Fire! (1977) – Review

By 1977 Irwin Allen had already secured the moniker of “Master of Disaster” as his big screen epics The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno had become huge hits, but this didn’t make Mister Allen abandon his television roots so he took his love of mass destruction to the small screen in the form of two made-for-television movies, the first was Flood! in 1976 and then the one we will be looking at today; ready, aim, Fire!

The plot is a fairly paint-by-numbers offering, a convict named Larry Durant (Neville Brand) starts a forest fire so that he and his fellow prisoner, Frank (Erik Estrada), can escape from an Oregon road gang, which puts the residents of a mall mountain community in peril as the fire quickly rages out of control. This is the kind of story that producer Irwin Allen could knock out in his sleep, unfortunately, much of the movie had me nodding off because screenwriters Norman Katkov and Arthur Weiss failed to deliver much in the way of compelling characters or interesting plot lines, certainly not enough to keep even a disaster movie fan interested. As is the case with pretty much all disaster movies, this one will simply be chock full of soap opera levels of drama, which is often required in such instances when the filmmakers need padding to ensure a feature-length outing. First, we have Sam Brisbane (Ernest Borgnine) who runs the local lumber mill and he's a man who has spent the last four years trying to get widow Martha Wagner (Vera Miles), owner of a forest lodge, to marry him before they’re too old to have any fun.

 

“I picked the wrong day to sign on with Irwin Allen.”

Next, we have Doctors Alex (Alex Cord) and Peggy Wilson (Patty Duke) whose shaky marriage will be healed when battling the blaze as it will bring out their better natures because if I learned anything from watching these types of movies it's that disasters are great at marriage counselling and fixing relationships. Of course, that's not enough drama so we also have ole Doc Bennett (Lloyd Nolan) crashing his car to avoid a bear, which had wandered into the road, and I’m left wondering “Could that have been Smokey the Bear?” Then there is helicopter pilot Bill Clay (James W. Gavin) who is excited about getting a new job that will finally get him out of this one-horse town, sadly, in this kind of movie that’s almost as deadly being three days away from retirement.

 

That he survived this shocked the hell out of me.

While Fire! boasts an impressive cast it ultimately falls short in its execution as the characters lack any sort of depth and are often reduced to the kind of caricatures you would expect to find on an episode of General Hospital. The script is completely riddled with cliches and predictable plot twists that tend to plague the disaster movie genre, and as the special effects, they aren’t all that special.  Even for a made-for-television movie the practical effects are rather lame and do little to save the film from its lacklustre storytelling.  The one thing that Irwin Allen really burns through is stock footage because I’d say that a good eighty percent of the fire we see in this outing is stuff borrowed footage from actual forest fires.

 

I’m not sure where this footage is from but it sure does look exciting.

Stray Observations:

• The fire goes from a few smouldering twigs to a raging inferno without much warning, and no one spots this happening, despite the fire being only a couple of yards away from the road gang.
• Durant purposely started the fire with the intention of being part of the volunteer fire brigade, so that he could then fake his death and escape, but there are so many unpredictable elements to his plan it’s a miracle it worked as well as it did.
• Erica Estrada plays a Native American prisoner despite the fact that he’s of Puerto Rican descent, which to be fair, isn’t all that unusual for Hollywood.
• Dr. Peggy Wilson seems quite surprised that a boy who once had polio now appears to be perfectly healthy, but as a physician, she would have been quite aware that only about one percent of polio cases result in paralysis. Maybe she should get a divorce from her profession as well.
• The teacher who loses one of her charges when the fire breaks out practically goes catatonic and I’m certainly glad that this town hires such competent and stable people to take care of their children.
• Due to the crashed helicopter it’s up to Sam to rescue the people trapped at Wagner Lodge, why the kids are still there and not at home with their parents remains a mystery to me.

 

It does lead to a fairly thrilling rescue and this movie really needed that.

Despite its flaws, which it has many, Fire! does offer a few moments of excitement and tension, particularly in the action sequences involving the firefighters battling the flames - even if it is mostly stock footage - however, those moments are few and far between and are not enough to salvage a film that is nothing more than a collection of this aforementioned stock footage wrapped in over-the-top melodrama and consisting of a group of characters that don’t have enough chemistry to spark a lighter let alone a forest fire.

Disaster Pedigree:

• Ernest Borgnine sailed aboard The Poseidon Adventure.
• Llyod Nolan was in Airport and Earthquake.
• Erik Estrada was in Airport 1975.
• Patty Duke fended off killer bees in The Swarm.
• Alex Cord travelled down to the sunken wreck of Goliath Awaits.

The Towering Inferno (1974) – Review

Of all the disaster films that exploded across cinema screens throughout the 1970s Irwin Allen’s The Towering Inferno is easily the most relatable with its building consumed by flames due to the hubris and stupidity of man, it’s practically Biblical, but where a small ensemble of big-name stars helped make The Poseidon Adventure a success why not triple that cast allotment and watch the money roll in.

The success of Irwin Allen’s 1972 disaster film The Poseidon Adventure resulted in 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. getting into a bidding war over Richard Martin Stern’s disaster novel “The Tower,” which dealt with a fire during the grand opening of the brand-new skyscraper, but when Warner’s won that little war Fox got their hands on a competing novel “The Glass Inferno” by writers Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson, which had very similar themes to Stern’s book, but then in a stroke of genius, Irwin Allen suggested that the two studios collaborate and use both books to make one movie. And to ensure it was a box office hit they would continue to use the template for the disaster movie that worked so well in Allen's previous disaster epic, where a variety of characters would be introduced before the disaster occurred and then we'd follow these people through various destruction set-pieces that would keep the audience guessing “Who will survive?”

 

Surprisingly enough, this dude survives.

Our cast of characters includes architect Doug Roberts (Paul Newman), who has not only returned to San Francisco for the grand opening of The Glass Tower but to also have nooner with his fiancée Susan Franklin (Faye Dunaway), then there is builder James Duncan (William Holden) who hopes to earn a contract with U.S. Senator Gary Parker (Robert Vaughan) for his countrywide urban renewal project, next we have Dan Bigelow (Robert Wagner) the building’s public relations officer, who is having an affair with his secretary (Susan Flannery), unfortunately, their romantic tryst ends in a fiery conflagration which proves only the lead actors are allowed to survive when it comes to having sex in this movie, and when the fire kicks into gear we are then introduced to Fire Chief Michael O'Halloran (Steve McQueen) and for the following two hours he and Paul Newman will fight both the fire and their egos.

 

“It says here right in my contract that I get the exact same number of lines as you!”

Up next we have a sweet aging con artist named Harlee Claiborne (Fred Astaire) who hopes to swindle rich and single Lisolette Muelle (Jennifer Jones) by selling her phoney stocks, but all he’ll end up with is her cat, then we have doomed electrical engineer Will Giddings (Norman Burton) who will be the first victim of the fire, then there is a deaf woman (Carol McEvoy) who due to her handicap and idiot kids fails to notice their place is filling with smoke, but lucky for the kids, Roberts and the building’s chief security officer (O.J. Simpson) are in time to pull their fat out of the fire. Finally, and most importantly, we have Roger Simmons (Richard Chamberlain) who is the son-in-law of James Duncan and it is his cost-cutting measures that resulted in the fire that will consume two hundred lives during this film’s two-hour and forty-four-minute running time.

 

“Honey, what are the odds of me making it out of this picture alive?”

But that is just a smattering of characters who populate Irwin Allen’s firey epic  – look for a young Dabney Coleman popping up near the end as Deputy Chief who outlines the plan to save everyone’s life – but such a star-studded cast is nothing more than a marketing ploy because the real star of this film is the raging fire and the dozens of stuntmen who risked their lives to bring this disaster film to the big screen, but where the film fails is in that aforementioned running time, which is absolutely not justified nor the “plot” doesn’t have that same sense of urgency The Poseidon Adventure had, which itself was under two hours in length.  While this movie has some spectacular set-pieces I rarely got the sense that anyone was in actual danger, aside from the stuntmen who are the true stars of this film, and watching The Towering Inferno one will have to admit that the practical effects work on display here are truly impressive, unparalleled at the time.  It should be noted that with no CGI to create fake flames, this was clearly a very hot set, and the script did manage to create a tense more or two but as I didn’t really give a damn about most of these characters, Fred Astaire’s charming two-bit con man notwithstanding, most of these people were nothing more than two-dimensional cannon fodder, and this caused many supposedly dramatic scenes to lose a bit of their impact.

 

Jennifer Jones falling to her death was the closest this film got to triggering an emotion.

Stray Observations:

• The fire is started when an electrical junction box explodes open next to gallons of paint thinner and dozens of cans of spray paint, it’s as if someone wanted a fire to start because that kind of laziness and or neglect is tantamount to arson.
• Electrical engineer Will Giddings points out “Do you know we haven’t even finished installing the safety equipment?” and that “The party should have been postponed” but as there are already people living in the building doesn’t that mean that they are breaking the law by not having the proper safety equipment in place?
• The film’s biggest step away from reality is when the Fire Chief tells Duncan that he can continue having the party by moving it to a floor below the fire which is something no Fire Chief would ever do as a complete evacuation of the building would be mandatory in this situation, but a movie’s got to movie.
• An instrumental version of the song "The Morning After" from The Poseidon Adventure can be heard in the background in certain scenes.
• Both “The Tower” and “The Glass Inferno” were inspired by the construction of the World Trade Centre and a few years after this film director John Guillermin would deal with a different kind of threat to a skyscraper in his remake of King Kong.
• Robert Wagner drapes a wet towel over his head before running into the fire, but the towel immediately bursts into flames and I have to ask, “Did he soak it in kerosene instead of water?”

 

The ridiculousness of this scene has to be seen to be believed.

As disaster films go, The Towering Inferno was more a stunt spectacular show than a movie, its plot thinner than a discount bread slice, and while the effects team provided some hugely impressive displays of a building engulfed by a raging fire this was harmed by the fact that the actors were given was less than awe-inspiring dialogue or character development. The off-screen rivalry between actors Paul Newman and Steve McQueen seemed like a more tense and titillating story than one about a burning building full of rich assholes, and sure, I’m being a bit harsh here but aside from this movie being a testament to how brave actual firemen are there really isn’t much to offer the casual viewer, and this is coming from a disaster movie junkie.  While there is always an element of kitschy fun to be had from these kinds of pictures The Towering Inferno is basically a retread of The Poseidon Adventure, and it even ends with the cast being drenched by cascading rivers of water, but even a cast of Oscar calibre actors were unable to make this thing kindle my soul or get me invested in their plight.

 In conclusion, this movie is a collection of really impressive stunts and fiery action in a script overstuffed with characters and situations you had to work hard to care about, and its nearly three-hour bloated run time sucked most if any of the tension that the premise was trying to provide. It should be noted that The Towering Inferno was a box office smash back in the day, and is considered by many to be one of the best entries of the 70s disaster genre, while I found it to be a bit of a slog to get through and not as fun to watch as it was when I first saw back in 1974, when I was eight-years-old, proving the adage that not all things age well over time.

Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979) – Review

How do you make a sequel to a successful film when the setting of said film apparently sank beneath the waves? This was the quandary facing producer Irwin Allen after the success of his 1972 disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure, and while he wished to rush a sequel into production as soon as possible it actually took him longer than he’d hoped to get this one off the ground, sadly, he should have realized that some things were not meant to be.

Taking place immediately after the events of The Poseidon Adventure, this sequel follows tugboat captain Mike Turner (Michael Caine) and his second mate Wilbur Hubbard (Karl Malden) as they head out to claim salvage rights on the capsized vessel.  This enterprise is crucial for their financial future as their tugboat Jenny lost her cargo in the same storm that hit the Poseidon, and along for the ride is their “passenger” Celeste Whitman (Sally Field) whom Turner will repeatedly call “Monkey” and which will never become endearing and will remain mostly obnoxious. Also arriving on the scene are Dr. Stefan Svevo (Telly Savalas) and his crew, who claim to be Greek Orthodox medics who received the ship's SOS, but they are all so obviously villainous that they may as well have been twirling moustaches and tying women to railroad tracks. This brings us to the film’s first major failings, "Why the need for human villains?" The original film was about a group of survivors and their race against time through the bowels of a sinking ship, with water rising behind them deck by deck, and the very existence of a sequel kind of undercuts the "ticking clock" of the original, so a new threat had to be introduced.

 

A sinking ship is no longer enough, so they up the ante with gun-toting goons.

This film also includes a collection of new survivors that are in need of rescuing and Irwin Allen spared no expense in putting together a cast of Oscar-winning actors to fill these roles. This new group includes the ship's nurse, Gina Rowe (Shirley Jones), the elegantly dressed Suzanne Constantine (Veronica Hamel), war veteran Frank Mazzetti, who is searching for his missing daughter Theresa (Angela Cartwright) and then there is the handsome young elevator operator Larry Simpson (Mark Harmon) who had saved Theresa’s life. We also get a "billionaire" named "Tex" (Slim Pickens) who clings to a valuable bottle of wine and repeatedly states how rich he is.  Later our intrepid group will find the blind Harold Meredith (Jack Warden) and his noble wife Hannah (Shirley Knight) who were simply waiting around to be rescued, but despite such an all-star selection of actors in these roles we never really care whether or not they live or die, except for Michael Caine’s douchebag tugboat captain whose obsession with picking the carcass of the Poseidon clean had me constantly wishing for him to die horribly. Scrooge McDuck is less of a dick than Mike Turner, though to be fair, his friends aren't much better either.

 

Are we supposed to actively hate these people?

As to the film’s actual villains, we later learn that the glamourous Suzanne is secretly working with Svevo and that they were onboard to collect an illegal shipment consisting of machine guns, grenades and a crate of weapon’s grade plutonium, that were somehow smuggled aboard the Poseidon. Don’t ask me why a New Year’s Eve cruise ship, one that was bound for the scrapyard, would be an ideal transport for your weapons cache because if there were a reason I’d bet it would be about as idiotic as the rest of this plot. Poor Suzanne is quickly killed off - I'm assuming this was to make us believe that Svevo is a worse person than Turner - and the film then devolves into a collection of scenes where characters stumble through cheap sets and worse practical effects, seriously, the original film was a landmark in stunt work and amazing practical effects but this thing looks like it was working on a Dollar Store budget.

 

I swear this shot was filmed at the Universal Studios Theme Park.

Stray Observations:

• In the first movie, an undersea earthquake caused a massive tidal wave that hits Poseidon, but in this film, the ship is portrayed as being capsized due to a wave generated by an enormous storm in the Mediterranean Sea. Did the screenwriters of this sequel not watch the original?
• A couple of years later Mark Harmon would board another sunken vessel in the made-for-television film Goliath Awaits.
• In his white suit and surrounded by goons, Telly Savalas looks like he’s reprising his role of Blofeld from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
• We are told that Gina Rose quit her job as head nurse in a Philadelphia hospital and signed aboard the Poseidon to spice up her life, but as this was Poseidon’s last cruise that’s not what I’d call a smart career move.
• Irwin Allen had considered a sequel to The Poseidon Adventure that was to be set on dry land and in a collapsed train tunnel, a premise that was borrowed for the Sylvester Stallone action movie Daylight.
• The box office failure of this film as well as The Swarm and When Time Ran Out was the death knell of the big-budget all-star disaster genre, and as two of those starred Michael Caine that should give one pause.
• This film is definitely another example of Michael Caine’s philosophy when it comes to choosing film roles as “If the money is there I do not care” which led to such other gems as Jaws: The Revenge.
• You can play a drinking game where you take a shot every time they cut to the exterior shot of Poseidon’s smokestacks exploding.

 

I know stock footage from the original film will save you money, but please don’t overuse it.

What really sinks Beyond the Poseidon Adventure beyond repair is that Michael Caine’s character is just so damn unlikable, which is an acting achievement because Caine is a naturally likable guy, from almost frame one he comes across as a self-serving greedy asshat who doesn’t seem to care who lives or who dies as long as he gets his payday, yet we’re supposed to root for him and consider Telly Savalas the villain. There is a moment when you think Turner is making an altruistic decision, insisting that they help a woman and her blind husband, but then he states “If I leave a single soul alive on this wreck, I’ll throw out my title to the salvage rights” so right there again, he proves to be a complete monster.

 

“Who is up for a Caine Mutiny?”

The other distressing element of this film is that it’s too well-lit, making the cheap sets look even cheaper, and this is compounded by the fact that no matter how many times Irwin Allen shakes the camera to simulate an explosion we never get the sense that these people are actually on a sinking ship, they nothing more than idiots wandering from one stage set piece to the next. Then to make matters worse, the movie also thinks we have time for not only one love story but for two, with Sally Field making goo-goo eyes at Michael Caine while Mark Harmon woos Angela Cartwright because racing against time aboard a sinking ship isn’t enough drama so you have to add a little sex appeal.  Then there is the "startling" revelation that Slim Pickens’ Texas millionaire is not rich and is, in fact, nothing more than the ship’s assistant wine steward, and we are left pondering “Do we really have time for this?” Are we also going to learn that Stefan Svevo has some tragic backstory that explains his evil actions?

 

“Says here in the script that I was abused by French nuns?”

Irwin Allen rightfully earned the sobriquet of “Master of Disaster” with such epics under his belt as The Poseidon Adventure and Towering Inferno, but this was a disaster in every sense of the word and is one of the more embarrassing entries in this filmography. Where those other films were helmed by Ronald Neame and John Guillermin respectively, in this outing Allen didn’t just produce Beyond the Poseidon Adventure he took over the directing duties as well, and as was the case of The Swarm, we see that he makes a much better producer than he does a director. Even if we were to set aside how cheap the film looks, or how our protagonists aren’t all that likable, we are still stuck with the problem that this is basically a retread of the last movie, but one that lacks any sense of suspense and has terrible pacing. As a self-professed lover of disaster films, even I have a hard time making it through this mess, the fact, that this movie did its best to tarnish Michael Caine’s image makes this entry doubly unforgivable.

The Poseidon Adventure (1972) – Review

In 1970 Hollywood kicked off the "all-star" modern disaster film with Airport, an adaptation of Arthur Hailey’s bestselling novel where a mad bomber threatened the lives of all those on board a fateful Boeing 707, but it was with the release of The Poseidon Adventure that the 70s disaster boom was properly launched, and today we will be looking back at the doomed voyage of the S.S. Poseidon and the true birth of the modern disaster movie.

The man most responsible for the disaster boom of the 1970s was producer Irwin Allen, who would later be dubbed “The Master of Disaster” for his contribution to the genre, but prior to this, he’d spent over a decade working in television where he created and oversaw such classics as Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Time Tunnel and Lost in Space and it was his astute ability at handling such genre fare that made him the perfect producer for a disaster film of this scope. The most important element of The Poseidon Adventure, aside from the stunning array of stunts and practical effects work, is that this film's script basically set the template for the disaster genre for years to come, which was to set up a variety of interesting characters prior to the disaster and then make the viewer wonder who would survive to the end credits.

 

“Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, A tale of a fateful trip.”

When it comes to this film’s cast of characters screenwriter Stirling Silliphant had his work cut out for him because he had to introduce more than half-a-dozen people before the big wave struck, so as to ensure that we at least cared a little if they lived or died, and that was no easy task considering he had less than thirty minutes to achieve this goal. The leader of this film is Reverend Scott (Gene Hackman) a firebrand of a preacher whose rebellious nature and attitude towards religion had resulted in him being stripped of most of his ecclesiastical powers, next, there is Detective Lieutenant Mike Rogo (Ernest Borgnine) who is on his first real vacation with his wife, Linda (Stella Stevens) who's self-conscious about her former life as a hooker and worried that it could be exposed, then there Belle (Shelley Winters) and Manny Rosen (Jack Albertson) who are retiring to Israel where they will finally meet their two-year-old grandson, then we have Susan Shelby (Pamela Sue Martin) who is travelling with her younger brother, Robin (Eric Shea), to join their parents.  The kid will turn out to be a nautical expert and will get our cast moving in the right direction, and finally, we have Acres (Roddy McDowall) the ship’s steward and Nonnie Parry (Carol Lynley) a singer performing at the ship's New Year's Eve bash prior to the rogue wave.

Note: The model of the S.S. Poseidon was twenty-three feet long and while that sounds impressive the reason for its size is due to the inability to downscale water for miniature work – which is why model boats have to be large – and some shots do look better than others.
 

 As is the case with most disaster movies, Irwin Allen’s The Poseidon Adventure is not what one could call “plot-heavy” as it’s simply a survival story that only needs the most basic set-up, in the case of this film we have an ocean liner that is slated for retirement which is travelling from New York City to Athens, and despite safety concerns from Captain Harrison (Leslie Nielsen), the new owner's representative Linarcos (Fred Sadoff) insists that they go full speed to save money, which prevents the Poseidon from taking on ballast and thus making it top-heavy when a tsunami strikes the ship and allowing it to roll over. The script by Stirling Silliphant and Wendell Mayes was based on the novel by Paul Gallico and its structure follows themes and elements found in Joseph Campbell’s “The Heroes Journey” and Dante’s “The Devine Comedy” with its protagonists going through different levels of Hell, and while the movie is fairly faithful to the source material the screenwriters did make some key changes – in the book Susan is raped by a young, terrified crew member and this moment was wisely excised from the film adaptation – but where in the book, Reverend Scott was rather ruthless with his “Only the strong will survive” mentality, the film tones this down a bit and focuses more on the conflict between Scott and Rogo as these titans of personality are almost more volatile than the exploding boilers and the chemistry between Hackman and Borgnine is one of the film’s best selling points.

 

Ernest Borgnine almost steals the movie with his fiery police detective.

Stray Observations:

• If you’ve booked a New Year’s cruise and you find out that the captain is Leslie Nielsen you should really rethink your holiday plans because the only thing worse than that would be if George Kennedy from the Airport franchise was at the helm.
• The ship’s new owner insisting they go at full speed and not take on ballast, despite warnings from the Captain, was a clear nod to real-life Bruce Ismay who is often portrayed as pressuring Captain Smith to increase the speed of the Titanic in order to arrive in New York ahead of schedule.
• The Purser is portrayed as a “pompous ass” for telling the passengers to remain where they are and wait for rescue, but even if they all agreed with the reverend’s plan there wasn’t enough time to save everyone as the sea began filling the room only seconds after the last of our main castmembers climbed the tree.
• Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, Carol Lynley, Roddy McDowell, Stella Stevens, Shelley Winters, Pamela Sue Martin, Bob Hastings and Leslie Nielsen all later appear on various episodes of The Love Boat after this movie, that this series didn’t end with the Love Boat sinking was a clear missed opportunity.
• Science Note: The roaring fires inside the capsized ship would have used up all the available oxygen and thus the escapees would have suffocated long before rescue, which is also another factor that made the sequel rather ridiculous, but then we wouldn’t have had Michael Caine facing off against Telly Savalas.

 

Easily one of the dumbest sequel ideas ever produced.

What makes The Poseidon Adventure so memorable is that it perfectly captures the terror of this nightmarish scenario and with this cast of incredible actors filling this wonderfully diverse collection of characters you are able to truly care for them as they flee through the bowels of the ship, even hysterical Nonnie manages to avoid being too annoying, which makes this film more than a simple disaster movie but an exploration of faith and determination. Of course, even a cast of Oscar winners isn’t enough to guarantee your disaster film will be a hit, Irwin Allen’s box office bomb The Swarm can attest to that, for it to work you have to have nail-biting scenes of peril and spectacle that are achieved by great stunt work and contain unique and unforgettable set pieces, and in that area, The Poseidon Adventure is unparalleled.

 

It’s hard to picture a more terrifying scenario than this.

Now, does the moralizing of the script get a little heavy-handed at times, sure, but as this movie is basically an operetta of death and destruction this kind of take on the subject matter actually works and director Ronald Neame was able to balance such elements perfectly. Ronald Neame wasn't even known for big action spectacles, one of his most notable works was the musical Scrooge with Albert Finney, but he was recruited to direct The Poseidon Adventure after the contracted director left the production and it turned out to be an inspired choice as his handles of the action, as well as such a diverse collection of actors, made him an ideal choice to helm such a feature, then you add music from legendary composer John Williams and it’s no surprise that this thing has become a classic. Some may find this film to be a little formulaic but one should take into account that it was the movie that set the formula for all that would follow, and if you can’t get enjoyment out of Gene Hackman and Ernest Borgnine blasting away at each other that this probably isn’t the film for you, but if intense drama amongst a topsy-turvy world of rising water and fiery death is up your alley, then The Poseidon Adventure will be right up your alley.

Crack in the World (1965) – Review

Exploring the consequences of humanity's reckless pursuit of scientific progress is a staple of both science fiction literature and film, Andrew Marton’s sci-fi thriller Crack in the World follows that theme with a team of scientists who have come up with a brilliant idea to save the world from its energy crisis - by drilling a hole in the Earth's crust! What could possibly go wrong, right?

The story begins with Dr. Stephen Sorenson (Dana Andrews), a brilliant scientist obsessed with harnessing the energy of the Earth's core, a man who is also secretly dying of cancer, alongside his assistant and wife Dr. Maggie Sorenson (Janette Scott) he is developing a massive drilling machine that can bore its way to the center of the planet. There is one dissenting voice, the project's chief geologist Dr. Ted Rampion (Kieron Moore), who is convinced that the lower layers of the crust have been weakened by decades of underground nuclear testing and the detonation of a nuclear bomb at that depth could produce a massive crack which could threaten the very existence of Earth. Take a guess which man is right. But the fate of the world isn’t the only drama on hand as Ted is Maggie’s former lover and even brilliant minds like Stephen Sorenson aren’t above things like jealousy.

 

“I know the world could end but you need to choose your man!”

As expected, Rampion turns out to be right - it wouldn’t have been much of a movie if he'd been wrong - and the rest of the movie deals with these scientists and their race against time to stop the crack from expanding and causing a global catastrophe, which will culminate in a huge chunk of the planet being thrown out into space to become a new moon. I know that sounds ridiculous but you just have to roll with it. Along the way, our heroes will face a series of challenges that test their resolve and push them to their limits, from deadly magma flows to treacherous underground caverns, they must use their wits and ingenuity to survive and save the world. Unfortunately, how this is depicted in this film mostly relies on stock footage of volcanos erupting and forest fires and not much in the way of special effects carnage that one would expect from a film with such a catastrophic premise. The exciting conclusion, when the large crack circles back and targets Sorenson’s facility, does provide some cool visuals but it’s a case of too little too late.

 

We waited 90 minutes for the big moment and that’s it, seriously?

Stray Observations:

• The idea of a machine that could drill through the Earth’s crust had already been approached in the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel At the Earth’s Core, which was later realized as a Doug McClure movie, sadly, this film doesn’t have any dinosaurs.
• The nuclear bomb that sets off the Tukomor volcano, and blows the island out of visible existence, creates no waves and I must say that is a very subtle nuclear explosion.
• Even if some type of huge crack physically separated a chunk of the Earth from the rest of the planet, with no solid link, the chunk would not fly out into space. There is a thing called gravity and centrifugal force that would prevent stuff like that from happening.
• In the film Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Dr. Evil attempted to blackmail the world by threatening to detonate a missile warhead in a shaft drilled deep into the earth, which is pretty much what the idiot scientists did here.

 

This place could certainly pass for a Bond villain lair.

One of the strengths of Crack in the World is its cast and both Andrews and Scott deliver solid performances as the leads, bringing a sense of urgency and intelligence to their roles, but fans of the disaster movie genre will most likely be a tad disappointed because aside from the aforementioned plethora of stock footage all we get to see is one train caught in a rockslide and the destruction of their underground control center, and as well executed as those moments are they’re not really worth writing home about.  While the scenes of the drilling machine boring into the Earth's crust are particularly well done, and the final sequence where the heroes try to stop the expanding crack is tense and exciting, the overall film lives and dies on how invested you are in the drama between our three leads, and I myself couldn’t have cared less.

The Last Voyage (1960) – Review

Welcome aboard the S.S. Claridon and its voyage into the cinematic genre of the disaster film, an entry that will have you holding onto your life jacket and trying not to get seasick. Directed by Andrew L. Stone, this movie tells the tale of a luxurious ocean liner that sinks after a fire erupts in the engine room. And boy, does it sink like the Titanic on steroids!

With The Last Voyage, director Andrew L. Stone expertly builds tension from the opening scenes as he economically introduces us to the passengers and crew of the S.S. Claridon while they embark on what should be a routine voyage from New York to Europe, only nothing is routine on a ship as old and as past its prime as the Claridon and when a fire breaks out in the ship's engine room, the Claridon is set on a collision course with disaster. What follows is a gripping and harrowing tale of survival, as the passengers and crew fight to escape the sinking vessel.

 

This movie wastes no time, the fire breaks out during the opening credits.

The plot follows the events surrounding the S.S. Claridon’s sinking through a variety of characters, there is Captain Robert Adams (George Sanders), who refuses to accept the extent of danger his ship is in because it could impact his promotion to Commodore of the Fleet and puts off notifying the passengers of the danger and waiting to launch lifeboats long after it was prudent, then we have Second Engineer Walsh (Edmond O'Brien) who, along with his valiant men belowdecks, do their best to shore up the bulkheads to slow down the flooding and many of them pay with their lives as they fight the rushing water, and finally, there are passengers Cliff (Robert Stack) and Laurie Henderson (Dorothy Malone) and their daughter Jill (Tammy Marihugh) who have a rough time of it when the boilers blow and rip a massive hole up through several decks including their stateoom, which results in Laurie being trapped under a steel beam and Jill stuck on the other side of the cabin, separated by a gaping maw.

 

This is a tense and nail-biting scene.

Stray Observations:

• The S.S. Claridon has only five more crossings before going to the scrapyard, which is equivalent to a cop announcing he’s three months away from retirement, so its sinking should be a surprise to no one.
• When the Captain finally gives the order to send out an SOS, the radio operator gets the name of the ship wrong twice. That anyone was saved is truly a miracle.
• The bulk of the sinking was handled using impressive practical effects and only a few optical composites of the ship slowing sinking, unfortunately, for the final plunge they decided to use black and white footage that one can only assume was from an earlier Titanic movie.
• The rescue of Mrs. Henderson was based on the real-life attempted rescue of Mrs. Martha Peterson by her husband and a crew member aboard the sinking of the Andrea Doria, sadly, unlike her Hollywood counterpart, Martha Peterson did not survive.

 

Hollywood wasn’t about to break up this happy family.

The film's visual effects are nothing short of spectacular, with scenes of the ship listing precariously and water pouring into the decks creating a palpable sense of danger, but what really sets this film apart is its attention to detail as every aspect of the ship and its sinking is painstakingly recreated, from the flooding engine room to the tilting decks this is unlike any disaster films of this era. The Last Voyage doesn't rely on cheap thrills or over-the-top action sequences to keep the audience engaged, instead, it's a slow burn that steadily builds to a heart-stopping climax where you really have no idea who will live and who will die. And if the sinking looks a little too good that is because they actually sunk a ship. Robert Stack recalled, "No special effects for Andy (the director) he actually planned to destroy a liner and photograph the process” and this no holds barred approach resulted in a truly amazing movie.

 

It’s hard to top reality.

This movie may not have had the explosive budgets as later ocean liner disaster films had, like The Poseidon Adventure and James Cameron's Titanic, but where it doesn't stint is in the suspense and pathos built up during its 90-minute running time. At the end of Titanic, I really couldn't have cared less whether or not Rose and Jack survived the sinking while in The Last Voyage, I was really rooting for the Hendersons. From George Sanders’ pompously ignorant captain to Woody Strode as a valiant crewman bound and determined to help save poor Dorothy Malone, I was at the edge of my seat during the entire time Robert Stack struggled frantically to free her from being pinned under a steel beam, and a special shout out eight-year-old Tammy Marihugh who gives a heart-wrenching performance, one that is authentic as one could ever expect from a trained actor let alone a small child.

 

 

Among the pantheon of Hollywood disaster movies, The Last Voyage has somehow sunk beneath public awareness and that is a crying shame as this film is an unrelentingly and tension-filled entry in a genre that is just chock-full of less-than-stellar entries.

Titanic (1953) – Review

When it comes to disaster films, few are as iconic as the 1953 adaptation of the Titanic sinking, directed by Jean Negulesco and sporting a couple of top box office stars for the marquee value, this retelling of the tragic story of the doomed luxury liner, and while the ship was clearly sinkable it has proven to be a story that is rather unstoppable.

In 1953 20th Century Fox would release a retelling of the sinking of the legendary Titanic with a formula that would remain fairly consistent for decades, and by that I mean the inserting of fictional characters into this true story and using the sinking of the ship as a backdrop – not that this was the first time, the 1943 Nazi propaganda Titanic film created a large group of fictional passengers for its entry – but in this film, the studio brought out a couple of big guns in the casting department. The basic plot of this film deals with Richard Ward Sturges (Clifton Webb), a wealthy expatriate in Europe who upon discovering that his runaway wife Julia (Barbara Stanwyck) is trying to take their two unsuspecting children, 18-year-old Annette (Audrey Dalton) and ten-year-old Norman (Harper Carter), back to her hometown of Mackinac Island, Michigan, where she will, apparently, rear them as down-to-earth Americans rather than rootless elitists snobs like Richard himself.

 

Clifton Webb is the king of playing the elitist snob.

After several biting arguments, Julia coincides that it’s too late to save Annette, who has become too used to the life of a spoiled socialite and is old enough to make the decision herself, but she makes it clear that Norman is staying with her, which does not sit well with Richard who loudly points out “No court in the world, no power in the heavens can force me to give up my son” but when Julia responds with “He’s not your son” it's a statement that has almost a greater impact than the iceberg that is looming ahead. Richard proves what a complete asshat he is by telling Julia that he wishes no further contact with his “son” and then proceeds to snub the poor kid for the remainder of the voyage.

 

Stanwyck’s stare is chillier than any iceberg.

The only reason this melodrama works is due wholly to the acting talents of Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb, who elevate the material given to them to a whole new level, but they aren’t the only fictional characters created to spice up the events – Heaven knows a ship sinking and killing 1,500 isn’t enough drama for a 98-minute movie – so we also have a Purdue University tennis player, Gifford "Giff" Rogers (Robert Wagner), trying to win Annette’s heart and a Catholic priest (Richard Basehart) who has been defrocked for alcoholism and is trying to work up the courage to wire his family and inform them of the current state of his affairs. This is not to say that the film completely ignores the real passengers and crewmembers aboard the RMS Titanic, we have Second Officer Charles Lightoller (Edmund Purdom), who seems to be the only one concerned with the ice warnings they’ve been receiving, and this version Captain Smith (Brian Aherne) is treated rather kindly by the screenplay, instead of being an ineffectual figure during the sinking, that he pretty much was in reality, here he’s a quick-thinking reassuring force.

 

"I've got a better press agent this time out."

One thing that should be pointed out is that while many films have portrayed Chairman of the White Star Line Bruce Ismay as a villain, with him urging the Captain to ignore the ice warnings, which was not the case at all, this film does not fall into the trap of vilify Ismay in such a matter, in fact, the script for this movie doesn’t include him at all, which is really strange omission and I bet if the ghost of the late Mister Ismay was to ever watch a Titanic movie this would be the one he’d choose to view. Drama aside, the film's production values are also quite noteworthy, with lavish sets and stunning visual effects that bring the ship to life in all its grandeur and the attention to detail is superb, capturing the opulence and luxury of the ship's interiors as well as the stark and eerie beauty of the ocean. As mentioned, the cast in this film is fantastic from the top on down and everyone gives solid performances, with Webb and Stanwyck shining in their respective roles as a wealthy hotelier and a woman fleeing a life of being belittled by her husband. The chemistry between the two is palpable, and their scenes together are some of the film's most memorable. Even the few sweet moments between the beautiful Audrey Dalton and a young Robert Wagner add an extra level of charm to this film.

 

I hope these two kids can make it work.

Stray Observations:

• The movie opens with a valley glacier iceberg shown splitting away and falling into the sea, giving us the birth of the monster, but the Titanic was hit by an arctic iceberg, which is carried by the Gulf Stream southwards during the Northern Hemisphere summer when the outskirts of the Northern Arctic Ocean start to melt.
• Richard Sturges is told that the voyage has been sold out since March, but in reality, the Titanic wasn't even close to being sold out when it sailed. Nor were tickets transferable, so Richard getting a ticket from another passenger could not have happened.
• This film perpetuates the myth that some men dressed as women to get aboard a lifeboat, in fact, this was a rumour started by a business competitor of one of the survivors in an attempt to discredit him.
• This movie gets bonus points for not including ridiculous scenes of the steerage passengers being locked below decks during the sinking, which definitely was not the case.
• We see the ship sinking in one piece but that is of no fault to the filmmakers as this was the common belief at the time of this movie’s relief.

 

"Hey, Robert Ballard has a few notes for you guys."

Years after its initial release, this classic disaster movie still manages to captivate audiences with its stunning visuals and gripping storyline, with director Jean Negulesco skillfully capturing the tragedy of the Titanic's sinking while also exploring the various class and societal divides that existed onboard the ship. However, some may find fault with the film's pacing, which can be slow at times and the over-focus on the characters and their relationships may also be seen as a detractor, taking away from the disaster itself, but for those who appreciate a more character-driven approach, Titanic delivers in spades.

 

It's simply one of the most unforgettable true life stories.

Overall, this retelling of the most famous maritime disaster is more a relationship drama than it is a disaster flick, with the iceberg coming along at the 67-minute mark of a 98-minute movie, but this focus on characters does lead to a very emotional and effective ending - while the 1958 film A Night to Remember is a more factual depiction of sinking it's also a more detached docudrama in style - and you don't get much better than Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb when it comes to both star power and acting talent. This is a dramatic and well-executed retelling of this tragedy that packs an emotional wallop, and even after multiple viewings still manages to make me tear up.

Titanic (1943) – Review

There have been many depictions of the world’s most famous shipwreck, from such classics as A Night to Remember to less than stellar entries such as an animated version featuring a heroic sailor mouse and a giant octopus – Don’t believe me? Check out The Legend of the Titanic (1999) – but today we will look back at the first feature-length representation of this tragic tale, a version that came out of all places, Nazi Germany.

In 1943 Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels commissioned a movie that would not only show the superiority of German filmmaking but also highlight the dangers of capitalism, and with this mindset, Titanic or "In Nacht und Eis" as it's known in German, would portray the sinking of the Titanic as a metaphor for the downfall of the British Empire, with the one German crewmember acting heroically and displaying the superiority of the German people. The plot of this film is of the highest melodrama possible with it opening on a White Star Line shareholders meeting where they learn that the company’s stock is plummeting rapidly, but the president of the Line, J. Bruce Ismay (E.F. Fürbringer) is unfazed by this and he promises the Board of Directors to reveal a secret during the maiden voyage of the line's newest ship, RMS Titanic, laying out his plan to manipulate the stock by selling short their own stock in order to repurchase it at a lower price, just before the news about the ship's record speed would be revealed to the press.  It should be noted, that Bruce Ismay is treated unfairly in pretty much all depictions of the Titanic story, but in this film, he is a complete evil asshat.

 

Bruce Ismay, an evil capitalist swine.

But Ismay is not the only villain in our midst, billionaire John Jacob Astor (Karl Schönböck) is secretly working against this plan as he hopes to gain controlling interest in the White Star Line by keeping the stock plummeting so that he can buy up 51% of the stock when the time is right. It’s at this point you may be wondering if you are actually watching a movie about the sinking of the Titanic and not some Wall Street white-collar crime drama, but the sinking does eventually become a major plot at around the 47-minute mark – it's sinking will definitely affect those stock prices – sadly, any similarities to the actual events of that fateful night can be considered almost accidental. Not only do we have Bruce Ismay acting like a moustache-twirling villain, bribing Captain Smith (Otto Wernicke) with a $5,000 dollar bonus if they arrive in New York on schedule and an additional $1,000 for every hour ahead of schedule, but Smith himself is depicted as a weak and ineffectual buffoon who after they hit the iceberg has the crew explain to the passengers that they’ve stopped to maneuver around the icebergs and then later ordering people to the boat decks for a supposed lifeboat drill.

 

If made today they’d have cast Leslie Nielsen as Smith.

As mentioned, there is one sensible crewmember aboard the Titanic and that would be 1st Officer Peterson (Hans Nielsen), who valiantly tries to get Captain Smith to slow down, even going so far as to approach rich passengers in the hope that they could influence Ismay into ordering Smith to act like an actual captain and not an idiot, needless to say, none of that works out and the ship does bump into an iceberg and starts to sink.  While the film is well-made and visually impressive the heavy-handed propaganda is as laughable as it is bad, with Peterson representing the ideal German and the British as a money-grubbing capitalist who put money above everything, even love. This narrative reinforces the nationalist and xenophobic beliefs of the Nazi regime and undermines the factual basis of the tragedy.

 

Jacob Astor, proof that Americans are just as bad as the Brits.

Stray Observations:

• This is the second German production dealing with the sinking of the Titanic, their first attempt was a 35-minute silent film called In Nacht und Eis which was released a mere four weeks after the actual sinking.
• The elaborate sets and scenes shot aboard the ship Cap Arcona bear little resemblance to that of the Titanic, which didn’t have a huge ballroom or outdoor tennis court as seen in this film.
• The stock manipulation effort that was central to this movie's plot would not have been possible as the White Star Line had been a wholly owned subsidiary of JP Morgan's International Mercantile Marine consortium from 1902 till 1932.
• This film, like many others, shows smoke coming from all four of Titanic’s funnels, but the real Titanic only used three funnels, the fourth being false.
• At one point in the film, two men who were locked in the “brig” for theft and then have to be broken out when the ship starts sinking, which is a plot point similar to one found in James Cameron’s Titanic.
• The 1958 British film, A Night to Remember, borrowed footage from this film and some of it does look fantastic.

 

So at least something good came out of this movie.

Despite these issues, the film does have some cinematic merit as the set design and special effects are remarkable, and the scenes depicting the sinking of the Titanic are both thrilling and devastating and they carry the proper emotional wallop that this devasting event really deserves. However, these technical achievements are overshadowed by the film's propaganda and historical inaccuracies and I can see this putting some, if not most viewers, a little off.

Note: film's production was also marred by conflict and controversy. The film's director, Herbert Selpin, was arrested and later found dead in his cell under suspicious circumstances after he criticized the Nazi leadership during the filming process.  And people say film critics are harsh.

Max Fleischer’s Superman (1941-1943) – Review

“Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.” It was these stirring words that launched Superman off the comic book pages and onto theatre screens, with legendary animator Max Fleischer producing a series of animated shorts that would truly bring this iconic character to life.

Max Fleischer's Superman cartoons are an absolute treasure to behold and a testament to the creativity and artistry of their time. Released between 1941 and 1943, these animated shorts brought the iconic superhero to life in a way that captivated audiences and paved the way for future superhero adaptations. The animation style found in these cartoons is nothing short of remarkable, with vibrant colours and fluid movements that bring Superman's adventures to life in a way that was unprecedented at the time. and what allowed these animated gems to look so great is that Max Fleischer's studio employed a unique technique known as the "Stereo-Optical Process" which involved animating over live-action footage. This method brought a lifelike quality to the characters and added a sense of depth and realism rarely seen in animation at that time and easily rivalled what was being done over at Disney. The smoothness and fluidity of the animation remain impressive even by today's standards, making the cartoons visually appealing and engaging.

The voice acting is another standout feature of these cartoons. with Bud Collyer, who voiced Superman and Clark Kent, delivering a pitch-perfect performance that defines the character to this day. His deep, authoritative voice exudes strength and confidence, perfectly matching the hero's larger-than-life persona. The supporting cast also brings their characters to life with their excellent voice work, adding depth and personality to the stories. As for the storytelling, these cartoons are concise and engaging with each short episode presenting a self-contained story that showcased Superman's abilities and challenges without the need for much dialogue. The pacing is tight, ensuring that the audience remained hooked from start to finish. The narratives often incorporate sci-fi elements and would present Superman with formidable adversaries to tackle, adding excitement and suspense at every turn. Furthermore, the musical scores composed by Sammy Timberg added an extra layer of excitement and grandeur to the cartoons with the sweeping orchestral arrangements that perfectly complemented the action on screen, enhancing the emotional impact of key moments and heightening the overall cinematic experience.

 Sadly, by 1941 Max and his brother Dave Fleischer, who directed the short films while his brother Max was the producer, were no longer able to cooperate with each other due to financial problems and Dave's very public adulterous affair with his secretary – way to ruin a good thing guys – and with these two men gone Paramount renamed the organization Famous Studios and while the sleek gorgeous look of the series continued, to varying degrees, there was a noticeable change in the storylines of these later shorts as the first nine cartoons by the Fleischer Brothers dealt mostly with things like mad scientists and giant dinosaurs while the stories under Famous Studios would focus more on World War II propaganda. Unfortunately, this led to so some downright racist depictions of the Japanese people, but as this was wartime I guess vilifying your enemy wasn’t considered a bad thing, even in a cartoon.

Note: In the short “Eleventh Hour” Superman commits numerous acts of sabotage in the city of Yokohama, sinking several battleships which lead the Japanese military to threaten to execute Lois Lane if Superman commits one more act of sabotage, and all I could think was, "Guys, that's just gonna piss him off."

Stray Observations:

• While the opening narration states that Superman is “Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound” it was in this run of animated shorts that Superman was first shown to have the ability to actually fly and not just jump really high.
• The mad scientist in the first Superman cartoon was clearly modelled after actor Boris Karloff from the Universal classic The Black Cat (1934).
• The look and style of Bruce Timm’s Batman: The Animated series were heavily influenced by these visually rich-looking Max Fleischer Superman cartoons.
• Kerry Conran’s 2004 science fiction adventure film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow borrowed the robots from the “The Mechanical Monsters” Superman cartoon.
• Legendary animated Hayao Miyazaki also borrowed those robot designs for his film Castle in the Sky as well as for an episode of Lupin the Third Part II.
• In “Eleventh Hour” with the amount of destruction we see Superman unleash on the Japanese military I’m not sure how WWII lasted more than a week or two.
• In “The Artic Giant” Superman battles a dinosaur that was found frozen in the Artic, then thawed out so it could go on a citywide rampage and it's obvious that this cartoon influenced Ray Harryhausen's The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms which in turn would later inspire Godzilla.

 

Hands up if you want a live-action Superman movie where he fights a dinosaur.

What truly stands out about these cartoons is their ability to capture the essence of Superman's character, from his iconic red and blue costume to his unwavering sense of justice, every aspect of Superman is faithfully portrayed by the Fleischers.  The animators masterfully depict his superhuman abilities, making each action sequence thrilling and dynamic, on the other hand, modern fans more familiar with Superman’s strength and powers as depicted in later movies may find it a little weird to see Superman suffering under the effects of tear gas or engaging in fisticuffs with random groups of gangsters.  This incarnation of Superman may be a “Man of Steel” but he’s not moving planets out of orbit or melting robots with heat vision – his eyes only provide X-ray vision in these cartoons – and the writers also seem to have a little trouble with the consistency of his powers as it’s hard to equate him struggling with the aforementioned gangsters in one animated short and then wrestling a dinosaur to the ground in the next, in fact, one of Superman's greatest weakness in these particular adventures is electricity as he finds himself on the wrong side of a shock on several occasions.

 

I guess Superman hadn’t eaten his Wheaties on those days

The storytelling in the Superman cartoons is both entertaining and thrilling with each short presenting a self-contained adventure that manages to capture the essence of Superman's heroic nature. From battling menacing villains like the Mad Scientist to rescuing innocent civilians from perilous situations, Superman's bravery and determination shine through in every episode. The well-crafted narratives, combined with the dynamic action sequences, keep viewers on the edge of their seats from start to finish, and while these cartoons were produced in the 1940s their timeless appeal remains intact. Their influence on subsequent superhero animations is undeniable, and they continue to be beloved by fans of all ages making these shorts a must-watch for any Superman enthusiast or animation aficionado.

In conclusion, Max Fleischer's Superman cartoons are enduring masterpieces that have stood the test of time, with their exceptional animation, thrilling narratives, and memorable performances, these shorts are a shining example of the golden age of animation. Sit back, don your cape, and prepare to be transported into a world where superheroes soar through the skies and inspire us all.