The Poseidon Adventure on TCM in 15 minutes!

Manny!

In the water I'm a very skinny lady.

LOL

in mortal combat with this as the campiest disaster movie evah!

It’s not all that. Shelley is great - but having to see Ernest Borgnine at the same time ruins that. Not a good. Live - and not that campy.

Is the sequel worth checking out? I know it's supposed to be terrible, but is it at least so-bad-it's good?

for the trifecta

For Auld Lang Syne.... ooooooooooopsie

It's a great action movie, no cgi, real fire, real water, actors doing their own stunts.

Was the young blonde singer in love with her brother? Their relationship seemed ... inappropriate.

Was the Red Buttons character gay? He gave the old "I'm too busy with work" excuse for being a lifelong bachelor.

Mrs. Rogo had nice tits.

The Gene Hackman priest character was annoying. And he had the hots for young Susan. Ew.

Why didn't they let Robin get smashed in the head by a table? Or drowned? That kid was fucking annoying.

Stella Stevens deserved a nomination too...she got big laughs.

This movie is so scary and suspenseful!! I'm on the edge of my seat.

They really don't make movies like this, any more.

Is Stella Stevens the lady who played Mrs. Rogo, R10? If so, she's fabulous. She just called Mrs. Rosen a fat ass!

And speaking of asses, Roddy McDowell had quite a nice ass in those tight pants.

I think it's so cool how the set designers had to put everything upside down.

For the most part, you really get the feel of everything being the opposite.

I was about 10 when I first saw this and I thought it was RIVETING.

That movie was awesome!

Excitement from start to finish.

[quote]Was the young blonde singer in love with her brother? Their relationship seemed ... inappropriate.

Speak for yourself!

Eric Shea, the kid who plays Robin, ruins it for me. His acting consisted of yelling out his lines with not a trace of thought or meaning behind those words. He did the same thing in "Yours, Mine and Ours" and all those Disney TV specials like "The Whiz Kid" and "Menace on the Mountain." And he wasn't even cute.

Remember when Liza went on Larry King (for real) after 9/11 and said she thought she was watching a remake of "The Towering Inferno" until somebody called her?

If I recall correctly the original novel had the little boy wander off to find a bathroom and he was never heard from again. They left without him.

In the water, I'm a very skinny lady

A film filled with characters I wanted to see die.

The skipper brave and sure

Why should I watch this when I lived it!

In the novel the little boy, Robin, disappeared while going to the bathroom -Never seen again, and definitely died when the ship finally sank. His sister, Susan, was raped by a crewman while searching for him.

So the cop's wife was a hooker?

Former hooker!

Just panties

What else do I need?

[quote]In the novel the little boy, Robin, disappeared while going to the bathroom -Never seen again, and definitely died when the ship finally sank. His sister, Susan, was raped by a crewman while searching for him.

Sounds like the book was more gritty

I remember watching bits of this at Sidetrack in Chicago on Showtune Sundays.

They would always yell things very Rocky horror style as various video clips played. For Shelley's clip from this it was always "jump, bitch, jump!"

I was a tender young thing when I first saw this, and I went in not knowing anything about it, and I was completely blown away.

In some ways it's typical of the 1970s, where some stars did not make it all the way to the end of the picture.

Shelley Winters is awesome - the fact that she made jokes about her weight required a ton of confidence. What an awesome broad!

It’s a classic!

Watched it!

"In the novel the little boy, Robin, disappeared while going to the bathroom -Never seen again"

Was Michael Jackson the entertainment on the ship?

Irwin Allen was smart. He knew kids would identify with the kids in his films so they never get hurt. In Poseidon and Towering Inferno the kids are also separated from their parents so you don't have that worry of a parent dying a la Bambi's mother to worry about either.

[quote]The skipper brave and sure

Told this here before, I met Leslie Nielsen at the Chiller autograph show in Jersey. I gave him the Poseidon DVD cover to sign and I said "This is all your fault", he laughed out loud and said "I take no responsibility for this! A few years later I meet Richard Chamberlain and give him the Towering Inferno cover and say "This is all your fault. He looks at me and says, "Yes I guess it is!"

I have Poseidon signed by Ernest Borgnine, Stella Stevens, Leslie Nielson, Carol Lynley, Pamela Sue Martin & Eric Shea ( Eric added Shove it!), all from Chiller shows.

Damn, R35!

How much is that worth?? All those signatures are sure to fetch in the tens of thousands.

[quote] Eric Shea ( Eric added Shove it!),

Hilarious

[quote] In the novel the little boy, Robin, disappeared while going to the bathroom -Never seen again, and definitely died when the ship finally sank. His sister, Susan, was raped by a crewman while searching for him.

[quote] Sounds like the book was more gritty

Can you just imagine if Susan disappeared while going to the bathroom, and Robin was raped by a crewman while searching for her??

Now THAT would be gritty.

[quote]Sounds like the book was more gritty

It is, more characters and an expanded ending, but I won't spoil it.

only, “IF you can hang on through the night!”

[quote]How much is that worth?? All those signatures are sure to fetch in the tens of thousands.

Nah, all those actors did lots of shows so there are probably a bunch out there. But to me, it's my favorite movie, the last movie we all saw as a family as a kid before my parents split up and I got to talk to actors about it.

R12 the same thing happened to me. I was 9 when it came out. Obsessed with The Who will live, who will die, marketing. I didn’t bother asking to see it because it seemed very adult. One night my mom just said “let’s get out of here.” Took me to my Aunt Josie’s restaurant for dinner and to see The Poseidon Adventure. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. Love that Shelley Winters gets to be a hero! Thanks for bringing back a great memory.

My parents took me from the Philadelphia suburbs downtown for a big night out to see the film for my 10th birthday. I was obsessed from just watching the TV commercials of the wave coming for the boat.

It’s the best of all the disaster movies by a mile - the great and campy cast, the scene as the waves crashes into the boat, the upside down ballroom, Shelley, the tension around who will and won’t survive, the theme song ... it doesn’t get better than this.

I'm pretty sure it aired annually as the ABC Sunday Night Movie when I was a kid. I always begged to stay up past my bedtime so I could see the end.

Caught the last 30 minutes of it yesterday. Love it.

Yeah they should have thrown Shelley Oscar #3 for this. She’s so good in it.

I thought this was a cliche-ridden campfest when it was released. Winters had become a joke by that point and was starting to hog the "Jewish mother" roles giving them little heart or wit.

[quote] It’s the best of all the disaster movies by a mile - the great and campy cast, the scene as the waves crashes into the boat, the upside down ballroom, Shelley, the tension around who will and won’t survive

What really pushed the movie forward, was the constant threat of rising water. It really built up the suspense, because it was as if the water was chasing the survivors.

Then they threw in a few explosions every now and then, just for good measure.

That's what really made the movie exciting.

Poseidon Adventure was a FAR better movie than that OVERRATED Titanic.

As much as I liked Poseidon Adventure (and was bored with the overlong Towering Inferno), nothing topped the trashy grandeur of Earthquake in sensurround.

Earthquake was my first Ava Gardner movie. I was captivated by her, even at that later stage of her career, and I have since become a big fan especially early Ava in Showboat and Mogambo, and ripe Ava in The Night of the Iguana.

What was funny about Ava in Earthquake was she played Lorne Greene daughter - even though she was only 7 years younger than he.

Ava Gardner should have played Lorne Greenes WIFE not daughter.

R51, I saw Earthquake in the theater. When she called him daddy I got confused.

The one you call your daddy ain't your pa

I re-watched this recently and was surprised to observe they did almost all of their own stunts. It must have been a grueling shoot.

One thing I liked in the movie, is the way that Roddy McDowall's character mocks the future Oscar-winning song The Morning After

Leave it to Mad: The Poopsidedown Adventure

Try again

It was a grueling shoot, {R55]. They had to shoot the scenes pretty much in order, as they were destroying sets as they went along. That meant weeks and weeks of underwater work and being soaked to the bone. Pretty much everyone did all of their own stunt work. Stuntman Ernie Orsatti (scion of a famous family of stunt actors) portrayed the hot guy crushing on Pamela Sue Martin's character, and he did that legendary fall into the skylight when the ship overturns. The now-iconic fall was one of the most horrifying moments ever filmed. We tend to make fun of Irwin Allen today for his legendary cheapness, but he truly was the Master of Disaster.

Orsatti's stunt is at 2:16.

Actually r56 it is the other older waiter who hates the song. He'd prefer a Strauss waltz. Roddy says I rather fancy it.

Eric Shea grew so much during the shoot that in the final scenes on the catwalk you can see he is always placed a step down from Pamela Sue Martin so he wouldn't appear as tall as her which he now was.

At that age he probably would prefer to have been placed where he could look up Stella Stevens

Gene sold out.

It's such a great movie. I've watched it so often, I have most of the dialogue mesmerized. It really is the best disaster movie of all time. It had a compelling plot and it was well directed. It stayed away from the soap opera theatrics of the other disaster films.

Fun facts:

In the scene where the men lift up the big Xmas tree so they can use it to climb up, you can hear Borgnine adlib, "Jesus Fuck this is heavy!"

Carol Lynley wore her own boots in the movie and they gradually shrunk from being wet so often.

The Indian looking lady sitting at Gene Hackman's table is actually Frieda Rentie, Marla Gibbs' sister.

[quote] The Indian looking lady sitting at Gene Hackman's table is actually Frieda Rentie, Marla Gibbs' sister.

I wondered about that lady. She was the only ethnic person on the entire ship, so she really stood out.

Who was she supposed to be? She seemed to be wearing Indian garments, but I had no idea she was African American.

That's some really great trivia, R64.

Eric Shea has acknowledged in interviews that he was terrible in the movie. He said that there was so much yelling by the characters in the film that he assumed he should yell all his lines, too.

He's also said that Shelley Winters and Stella Stevens were the nicest to him on the set of the movie and that he had a big crush on Carol Lynley, but she barely spoke to him during shooting

[quote] She was the only ethnic person on the entire ship, so she really stood out.

Um, we’re ALL “ethnic.” Just like we all have an accent and we’re all dying. This is precisely the systemic racism engendered from a position of privilege that is finally coming to light. It’s never too late to learn. And I’m not trying to be a dickhead, as we can all stand to improve our outlooks. Why, until not too long ago, I used to call myself “ethnic looking” as well (I’m Puerto Rican). It hasn’t occurred to me that Scottish women, Indian children, and Swedish models are as “ethnic-looking” as I am.

Now go ahead and call me a dick anyway (mine is uncut - ethnic!)

It hadn’t occurred to me ...

[quote]Now go ahead and call me a dick anyway (mine is uncut - ethnic!)

That statement is useless without pictures.

See R11, r12 and r14 in the linked DL thread. Hilarious Carol Lynley interviews with Roger Ebert and Earl Wilson, including calling co-star Red Buttons a cunt. She didn't like Shelley either.

I was at a Poseidon Adventure 40-year screening that Carol Lynley appeared at in 2012. She was doing a Q&A before the movie, and I asked her about her adversarial relationship with Red Buttons at the time.

She was very diplomatic in how she answered. She said she thought that they just didn't understand each other and neither one of them really took the time to get to know each other. She did say that they later made amends and became friends. They both appeared together at a 40-year anniversary celebration of the film in LA and were all smiles together.

I remember that Ernest Borgnine had died shortly before her appearance at the screening I was at, and she got very choked up talking about him. They had become good friends during the filming of the movie, and she said she missed him very much.

The greatest line EVEH!

I also like, "Well, maybe you could just say, 'It's the police!' and it'll open right up!"

[quote]It's such a great movie. I've watched it so often, I have most of the dialogue mesmerized.

Oh, dear.

Not much joy in life, huh R74?

I love the shot at the beginning of the New Year's Eve scene in the dining room, with Carol singing "The Morning After" while all the passengers are dancing to what looks like a completely different song.

The capsizing scene is still one of the best action sequences in a film, IMHO. Considering it was all done long before the advent of CGI, it's pretty amazing.

And I still love the lady in the mod bell bottom pantsuit who plunges to her demise toward the end of the scene.

Director Ronald Neame's first disaster movie was directing Judy Garland in "I Could Go On Singing" a decade earlier!

He died in 2010 just ten months short of his 100th birthday.

That plunge the guy who wants to dance with Pamela Sue Martin takes is really pretty amazing. Don't know how they filmed that.

Ernie Orsatti was originally hired as an actor, but Irwin Allen wanted all of the cast to do their own students, so Orsatti did the plunge – in one take. It was a 30 foot fall. The 26-year-old was knocked unconscious and received 16 cuts.

R79 They had big air pillows beneath him when he fell. If you look closely, you can see them when he breaks through the glass. They did it that shot in a single take.

Lost mine in the pool.

I'm a huge fan of the film -I don't remember seeing those, [R82]. Where did you find it?

Does the doll float?

[quote]The now-iconic fall was one of the most horrifying moments ever filmed.

More horrifying than this?

Geeze, [R85]! Give a guy some warning!

I remember reading the book as a kid. The girl gets raped and as she's being rescued she daydreams about having the rapist's baby and going to Liverpool (where the rapist said he was from.) and presenting the baby to his parents.

I remember thinking, "That's not right."

R82, that doll must be worth a million bucks!

The stunt....

Ernie was then hired for The Towering Inferno where he was the foreman in teh elevator who got on top with Steve McQueen.

R89 Great story! Thanks!

There are a lot of Oscar winners in this cast – – Shelley Winters, Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, Gene Hackman, Jack Albertson … and Arthur O'Connell was a two-time nominee.

Am I missing anyone?

R74 and R75 I'm R64 and I'm howling at my faux pas. It's fine.

Did more research...apparently Sally Kellerman turned down the role of Mrs. Rogo!!! And, Gene Wilder was up for the Red Buttons' part.

My sister's and I cried and cried when Shelley Winter's died. Just floods of tears

My brother and I would crawl on the furniture, trying not to touch the floor. I guess it's really called 'Lava' but we called it 'The Poseidon Adventure.' I'd wear my dad's shirt and pretend I was Linda Rogo.

I think I read an interview with Ronald Neame or maybe its in his book where he says perhaps he allowed the actors to yell too much. .

and he recounts how Gene Hackman wanted to change the script so that he would rescue Shelley and not vice versa. Shelley apparently stormed off the set, saying that scene is why she agreed to do the movie. But she came back when she got her way.

The Million Dollar Mermaid, Esther Williams claimed she was offered the part of Belle Rosen, but her controlling husband, Fernando Lamas, nixed the idea because she had gotten fat and wouldn't photograph well. She regretted not doing it because it nabbed Shelley Winters another Oscar nomination. As if she could've essayed the role the way Shelley did.

r80 it was the reverse. He was a stunt man who wanted to be an actor. So they gave him the scene with Susan.

Never realized that was him in Towering Inferno. The way Miss Dunaway's hair and dress are messed up and blowing in the wind yet she still looks gorgeous is just a thing of beauty.

We should all write her thank you notes for gracing us with her perfection.

the elevator scene with Miss Dunaway

[quote]As if she could've essayed the role the way Shelley did.

Ah, but the ten-minute aqua ballet we were deprived of, R99.

Odd that Susan would be raped on the boat. You are on a sinking ship and you stop to rape a girl instead of trying to get out?

[quote]My sister's and I cried and cried when Shelley Winter's died.

Oh, dear, and oh, dear again.

Looks like I'll be putting in some overtime tonight.

I remember in the Mad parody, when another group of struggling survivors came across our intrepid group, and didn't know which way to go, they were asked, do you wanna follow the no-name extras, or should you follow the stars...?

That is always one thing that is a little hard to believe in the film. Wouldn't more people climb the tree and realize that help would have to come from the bottom of the ship?

I guess that was all part of Hackman's philosophy about God helps those who help themselves.

I love this film so much. Sadly it seems the Blu-ray is out of print.

The remake Poseidon is nowhere near as good. The actors and characters are nowhere near as likable. You just don't care about their fate.

Has Hackman ever gone on record or done one interview about the film? I think he was filming it when he won his French Connection Oscar. I get the feeling he looks down on it and only did it for the cash.

Stella Stevens said somewhere (maybe the AMC behind the scenes?) that Hackman doesn't like the film because he thinks his toupee looked phony.

Back in the 1990s, I used to like reading AOL profiles. One guy had in his, "When you said you had a swimmer's build, I didn't think you meant like Shelley Winters in The Poseidon Adventure."

I'm pretty sure Hackman was quoted about doing the film, saying he wanted to do his own stunts though he apparently hated having his hair styled like Irwin Allen.

In the scene where the Christmas tree falls into the water almost pulling Hackman with it....you can clearly tell a stuntman has been inserted for him.

[quote] My brother and I would crawl on the furniture, trying not to touch the floor. I guess it's really called 'Lava' but we called it 'The Poseidon Adventure.' I'd wear my dad's shirt and pretend I was Linda Rogo.

Hilarious!

I begged my older brother and sister to take me to see it the summer it came out. I was beyond excited by it, wouldn't shut up, relived every dramatic scene, obsessed over Shelley Winters, drove them bananas. ( I was one of those mistakes, considerably younger than them and consequently ignored and spoilt equally ) Later on that summer I was playing with my new kayak. My brother had pulled out the plug so as I furiously paddled out into the lake the kayak sank slowly. Meanwhile on the shore he and my sister sang " There's got to be a morning after ". Even back then they had me figured out.

Stella said that Irwin Allen was a cheapskate. He took her to a Jack-in-the-Box to discuss the film with her.

Despite playing some nasty creeps on film Ernest Borgnine was a sweet man. He writes about Hackman in his memoir. They didn't get along and ended up only speaking their lines on film.

R116 The fact that they didn't like each other definitely came across in the movie, especially in the part where they almost come to blow and poor little Red Buttons almost gets crushed between them.

^ Make that "blows." Freudian slip! :-)

Just checked Ernie's memoir. It seems Hackman didn't know his lines in one scene when they were rehearsing and got mad when Borgnine asked if there was a problem. Hackman defended his position saying he had paraphrased and improvised his lines on Bonnie and Clyde and he liked that way of working. Borgnine told him that Irwin Allen did not, so Hackman never spoke off-screen to him again.

Girls, girls, you're both Oscar winners...

[quote] I was playing with my new kayak. My brother had pulled out the plug so as I furiously paddled out into the lake the kayak sank slowly. Meanwhile on the shore he and my sister sang " There's got to be a morning after ". Even back then they had me figured out.

R114 that is damned funny!!!

Your family sounds so campy!

[R100] I had always understood it to be that way too -But I fact-checked my comments before posting (I know, I know...) and watched an interview with Ernie Orsatti where he said that he was not a stuntman until that point. Don't know whether he was rewriting history, misspeaking, or what...

[R103] The rape scene in the novel is in the context of panicked and disoriented crew members milling about with no ideas of how to escape their situation. The young man who rapes Susan says that he wanted to get "a bit of skirt" once more before he died. Then he is horrified -not because he raped someone, but because she was a passenger and he would get in trouble for that!

As a kid I never understood the line "just panties"

It sort of sounds like says just panings. I always thought panigs were some woman's thing I hadn't heard of.

That SOB drooled on me during my death scene!

R108 Hackman won the Oscar for French Connection after the first week of filming The Poseidon Adventure.

The remake "Poseidon" sucked for many reasons but as someone else said, it was mainly because the characters were unmemorable and boring. The original works for a lot of reasons including the fact it had fun, interesting characters. The remake was just badly written and stupidly cast; there were 3 main female roles and they were all cute brunettes in their 20s...YOU COULDN'T TELL THEM APART!

And, I lost a lot of affection for Borgnine in 2005/06 when Brokeback Mountain was vying for awards love including Oscars obviously and Borgnine poo pooed the movie for its subject matter, that it wasn't a movie that should win the Oscar.

The original novel by Paul Gallico is a potboiler...it's far more soap opera-y than the film with a far bigger cast of characters. There were like 15 of them traipsing through the ship trying to get rescued including:

A Turkish seaman who helped them through the ship

A middle aged drunk and his younger drunk gal he met on the ship...aspects of the drunk turned up in the Slim Pickens' character in Beyond the Poseidon Adventure

An old maid British lady who had a crush on Reverend Scott (they transferred that to Susan in the film)

Susan and Robin's parents were there too and the dad acted like he was hero worshipping Reverend Scott and the mom was really annoyed about it.

Oh! And, Revered Scott was an ex-jock who became a minister and it's suggested he was getting booted from the church for fucking young men!

And, they combined two book characters to create Mr. Martin, the role played by Red Buttons.

And, Nonie is like a 17 year old Cockney showgirl.

AND, Linda Rogo is REALLY awful in the book...racist and anti-Semitic. She's not an ex-hooker but a third rate bimbo actress.

Oh, and in the book a bunch of other passengers get rescued from the other end of the ship and they emerged looked rather pristine like they had a relatively easy time of it while our lot are all nearly naked and covered in bruises and oil which pisses off our lot.

Oh, and the kid definitely doesn't make it...Robin wanders off to pee (which is still in the film) but he never comes back. And, Susan is raped and she gets all weird about it and vows to find the rapist's family in the UK to show them "part of their son still survives!" It sounds weird here, writing about it and yes, it's equally weird in the book, too.

Oh, I didn't clarify that Susan is raped then CONVINCED she is pregnant (based on some nutty intuition that only a recently raped 17 year old is capable of possessing) and apparently fond of the also nutty British cabin boy who thought it a smart idea to fuck/rape a passenger in the bowels of a capsized ocean liner that is sinking then afterward panic at what he has done and presumably fall through a wrecked part of the ship to his death. Meanwhile, Susan wills the seamen's semen deep into her lady parts and begins thinking of cute baby names and trips to the UK to meet her Baby Daddy's family.

Oh, Oh Oh, R126 and R127. We’ve got it. The book is different than the movie and you’re very excited.

Does anyone get the whole Jesus and his disciples theme in this movie? Gene Hackman's character is the Jesus figure, and the others are the disciples he leads to heaven (ascending up from hell). One of his followers is even a Mary Magdalene type (Stella Stevens).

In the end, when Gene Hackman is hanging off the steam shut-off wheel, it's like he's hanging from the cross, and he ultimately sacrifices himself so the others can be saved.

R126 I read the book years ago when I was a kid, but I do remember Reverend Scott being described as either being completely naked or naked except for his underwear as he tried to turn the steam off. In my little gayling mind, I got kind of turned on imagining a naked guy hanging from a giant steering wheel thing with his cock out as everyone else looked on.

I also remember the ending, where they see a group of passengers from another part of the ship being rescued. I didn't really like that, because it made me think the main characters were really stupid to follow Reverend Scott when they could have followed the other people and had an easier time of it.

[quote] They did it that shot in a single take.

They’d kind of have to, no?

Unless they want to bring in another sheet of sugar glass.

R35 Never knew Leslie Nielson did a Chiller. Sorry I missed him.

Most people don’t know this I guess, r132, but Leslie made a career of playing “heavies” until the tail end of his career when he turned to comedy.

R133 I was referring to the Chiller autograph show that R35 mentioned

D’oh!

Eh, what the hell, it’s a good piece of trivia for this thread anyhow.

Leslie Nielsen's career ran from 1950 until his death in 2010, so about 60 years.

He made Airplane! in 1980, so the second half of his career, 30 years, was spent in comedic roles. A bit more than the "tail end," I would say...

As long as you want to pick gnat shit out of pepper, are you saying it wasn’t the tail end? Because it certainly wasn’t the beginning of his career so it would have to be the tail end.

I think it's interesting to hear about the book.

I do too, r138.

Hell, I didn’t even know there was a book.

And I just ordered by Blu-Ray copy of this movie from Best Buy.

R128

There's always a turd who won't climb the Christmas Tree.

You're that turd.

The book is a great read. It's available digitally now, too. Author Paul Gallico wrote a sequel to the film, not to his original novel, but it wasn't nearly as good -or believable. In Gallico's version, Mike Rogo commandeers the rescue helicopter to take him back to the Poseidon, as he was on board guarding a gold shipment, and with the ship still afloat, he must go back to protect it. Amazingly Martin and Manny Rosen decide to go back as well -Leaving the kids and Nonnie to fly off to rescue. It's been years since I read it, but I recall Manny Rosen gets gunned down in a shootout with the looters. An ignominious end to a great character.

R141 That book was also crazy. And, apparently Paul Gallico would do anything for a buck including writing a sequel to the film based on his first book but using the altered plot of the film as the basis for the second book....which included invalidating the fact the original book ended with the Poseidon sinking. Then Irwin Allen didn't really use the sequel book to make the sequel film...which was also a trainwreck, or, in this case, a slow shipwreck.

The sequel would have been more fun if it had turned out Linda Rogo had survived to continue to spread her powerful message of "Just panties...what else do I need?"

I think remember a section of the book where they broke into a food storage and pigged out. I loved that kind of thing as a kid. Food fetish.

I don't think Gallico lived to see the sequel film released. He died before finishing the second book.

The script for the original film called for the ship to sink, as in the novel, but they simply ran out of money to film it.

[quote]Never knew Leslie Nielson did a Chiller. Sorry I missed him.

He might have done two but he was really cool.

[quote]I also remember the ending, where they see a group of passengers from another part of the ship being rescued. I didn't really like that, because it made me think the main characters were really stupid to follow Reverend Scott when they could have followed the other people and had an easier time of it.

I didn't want to give the book ending spoiler away here but since someone did, I read it as a kid too and was pissed about the others they see when they get out.

R146 Plus, it kind of took away from the whole "struggle to survive" theme of the book. You're invested in the story of this small group of people, and you're rooting for them to make it. Then when they do, you find out there's a whole other group of people who made it out, too. It diminished the whole experience.

I'm glad the movie only had six people survive.

Did you ever notice that when the ship turns over, there are tables and chairs stuck or nailed to the floor (now ceiling)? When the dude falls into the electric light he falls from a table. Even Susan is rescued from a table that is nailed to the floor. Weird. Still love the movie, though.

R148 Most dining room tables on cruise ships are nailed to the floor so they won't go flying across the room when big waves hit.

Screwed down for life..

I don't get it. It might be too old for me.

R151 What's not to get? Ship capsizes, people try to climb out and save their lives. Drama and hilarity ensues.

My sister and I are fifty-five and fifty-seven years old. We talk about "The Poseidon Adventure" all the time still.

But at your age, do you remember discussing it?

Watched this again tonight for NYE. A true classic.

I'm waiting for the LIVE version on TV. Or the Broadway musical.

Someone mentioned "Airport" upthread. I read the novel first and then watched the movie.

I hated the old stowaway bitch, the character plates by Helen Hayes. Even while reading the book, I was so annoyed by that cunt that I was actually hoping the disaster they were all trying to avert would actually happen just so that irritating bitch would shut up.

I loathed her even more when I saw the movie. I wanted Helen Hayes to be killed off in a random mugging scene as soon as she had uttered her first line.

*plates = played. Why the fuck would autocorrect suggest 'plates' in that sentence?

I hated that Hayes won over Stapleton, whose performance was stronger and more important to the film.

R159- The NYT praised Stapleton's performance as the BEST in the movie.

By any chance have any of you seen or heard of a Poseidon Adventure musical? My friend from NJ was in a touring production of that years ago...the songs were hysterical.

Yes, Poseidon Adventure was musicalized back in 2002 by Hell In A Handbag Productions in Chicago, and a cast recording was released. I posted a video of the song "Just Panties" earlier in this thread (R27).

As a kid, the TV commercial for the theatrical release showing Belle Rosen slowly slipping down yelling, 'Manny! Manny!' really creeped me out.

The book sequel has the Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons and Jack Albertson characters all go back into the ship. I forget why Buttons and Albertson go back but Borgnine is revealed to be on some undercover mission carrying some sort of weapons or something that are stored on the ship.

They sort of kept a little of that plot for the sequel. They don't bring back any of the characters (except the ship's nurse now played by Shirley Jones.) and Telly Savales is some sort of arms runner trying to salvage some sort of stuff.

The sequel isn't really campy bad. It is just basically the same thing with them climbing over stuff and trying to get out. Sally Field is actually kind of funny in the film as a quirky character. (It was her follow up film to Norma Rae oddly. I guess she signed on before she realized she'd become an Oscar winner.) I've seen her joke how it was always one step up and then one step down in her career. Sybil then Smokey and the Bandit. Norma Rae then Beyond the Poseidon Adventure.