''Catastrophe'' is a 1977 American

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

that is written and directed by Larry Savadove and narrated by actor

William Conrad William Conrad (born John William Cann Jr., September 27, 1920 – February 11, 1994) was an American actor, producer, and director whose entertainment career spanned five decades in radio, film, and television, peaking in popularity when he s ...

about

natural Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are p ...

and

man-made Artificiality (the state of being artificial or manmade) is the state of being the product of intentional human manufacture, rather than occurring naturally through processes not involving or requiring human activity. Connotations Artificiality ...

disaster A disaster is a serious problem occurring over a short or long period of time that causes widespread human, material, economic or environmental loss which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources ...

Disasters featured

* The

footage In filmmaking and video production, footage is raw, unedited material as originally filmed by a movie camera or recorded by a ( often special) video camera, which typically must be edited to create a motion picture, video clip, television show or ...

of the

Hindenburg disaster The ''Hindenburg'' disaster was an airship accident that occurred on May 6, 1937, in Manchester Township, New Jersey, United States. The German passenger airship LZ 129 ''Hindenburg'' caught fire and was destroyed during its attemp ...

in 1937. * The tornado that hit Xenia, Ohio in 1974 *

Hurricane Camille Hurricane Camille was the second most intense tropical cyclone on record to strike the United States, behind the 1935 Labor Day hurricane. The most intense storm of the 1969 Atlantic hurricane season, Camille originated as a tropical depression ...

in 1969. * The

Dust Bowl The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. The phenomenon was caused by a combination of both natural factors (severe drought) an ...

during the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

* The 1974

Joelma fire ''Edifício Praça da Bandeira'', formerly known as the Joelma Building, is a 25-story building in downtown São Paulo, Brazil, completed in 1971, located at Avenida 9 de Julho, 225. On 1 February 1974, an air conditioning unit on the twelfth flo ...

in Brazil. * The eruption of

Mount Etna Mount Etna, or simply Etna ( it, Etna or ; scn, Muncibbeḍḍu or ; la, Aetna; grc, Αἴτνα and ), is an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily, Italy, in the Metropolitan City of Catania, between the cities of Messina a ...

in Italy in 1971. * The sinking of the

SS Andrea Doria SS ''Andrea Doria'' , was an ocean liner for the Italian Line (Società di navigazione Italia) home-ported in Genoa, Italy, known for its sinking in 1956, where of the 1,706 passengers and crew, 1,660 were rescued, while 46 passengers and crew ...

in 1956. * The accidents during the

1973 Indianapolis 500 The 57th 500 Mile International Sweepstakes was held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana, on Wednesday, May 30, 1973. The race was held over three days due to rain and suffered two major accidents. Three competitors - two driv ...

Release

Theatrical

''Catastrophe'' premiered in

Tucson, Arizona , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive map ...

on April 20, 1977 and later received a wide release in the United States in February 1978.

Home media

In 1987,

Embassy Home Entertainment A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually deno ...

(later renamed as

Nelson Entertainment Nelson Entertainment was a Los Angeles-based film production and home video distribution company, a subsidiary of Nelson Holdings International Ltd., a Vancouver, Canada, holding company formed in 1985 by British film producer Barry Spikings and R ...

) released the film on VHS.

Television broadcasts

The film premiered on

premium cable Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichannel television providers, but ...

network

Home Box Office Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

(HBO) in March 1979. The film aired on the superstation feed of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

independent station An independent station is an independent radio or terrestrial television station which is independent in some way from broadcast networks. The definition of "independence" varies from country to country, reflecting governmental regulations, market ...

WGN-TV WGN-TV (channel 9) is an Independent station (North America), independent television station in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, it is sister station, sister to the company's sole radio property, talk ra ...

in 1992.

References

External links

* * * * * 1977 films 1977 documentary films American documentary films American independent films 1977 independent films New World Pictures films Documentary films about disasters 1970s English-language films 1970s American films {{US-documentary-film-stub