When Time Ran Out... is a 1980 American disaster film directed by James Goldstone and starring Paul Newman, Jacqueline Bisset and William Holden.
The supporting cast features James Franciscus, Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, Burgess Meredith, Valentina Cortese, Veronica Hamel, Pat Morita, Edward Albert, Alex Karras and Barbara Carrera.
Produced by Irwin Allen, the screenplay by Carl Foreman and Stirling Silliphant is loosely based on the 1969 novel The Day the World Ended by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts detailing the factual 1902 volcanic eruption of Mount Pelée on Martinique, which killed 30,000 people in five minutes by pyroclastic flow.
It marked the second and final time Newman and Holden appeared in a film together following the box office triumph of The Towering Inferno six years earlier, as well as reuniting Borgnine and Buttons from The Poseidon Adventure.
When Time Ran Out..., however, was a commercial flop and Allen's last theatrical release and is often regarded as the final 1970s era disaster film.
Kay is in love with Hank Anderson, an oil rigger whose scientists are warning him that the island's active volcano, Mauna Nui, is about to erupt.
Spangler married Shelby's goddaughter Nikki to help get the Kalaleu Gilmore built, but is cheating on her with Iolani, an executive at the hotel.
Guests at the hotel include: a fugitive bond thief, Francis Fendly; the New York City cop tailing him, Tom Conti; and Rene and Rose Valdez, retired circus tightrope walkers.
Sam takes Mona and two of his "bar girls," Delores and Marsha, and escapes by car, while Hank and Kay rescue in the helicopter Nikki and some others at a horse farm.
Hank and Kay leave the hotel with Shelby, Brian, Rene and Rose, Fendly and Conti, Sam, Mona and the girls, plus a few more.
A huge fireball arcs directly towards the hotel; destroying it and killing Spengler, Nikki, Iolani and all who chose to stay.
The Day the World Ended, by English television writers Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts, was a 1969 non-fiction account of the disastrous eruption of Mount Pelée in Martinique in 1902, which killed 30,000 people.
"[8] By this time the project was no longer a historical dramatization of the Mount Pelée eruption, but had become a contemporary, fictional account of a resort hotel built near an active volcano.
The scenes of the convoy of vehicles escaping were largely filmed on Old Mamalahoa highway, near the Hawai'i Tropical Botanical Garden.
Abbott, who had helmed effects for Allen's previous box office hits, The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, had very little budget left to produce the effects, resulting in sub-standard results (a more elaborate volcano model and matte paintings were planned, but scrapped due to budget, as was a miniature of the hotel complex which was to be exploded for the finale).
Deleted scenes and additional footage were restored when Earth's Final Fury (the film's TV title) debuted on network television.
In the longer version it is revealed that, unbeknownst to all except Spangler, Brian is his illegitimate younger half-brother and therefore entitled to a portion of their family's vast holdings.