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The Poseidon Adventure (1972 film)

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The Poseidon Adventure is a 1972 action/adventure/disaster film based on a novel by Paul Gallico. It concerns the capsizing of a luxurious ocean liner by a tidal wave and the desperate struggles of a handful of survivors to reach the 'top' (originally the bottom of the hull) of the liner before it sinks.

It won the Academy Award for Best Song for "The Song from 'The Poseidon Adventure'" (aka "The Morning After"), which also became a hit single for Maureen McGovern.

The plot centered around the S.S. Poseidon, a luxury liner from the golden age of travel, on its final voyage before the scrapyard. On New Year's Eve, it is overturned by a rogue wave caused by an underwater earthquake, trapping all inside. A renegade priest attempts to lead a small group of survivors to safety.

Parts of the movie were filmed aboard the RMS Queen Mary.

A huge box office success, it was the top grossing film of 1972. The success of this film is in the vein of other all-star disaster films in the seventies such as Airport (1970) and its sequels, The Towering Inferno (1974), and Earthquake (1974). A sequel called Beyond the Poseidon Adventure had an equally star-studded cast, but was a box-office and critical failure.

Contents

Primary cast

Plot summary

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.
The general premise of the film follows that of the book.

On New Year's Eve, passengers aboard the S.S. Poseidon are faced with almost certain death as their immense 81,000 ton passenger liner is struck by a large wave, turns upside down and begins to sink. Survivors include the ships Purser, a renegade preacher Frank Scott (Hackman), NYPD Detective Mike Rogo (Borgnine) and his ex-prostitute wife (Stevens), two young educated children Susan (Sue Martin) and Robin Shelby (Shea), an injured waiter named Acres (McDowall), the old and obese Mrs. Belle Rosen (Winters), coming along with her weak and equally elder husband Manny (Albertson), quiet haberdasher James Martin (Buttons), and Nonnie (Lynley), the liner's sole surviving performer. Starting from the upper deck dining room, Scott leads the small group of the ten often unwilling followers towards the bottom of the ship while trying to avoid the rising water level and other such hazards. These dangers include the flash-fired kitchen, an inverted staircase, in addition to the ships gigantic flooding air shaft and a hellish engine room while encountering still more survivors, led by the ship's medic.

En route, several perish (Acres the steward, Belle Rosen, Linda Rogo and Scott himself, in that order). However, they eventually reach the propeller shaft, where outside rescuers cut through the hull to extract them. The preacher gives his life to save others, and those who followed him are informed that they were the only survivors.

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Spoilers end here.

In Popular Culture

A Pokémon episode was based on the events of this movie. An SNES game called S.O.S., or Septentrion in Japan, has a largely similar plot, although some of the specifics vary.

A recent episode of The Simpsons (The Wettest Stories Ever Told) also parodied the film, even including a spoof of "The Morning After" foreshadowing the destruction of the ship, the S.S. Neptune.

The film is parodied in the Seinfeld episode "The Puerto Rican Day Parade", where Elaine accompanies a ragtag group that includes a priest under stadium bleachers in an attempt to escape the parade.

An episode of The Drew Carey Show involves the character of Oswald repaying all those who loaned him money through the years. On Oswald's list, Drew reads off "Borrowed $6 to see The Poseidon Adventure."

The band Killdozer's song Man Vs Nature pays satirical homage to the film as well as The Towering Inferno and Earthquake (the last erroneously identified as an Irwin Allen production.) The lyrics of the first verse begin On my screen a ship was sinking/it seemed so real but it was just a movie/made by Irwin Allen (my what a relief).

The TV show 'Sunset Beach' (1997-2000) borrowed large chunks of the plot for it's 'shockwave' storyline. This had around half of the cast boarding a cruise liner which was turned upside down by a giant wave. Like in the movie, Sunset Beach's characters had to make their way to the bottom of the boat (which was at the top) and cut their way through.

Awards

Awards wins

Award nominations

See also

External links

 

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