It is hard to believe but 40 years ago this week or so The Poseidon Adventure was released. In honor of the event, the Egyptian Theater in Los Angeles will be having an anniversary screening and panel discussion featuring cast members Carol Lynley, Eric Shea and Ernie Orsatti plus Stella Stevens and Pamela Sue Martin schedules permitting. Click here to read more in an article from the LA Times. Wish a theatre in New York would do the same!!!
The Poseidon Adventure was a life changing movie event for me. My parents routinely took me and my siblings to the drive-in in the late Sixties to mid-Seventies. We saw everything from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to For a Few Dollars More to The Night They Raided Minsky’s (a pair of hands covered my eyes when Britt Ekland did the first striptease and dropped her top) to Patton to Beneath the Planet of the Apes to Paint Your Wagon to Love Story.
But nothing prepared me for The Poseidon Adventure (TPA) not even Skyjacked (my favorite movie up to that point) that had an all-star cast (Charlton Heston, Yvette Mimieux, Rosey Grier, Susan Dey, Leslie Uggams, etc.) being held hostage by a psycho Vietnam vet (James Brolin) who hijacked their plane to Moscow. When TPA was released in December of 1972, the TV screens were bombarded with trailers. I desperately wanted to see it. Our neighbor Vinny who lived across the street saw it and regaled me with stories about it. I was eleven and my parents rarely took us to in-door movies so I knew I had to wait for warmer weather. Or did I? Our school trip from my elementary school St. Raphael’s (that school with its creepy nuns, boring religion classes, and mean girls, so much for charitable Catholics, was a horror/disaster movie in itself but I digress LOL) was rained out and off to the movies we went. When I saw the marquee beaming The Poseidon Adventure I was like oh baby this is it. Imagine my disgust when they marched us right by that theater to see Godspell!!! I thought, “I don’t want to see fuckin’ hippies running around in clown makeup singing horrible religious pop tunes!” I sat there stone faced the entire time glimpsing back to the door thinking, “Should I take a chance and make a run for it to sneak next door?” Alas I did not.
Finally my birthday rolled around and on May 11, TPA was still playing in theaters across the country almost six months after it premiered. Needless to say, it was a monster box office hit. On a warm Saturday night, off to the drive-in we went. I was so excited and got to sit in the front seat between my mom and dad. The sun went down and the movie began. I was fascinated as it unspooled waiting anxiously for the big moment and then it came. As the ocean liner began to roll over after being hit by a 40-foot tidal wave, I was mesmerized. I had never seen anything like it. My heart was racing as the people in the ballroom began to reach out for anything to steady themselves as the ship began to tilt. “Hold on Linda,” Mike Rogo yelled to his wife. It was to no avail as they, Belle, Nonnie, Manny and the rest of the passengers and crew all began tumbling down as the ocean liner began to capsize. It is the best piece of trick photography, stunt work, and special effects for me to this day.
After that capsizing scene, I think I sat there mouth agape for the rest of the movie as the passengers and crew made their way up to the bottom of the boat–climbing, swimming, crawling their way to try to escape. The movie was tense, exciting, shocking (they killed off major characters in horrific ways!), tender, and funny. I loved all the characters but the one that fascinated me the most was the hippie singer Nonnie clad in hot pants and go-go boots. She was the lone character who expressed sheer terror regarding their predicament. I could relate, as I was petrified just watching in a parked car. She also asked the most logical question, “How long we will stay afloat?” For me that made sense considering that the water was hot on their heels every deck they went up.
When the movie ended, it was like I just awoke from a dream. First thing I asked my mother was “who was the pretty blond playing Nonnie?” She said, “Carol Lynley. She was in that vampire movie [The Night Stalker] that I told you not to watch last year.” I was never the same again. I began to read and collect anything I could on TPA and especially Carol Lynley. Soon I had enough clippings to fill a scrapbook (still have).
In the mid-Eighties, my friend Chris and I went to LA. While there we went to a wax museum. We turned a corner and I found myself in the upside down engine room from TPA with wax figures of most of the cast. Making sure no one was coming, I hopped over the railing and posed with Nonnie and Mr. Martin wax dummies while Chris snapped away.
My fascination with TPA has never faded. I had the movie on VHS and now DVD and Blue-Ray; I have gone to screenings of it (and when the ship begins to capsize, I lock arms with my partner Ernie like Belle does with Mannie and Mr. Martin (Ernie rolls his eyes because 1. he hates the movie and 2. he thinks I am nuts); I interviewed Carol Lynley about it for my very first magazine article for Filmfax; wrote about it again for Cinema Retro; chat about it on TPA fan page on Facebook; have a framed movie poster of it hanging in my living room (thanks Ern!) and Blog about it every chance I get.
I have seen hundreds of movies since TPA in 1972 and not one has affected me as that one did. I think it was a combination of my age, the time, the place, the fantastic actors, and the fact that producer Irwin Allen and director Ronald Neame delivered the first real spectacular disaster movie that for some reason just resonated with me then and forever more.
Check out the below for cool footage and commentary. I agree with all of them TPA should rank higher at least #2 in Best Disaster Movie of All-Time (though for me it is #1 by a landslide).
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