[7]

A gaggle of Oscar-winners go topsy-turvy and fight to survive when a luxury liner capsizes at sea in the trend-setting disaster flick, The Poseidon Adventure. The film delivers on producer Irwin Allen’s desire to blow shit up (think of him as the proto-Michael Bay), but also manages to give its venerable cast plenty to chew on. Gene Hackman (Unforgiven) is the defacto hero, playing a priest who begins to question his faith while leading a rag-tag team of survivors through the wreckage. Ernest Borgnine (Marty) gets second-billing as a police detective who challenges Hackman’s judgment. Other Oscar-winners in the cast include Red Buttons (Sayonara), Jack Albertson (The Subject Was Roses), and Shelley Winters (A Patch of Blue, The Diary of Anne Frank).

The upside-down sets are impressive, especially when they flood or catch fire, but the tension and suspense comes more from character than pyrotechnics. Will Hackman be able to hold his breath long enough to find an underwater passageway? Will Shelley Winters fit through the claustrophobic air shafts? Will the characters find the will to carry on as their loved ones perish along the way? The characters are more engaging than usual for an action/adventure and no one is safe — you really don’t know who will survive and who will die. Winters is a fan-favorite character who spends much of the film worried she’s too old and fat for the others to waste their time helping, but she finally gets a moment to be heroic in the film’s most emotionally satisfying sequence.

It starts to become a bit monotonous watching the characters traverse one obstacle course after another, but the film ends just as it starts to wear out its welcome. Even though the model photography is pretty dated and visual effects are rather crude by today’s standards, The Poseidon Adventure holds up remarkably well as a disaster-survival movie.

Directed by Robert Neame (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie). With Roddy McDowall (Fright Night) as an Irish waiter, Stella Stevens as Borgnine’s ex-prostitute wife, and Leslie Nielsen (Airplane!) as the ships captain.

Academy Awards: Best Song (“The Morning After”), Special Achievement in Visual Effects

Oscar Nominations: Best Supporting Actress (Shelley Winters), Cinematography (Harold Stine), Art Direction, Costume Design, Sound, Film Editing, Score (John Williams)