The Poseidon Adventure

I remember watching this movie at some time in my youth and enjoying it. The 1972 feature appeared near the beginning of the run of all star cast disaster flicks that included The Towering Inferno, Airport and Earthquake. This might well have been the best of the lot.

The SS Poseidon is making it's last voyage. As we have come to expect in these types of movies there is always someone urging the Captain to cut corners, to fail to take precautions. These failures inevitably lead to disaster. Clearly these characters never watch the movies.

In this case the ship has been sold to a company in Greece and the when the Captain, played by Leslie Nielsen in serious mode, after hearing of an undersea earthquake wishes to take evasive action from a feared killer wave the " management type" representing the owners of the ship insists that they take a straight line route, time is money etc.

This leads to the ship being hit by a ball of water that turns the ship upside down. As this is happening the ship's passengers are celebrating New Years Eve. Over the first half hour of the movie we are introduced to the cast. We have a teenage girl and her little brother, a minister, too modern for his church being sent to save souls in Greece, an older Jewish couple on their way to see grandchildren in Israel, as well as a retired police detective and his new wife, who just happens to be an ex prostitute that he has married.

When the ship is hit the passengers in the ballroom are tossed and turned, some injured, a few killed but for the most part they are alive. A disagreement occurs over what to do. The ship's purser insists that they should stay put. Minister Scott played by Gene Hackman insists that they need to go up to reach the bottom of the ship as that is where any rescue efforts will necessarily come from. Eventually few of the passengers agree to move, fortunately for us most of those who do agree to go with the Minister are those characters that we have met in the movie's beginnings.

As much as I joke about the convenient set up I should stress this is a very very good movie. It was a very popular movie at the time, becoming the box office leader in 1973 and at one point being among the six highest grossing movies of all time. The level of adventure in the movie is high, as our characters progress higher and higher, or conversely lower and lower in the upside down ship each level offers a new challenge. In that way perhaps this movie fits well with the video game culture now in place.

In any case this is a movie still well worth watching. The cast was superb. Gene Hackman was very strong in his role. This was not an understated role, Hackman can act in anything. He actually was very underrated, a review of some of the movies he starred in makes that very clear.

Red Buttons, Roddy McDowell, Carol Lynley, Jack Albertson, Shelley Winters, Stella Stevens and the unforgettable Ernest Borgnine make up the very strong cast of survivors we follow through the movie. Borgnine is another underrated actor. Still alive today in his nineties Borgnine was an everyman. Not handsome in the traditional way. In this movie he plays the gruff opposite of Hackman's preacher and inevitably is underrated as the anti hero. Someday, if you are a film buff look through Mr. Borgnine's career. It was a strong and fruitful one.

This is a very good movie.