The Poseidon Adventure (1972)
Rating: 5/5: Excellent-genius-a-classic
Showing: Sky Select 5am
Director: Ronald Neame (PG)
Synopsis
Its New Year's Eve and, for those not ill with seasickness after a rough crossing from New York to Athens, the passengers aboard ageing ocean liner S.S. Poseidon are enjoying the celebrations in the dining salon. Unbeknownst to them, a tsunami wave generated by an underwater earthquake hits the ship, tipping it upside down. They are now trapped underneath the water. A small but plucky group of disparate survivors climbs through the wreckage of the hull to the engine room, where they hope to be rescued.
Review by Jason Day
At 5am, this is definitely one for the early bird, non-hangover, no work crowd, but definitely one to see.
Long laughed at for its supposed ropey characterisation and cliched dialogue, TPA (as us fans refer to it) emerges with the benefit of more than 40 years of hindsight as one of the finest and most fondly recalled 70's disaster dramas, banged out with rapidity by cash-strapped US movie studios looking for a quick hit.
This film quite literally shaped me. As a precocious 12 year old watching, spellbound, as a not-so luxury ocean liner is flipped over by a tsunami wave, my passion for cinema was thus created, making me the critic I am today.
Once a staple of the UK TV network's festive film programming but not always seen over Christmas now, its one to watch.
I'm biased and love this film to bits, celluloid warts and all, but appreciate anyone else may find it clumsy and leaden after disaster strikes. But there's real heart and soul in this flick, when movies really were movies. Wake up, grab an early coffee and enjoy an old classic.
For more, see my full review: http://bit.ly/TPA1972
Director: Ronald Neame. 117mins. 20th century Fox. (PG)
Producer: Irwin Allen.
Writers: Stirling Silliphant, Wendell Mayes.
Camera: Harold E. Stine.
Music: John Williams.
Sets: William Creber.
Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, Carol Lynley, Roddy McDowall, Stella Stevens, Shelley Winters, Jack Albertson, Pamela Sue Martin, Arthur O'Connell, Eric Shea, Leslie Nielsen.
