompanied by what seems like an on-going four-minute long 8.5
magnitude earthquake that topples most brick walls, churches, neon
signs, overpasses--- anything in town or leading out of town that
could possibly fall over.

I object to the idea of 10-yr old kids driving a SUV up the volcano
to rescue grandma, but that's what drama is all about, right? This
leads to paddling a boat without a paddle across an acid lake that
starts melting the boat, and Harry has the little group sing "Row,
row, row your boat..." Harry is lucky to have a Wonder Truck of some
kind, it just happens to have a snorkel so they can float across
rivers, and a driver crazy enough to drive over free lava flows and
the occupants of the car not screaming-out, "Stop! Don't do that, are
you crazy?" What kind of truck or SUV was that, anyway? Good
"survival" vehicle, eh? The movie was directed by Roger Donaldson.

Epic adventure of survival... and stupidity... and I still don't
understand how Rachel, the town's mayor, also trying to raise two kids
without a husband, has a day job pouring coffee all over Harry and
delivering cappuccinos and machiatas on demand to the geology crew!
-----Ed