The Poseidon Adventure – Irwin Allen’s first great disaster movie, about an ocean liner that’s flipped upside down – and survivors struggle to escape.
Product Description
Arguably the best adventure-disaster movie ever made, The Poseidon Adventure follows the final Mediterranean voyage of a luxury cruise liner, the S. S. Poseidon. This classical film received a Special Achievement Academy award in 1972 for its spectacular visual effects, and also won an Oscar for its popular theme song The Morning After.
Cast of characters
- Gene Hackman (Marooned 1969, Enemy of the State) … Reverend Scott. The very opinionated man, who annoints himself leader of the group of survivors. He has a very “modern” view of God and prayer.
- Ernest Borgnine (The Dirty Dozen, McHale’s Navy Season 1) … Mike Rogo. The New York City police detective, who’s at odds with Scott virtually every step of the way.
- Red Buttons (The Big Circus, Five Weeks in a Balloon) … James Martin. The quiet haberdasher, who’s been too busy working to truly live. But he becomes instrumental in the group’s attempt to reach safety.
- Carol Lynley … Nonnie Parry
- Roddy McDowall (The Greatest Story Ever Told, Planet of the Apes) … Acres. The ship steward, injured, but still does his very best to help the survivors. Until his untimely demise.
- Stella Stevens (The Nutty Professor) … Linda Rogo. Mike’s wife, who has a checkered past. She yells at him — a lot — but truly loves him.
- Shelley Winters (A Patch of Blue) … Belle Rosen. Manny’s loving, overweight wife.
- Jack Albertson (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) … Manny Rosen. He and his wife are on the way to Israel, to visit with their two year old grandson, whom they’ve never seen.
- Pamela Sue Martin … Susan Shelby
- Arthur O’Connell (The Great Race) … Chaplain
- Eric Shea … Robin
- Fred Sadoff … Linarcos
- Sheila Allen … Nurse
- Jan Arvan (20 Million Miles to Earth) … Doctor Caravello
- Byron Webster … Purser. Who insists on waiting for rescue — until it’s too late.
- John Crawford (The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again) … Chief Engineer
- Bob Hastings (Batman – Mask of the Phantasm) … M. C.
- Erik L. Nelson … Mr. Tinkham
- Leslie Nielsen (Forbidden Planet, Dracula Dead and Loving It) … Captain Harrison. Who, against his better judgement, goes full speed ahead. Because otherwise the representative of the ship line will have him replaced immediately.
Editorial review of The Poseidon Adventure courtesy of Amazon.com
Hands down, this is the best movie (and was one of the first) to come out of the seemingly endless cycle of disaster movies that dominated box offices during the 1970s. It could even be argued that Titanic owes some of its success to the precedent set by this 1972 blockbuster starring Gene Hackman as a priest who leads a small group of survivors to safety from the bowels of a capsized luxury liner.
From its stellar cast to its cheesy, Oscar-winning theme song, The Morning After, the movie has all the ingredients of a popular classic, beginning with a New Year’s Eve celebration aboard the ill-fated Poseidon and ending as a pop allegory when the Hackman character becomes a Christ-like martyr.
Filmed on spectacular sets where everything down is up and the ship’s thick hull points in the direction of salvation, this is “a waterlogged Grand Hotel” (in the words of New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael) that is as entertaining as it is unabashedly brainless. The Poseidon Adventure is filled with performances that rise above the limits of the screenplay. It’s also the only movie–unless you count her underwater corpse in Night of the Hunter–that lets Shelley Winters strut her stuff as an aquatic heroine. Who could ask for anything more? –Jeff Shannon
