
Creber and set decorator Raphael Bretton would have deserved their Oscar nomination for the central sequence alone, a nightmare New Year’s Eve party with just enough flying tinsel to overwhelm the audience. As a feat of engineering, the ballroom set is astonishing. Everything was to be as precise as possible, presumably to make the horror seem all the more real.Īnd, frankly, it works. Paul Gallicos classic novel, The Poseidon Adventure, is the exciting story of a luxury ocean liner that capsizes after it is struck by a colossal tidal. So meticulous, in fact, that the interior sets back at the Fox Studio were built from archival photographs and the Queen Mary’s original blueprints. Based on the novel The Poseidon Adventure by Paul Gallico (New. A nightmarishly schematic fantasia of guiltless discomfort. But for the moment they’re just another detail in Neame and Creber’s meticulous construction. Find trailers, reviews, synopsis, awards and cast information for The Poseidon Adventure (1972) - Ronald Neame, Irwin Allen on AllMovie - The Poseidon is an. The Poseidon Adventure is a highly imaginative and lustily-produced meller that socks over the dramatic struggle of 10 passengers to save themselves after an ocean liner capsizes when struck by a mammoth tidal wave created by a submarine earthquake.

Director Neame tells the story of a group of people. Later, these two will become crucial to The Poseidon Adventure ’s attempt at allegory, like a spiritual sequel to Ship of Fools. Story: The Poseidon Adventure was one of the first Catastrophe films and began the Disaster Film genre. Amongst the slate of other disaster films of its era, Poseidon is a. There’s Shelley Winters and Jack Albertson as Belle and Manny Rosen, a couple of Jewish grandparents on their way to Israel to meet their brand-new grandchild. The Poseidon Adventure turns survival horror on its head by making the vices of.

Much of the film was shot on the real ship, including this pleasant glimpse at the deck. By the time The Poseidon Adventure went into production, the Queen Mary had begun a long retirement docked in Los Angeles. And he did plenty of research to make sure it was possible for an ocean liner to be flipped entirely upside down by a rogue wave.ĭirector Ronald Neame and production designer William Creber were equally concerned. Paul Gallico, who wrote the original novel, was inspired by an actual trip on the Queen Mary he took in 1937, during which the ship turned on its side. I ask this because I was surprised to learn how much the team behind The Poseidon Adventure cared about accuracy. How solid is your suspension of disbelief when it comes to airplane explosions and burning buildings, tsunamis and earthquakes? Do you sit on the couch fact-checking on your laptop while expensive catastrophes unfold on your TV?
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Click on the images to see them in magnified detail.ĭoes it matter to you if a disaster movie is realistic? This is an honest question.
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Daniel Walber's series on Production Design offers a digestif for our Shelley Winters festival.
