The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

Directed by: Ronald Neame, Irwin Allen (uncredited)

Starring: Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters, Roddy McDowall

Who will survive-in one of the greatest escape adventures ever!

The '70s brought a plethora of disaster films to the screen, and The Poseidon Adventure is my favorite of them.  With today being New Year's Eve, I thought it would be appropriate to finally revisit this classic.

The S.S. Poseidon gets capsized by a tidal wave, and a small group of survivors band together to escape.  For a movie that clocks in under the 2 hour mark, we get a lot of personal stories that play out over the course of the movie, as well as some great moments of suspense and terror.

This movie has a pretty star-studded cast, and I'm not going to go into the details of each character.  I will say my favorite of the bunch is Reverend Scott, portrayed by Gene Hackman.  It's been a while since I've seen a movie with Hackman in it, and I forgot how much I loved him as an actor.

It's been a solid decade since I've last seen this film, and I've grown a lot personally as well as how I view movies.  But for some odd reason, this movie hit me with emotions tonight.  So much going on, but the two things that really stuck out were:

- Nonnie dealing with the lost of her brother.

- The relationship between Belle and Manny Rosen.  Don't even get me started on when Mr. Rogo swims back to the rest of the group and Manny inquires about his wife.

Besides the solid acting, we get a musical score by John Williams himself.  Solid  special effects and great set pieces.  I love the scene when the tidal wave hits.  I also noticed for the first time tonight that the camera tilts in frame, so it comes across as the viewer is on board the ship.

I am always down for disaster films; even to this day I will watch SyFy and DTV entries.  But I feel like you can never go wrong with the classics, and I think this one is the best of the era.  4/5