And still more Gene Hackman completism. Directed by Ronald Neame from a script by Stirling Silliphant and Wendell Mayes that adapted Paul Gallico's novel. Ben Stiller recently named it as his favourite of Hackman's performances — was the simple truth "money job"? — making it something of a jag from Permanent Midnight.
The scenario is very simple: some passengers are taking the final voyage of the passenger ship Poseidon from NYC to Athens. Something happens near Crete to generate a large wave that capsizes the vessel. The rest of the movie is about escaping the sinking ship, and that mostly boils down to traversing set-piece obstacles, somewhat like The Rock (1996). Things go as they have to. There's a dash of Terminator 2: Judgement Day at the end.
The cast is stellar. Ernest Borgnine is less effective than he was in Marty (1955) as his staginess clashes with the realism of the others, leaving aside wife Stella Stevens I guess. Their histrionics are entirely cliched. Shelley Winters (The Night of the Hunter, Oscar nom'd here) plays a saintly Jewish grandmother. Carol Lynley does a special kind of hippy vacancy. Leslie Nielsen as the captain! But Hackman owns it as a reverend with distinctly American ideas of how God helps those who help themselves. He nevertheless often selflessly helps others.
The (practical) special effects are good. It's not terrible.
Roger Ebert: two-and-a-half stars and the harshest review I've read by him. Formulaic. Where was the token Black person? He's right that the motivation for heading for the stern is weak. A. H. Weiler.
