"AVALANCHE" is definitely one of the weaker entries into the 'disaster' genre that populated the 70's and early 80's. A cast of fading actors and the "who's that?" of Hollywood headline this atrocious production that delivers more laughs than anything.<br /><br />Following the formula of its preceding disaster foes, "AVALANCHE" combines interwoven plot-lines involving love affairs and the disaster itself. Thrown into this sorry melange are Rock Hudson, Robert Forster, Mia Farrow and 50's silver screen star, Jeanette Nolan.<br /><br />In "AVALANCHE", Rock Hudson is David Shelby - a well-meaning but extremely foolish ski-resort owner who has ignored all warnings from environmentalists in building a new ski-resort while removing all the trees in the process which spells the perfect recipe for disaster. Robert Forster is the environmentalist who warns Hudson that removing all the trees from the mountain will result in causing deadly avalanches. Mia Farrow is Hudson's ex-wife, new love interest to Forster and Jeanette Nolan is Hudson's flighty mother who likes nothing more than a Bloody Mary to sip on every five minutes.<br /><br />Also thrown into this sordid tale are further cardboard cut-out characters including a champion skiier who is hell-bent on bedding as many women as he can before the screen credits go up and his jilted lover (wonderfully portrayed by Cathy Paine) who hams it up in a campy performance that involves her threatening to slice his cheating 'ass' with a butter knife before having a cup of milk thrown onto her as she falls to the floor screaming hysterically.<br /><br />Rock Hudson in his early 50's (his first foray into the 'disaster' genre) appears like a disheveled modern-day version of William Shatner. Spending precious minutes on-screen wearing nothing but turtle-necks and begging Mia Farrow to 'come back' to him, he looks quite ridiculous in a role that was intended for someone in their 30's as Mia Farrow is only about 33 years old at the time this movie was made. Much like "EARTHQUAKE" where Charlton Heston was courting a young Genevieve Bujold and "THE CASSANDRA CROSSING" where Ava Gardner was shagging a youthful Martin Sheen, the love affair in this movie is quite unbelievable.<br /><br />Robert Forster, fresh off his canceled television stint in the short-lived 1974 "NAKIA", proves a credible character as an environmentalist who foresees the inevitable disaster, yet cannot convince a soul to believe or listen to him. As a result, the second plot line enters and we see him and Mia Farrow sharing a love scene together. <br /><br />Jeanette Nolan in all of her faded beauty, spends most of her screen time either getting drunk on a Bloody Mary or hamming it up as the 'ever-loving mother' who travels everywhere with her gay companion.<br /><br />The setting is Hudson's ski resort. Everyone is there for the grand opening which also includes some ridiculous mini Winter-Olympics festivities which has several hundred people either cross-country skiing, down-hill skiing, ski-dooing or watching the skating events and of course, what better day would there be to have a disaster than on this particular day?<br /><br />The biggest laughs here of course is the disaster itself. In reality, there is nothing the slightest bit amusing about an avalanche, but while watching this movie, you can't for a second take it seriously. A huge snow wedge hangs over the resort, loosely hanging on a snow-capped mountain that is broken off once a small charter plane crashes into it. Once the avalanche starts, the laughter begins. Stock footage of avalanches are spliced onto the film (you can tell by the grainy imagery and the totally different mountain ranges). The snow itself is nothing more than a smoke-machine adjusted to 'fast forward' and huge blocks of styrofoam that are hurled through the air and bounce off the victims as they try to run away.<br /><br />One particular hilarious scene involves a skater who is still spinning pirouettes on the ice as the avalanche engulfs her and the crowd (like she couldn't hear or see the avalanche coming until it was about one foot away from her?). Another hilarious scene would involve a 'gas' explosion inside the resort that is nothing more than a 'puff of smoke' that sends one chef flying backwards into some shelves and an unlucky female that goes sliding along a counter while knocking off bowls of food onto the floor. But the one scene that really killed me was seeing the 'animated sparks' that flash from the broken gear box that controls the ski-lift. We actually get to see this twice during a climatic scene involving a man and a child dangling from a broken ski-life. Here, rescue workers scramble to rescue the child using a safety net below, yet the man that is left dangling spends about three minutes complaining that he cannot 'let go' and when he finally does (as a result of getting electrocuted), his lifeless body misses the safety net anyway!<br /><br />Furthermore, back in town as the ambulances and rescue workers are dispatched from their outposts, it just goes to show that if the avalanche didn't kill you, then these silly fools just might. In a totally ridiculous scene, ambulances and fire trucks spin out of control as they skid across the icy roads, causing serious fender-benders and sending one poor by-stander into a store-front window in a shower of shattering glass.<br /><br />Unfortunately, the person who I felt sorry for the most was Jeanette Nolan. Once she gets trapped inside the hotel resort with her 'companion', it takes her no longer than five minutes to go into hysterics and play the "We're all going to die!" card as she digs at the snow with a chair. Then she starts to lose her mind as she plays the "We go back a long way..." card with her companion as she strikes the keys of a busted up grand piano, warbling a few notes of a song long forgotten. On top of that, she passes out just as Hudson and Forster make their way into the resort from the outside. After she has been resuscitated and placed into the back of an ambulance, she and Mia Farrow are driven to the hospital by some suicidal maniac who insists on doing wheelies on black ice and devastated terrain that results in the ambulance crashing through a bridge and into a chasm, Farrow managing to fall out of the car in time but leaving Nolan and the driver to meet a fiery death as the car explodes at the bottom of the chasm.<br /><br />The climatic and grand finale scene of the film involves Mia Farrow hanging off the broken bridge railing and Hudson and Forster coming to her rescue. And when the day finally rolls to its end, Hudson and Farrow toast to the past events with a bottle of Champagne!!! Timeless!<br /><br />If you want to see a scene involving Jeanette Nolan doing her best 'Saturday Night Fever' impression on the dance floor, then this is the movie for you. If you want to see a pandemonium scene involving screaming victims getting hailed with styrofoam blocks, then this is the movie for you. However, if you want to see a half-decent disaster movie, then "AVALANCHE" is not the movie for you. The only thing that really separates "AVALANCHE" from the rest of the disaster entries are the few nude scenes that are thrown in involving a woman baring her breasts and buttocks in a 'steamy' pool scene that really does nothing much for the movie itself.<br /><br />This has got to be one of the stupidest movies that I have ever seen!<br /><br />My rating - 2 out of 10