What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Fading Fast]

The Poseidon Adventure from 1972 with Gene Hackman, Shelley Winters, Red Buttons, Ernest Borgnine, Stella Stevens, Carolyn Lynley, and Pamela Sue Martin


The Poseidon Adventure is one of the best of the "disaster" films that populated 1970s movie screens. It's held up well because the standard in those pre-CGI days was to make the movie believable; whereas, now the standard is to use over-the-top, unbelievable special effects.

The movie is also helped along by its outstanding cast including veterans Shelley Winters, Red Buttons, and Ernest Borgnine; 1970s heavyweight Gene Hackman; and several talented old and new tier-two stars like Stella Stevens, Carolyn Lynley, and Pamela Sue Martin.

At the outset, a cruise ship departs for a multi-day trip over New Year's. As the passengers do their thing - have fun, argue, dance, eat, drink, gamble - the owner of the ship pushes the captain to go for speed to save money, à la the Titanic disaster.

Owing to an underwater earthquake, and in the movie's era-iconic visual moment, a tsunami hits the ship, flipping it upside down. It's not perfect, but the lack of CGI makes the special effects still impressive today.

As the ship settles down after the wave, an iconoclast preacher, played by Hackman, realizing the ship is upside down, encourages the survivors to follow him on a journey up to the bottom of the ship, which of course is now the top. Only a few agree to go.

There is a lot of 1970s "Me Generation" religious ideology in play as Hackman was already challenging the Protestant Church's establishment before the wave hit. You see some of that attitude in his leadership of the small band of survivors who follow him.

If you want to carry the metaphor further, you might view him as a Christ with his Apostles or, alternatively, as Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt. Hackman even yells at God, demanding He stops getting in their way if He isn’t going to help. It's full-on 1970s anti-establishment stuff.

You don’t need to pay that rigmarole any attention if you don’t want to; instead, you can simply enjoy a good old-fashioned disaster/survivor movie, which is where The Poseidon Adventure shines.

Hackman's group fight among themselve but also pull together as they overcome obstacles, including flooding decks, flash fires, locked steel doors, underwater escape routes, destabilizing shocks as the ship experiences explosions, and other challenges.

You can pick apart scenes and effects if you study them closely, but if you just go with it, it’s a darn good disaster-escape story, complete with a little 1970s titillation as Lynley, Martin, and Stevens end up with fewer clothes over time, often soaked through.

Hackman and Borgnine – Borgnine plays a retired New York City police detective – fight endlessly, embodying the anti-establishment trope, while others, like Buttons and Lynley, form an unlikely bond born of kindness and need.

These are professional actors, all led by experienced director Ronald Neame, who take their work seriously. The result is a somber, not-campy effort with fewer cringeworthy moments than most of its 1970s counterparts, and it even delivers a few genuine nail-biting scenes.

For what it is – a 1970s disaster movie with a big cast – The Poseidon Adventure has aged well. It’s the perfect movie to grab a bucket of popcorn, sit down, and enjoy a fun picture from a time when disaster films were all the rage.