The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

Survivors on a capsized ocean liner race against time and their sinking vessel in this nautical entry from the Irwin Allen disaster cycle of the 1970s. Even though this has got to be one of my dad’s favorite movies, I’d never seen it in its entirety, only a few bits and pieces mainly towards the end. This is an exciting movie, there’s a well maintained and genuine sense of tension throughout, the human crowd reaction to disasters is always fascinating, and I was genuinely surprised to see who lived and who died. The cast of then largely second string or ‘has been’ actors (with the notable exception of Gene Hackman), plus the setting can’t help but remind one of the Love Boat, but Titanic would doubtless be a better mark for comparison. Got to say that I liked that the films most heroic characters were an elderly Jewish lady (Shelly Winters) and a radical (in the best sense of the word) preacher (Hackman’s great as this hardline variation on William Sloan Coffin). A surprisingly compact film at just under two hours, I think this running time helps the pace vis-a-ve The Towering Inferno, that pluse more of a sense of realism makes me like this film more. 4 out of 5.