Review: The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

The Poseidon Adventure is one of my all time favorite movies. Some call it the best "bad" movie ever made. I disagree. There is nothing bad about this film. The special affects hold up after forty-five years - no mean feat. It features a stellar cast including Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Stella Stevens, Shelly Winters, Leslie Nielsen and Roddy McDowall among others. Contemporary film makers must envy Irwin Allen's ability to form such an ensemble of real movie stars. 

The actors are all top shelf. The script by Sterling Silliphant (In the Heat of the Night) and Wendell Mayes (Death Wish, Anatomy of a Murder) is first rate. Some could criticize the dialogue as being "cheesy" in places. But, it's no worse, and often much better, than that of many odious "superhero" comic book based movies. The film's pacing is flawless. The characters are introduced before disaster strikes. You know them and, therefore, subsequent actions make sense and are consistent with their character. 

I assume the most readers are familiar with the film's plot. So briefly, it's about a luxury liner that is capsized by a rogue wave while traveling across the Mediterranean. Roddy McDowall plays a British crew member. However, the passengers portrayed are all presumably American. For example, Shelly Winters and Jack Albertson are an older American couple on their way to visit family in Israel. Parenthetically, one nice thing about this 1972 film is the lack of politics and minimal amount of liberal messaging. In the year of the Munich Olympics there are no gratuitous slams of Israel. The word "occupation" is not in the script. 

This is Gene Hackman's film. He dominates it. His only challenge in that regard is from Ernest Borgnine and Shelly Winters. They have many great scenes together. I believe that one reason for this movie's enduring popularity is Hackman's brilliant portrayal of an "active man." There are not really that many who are so well done in any movie. Such characters are largely absent from current movies. According to Hollywood halfwits, heroes must either be literally bullet proof (but, filled with Hamlet levels of inner conflict) or a minority fighting the historic crimes of the White Devil. 

I use the term "active man" as he was described by Ayn Rand in one of her earliest political essays, "The Only Path to Tomorrow (1944):  

The Active Man is the producer, the creator, the originator, the individualist. His basic need is independence - in order to think and work. He neither needs nor seeks power over other men - nor can he be made to work under any form of compulsion ... The Passive Man is found on every level of society, in mansions and in slums, and his identification mark is his dread of independence. He is a parasite who expects to be taken care of by others ....

It's almost as if Irwin Allen read these lines and then used a natural disaster to most dramatically illustrate these two antipodes. Hackman's Reverend Frank Scott is on his way to Africa, "I had to find the country on a map." His independent streak and unconventional sermons have led to his banishment. He's very happy. "The church has blessed me to find God in my own way." In his sermon given on the ship, he says that Christians need to get "off their knees" and act to help themselves. It's easy to see how his "Muscular Christianity" doesn't sit well with fully consistent practitioners of altruism. Scott's ongoing debate with Reverend John (Arthur O'Connell) solidifies the movie's theme. 

When it comes to Passive Men, Allen gleefully slaughters them wholesale. Everyone foolish enough to blindly follow authorities such as the idiotic Purser or Dr. Caravello drown like rats. Early in the film, Red Buttons is pleading with people to join in climbing out of the ship. He, and Scott, explain endlessly that help will not reach them. They have to make their escape through the bottom of the ship. "Can't you see the logic?" Those who don't, or refuse to think, pay with their lives. 

Some of the Active Men don't make it. There are no guarantees. Some do live to see daylight again. This is a great, classic action film that has an important and intelligent theme. The less said about the remake, the better. Contemporary Hollywood hollowed out the story's meaning and turned it into just another pointless big budget special effects showcase. Instead, rent the the original and enjoy a real "they don't make them like this anymore" classic. 

Movie Stars at Work