Irwin Allen – Movie Musings

Our heroes climb up an overturned cruise liner in the film that launched a thousand enjoyable disaster movie clichés

Director: Ronald Neame (Irwin Allen)

Cast: Gene Hackman (Reverend Frank Scott), Ernest Borgnine (Mike Rogo), Red Buttons (James Martin), Shelley Winters (Belle Rosen), Jack Albertson (Manny Rosen), Carol Lynley (Nonnie Parry), Roddy McDowell (Acres), Stella Stevens (Linda Rogo), Pamela Sue Martin (Susan Shelby), Arthur O’Connell (Chaplain John), Eric Shea (Robin Shelby), Leslie Nielsen (Captain Harrison)

New Year’s Eve on the biggest cruise liner in the world and the money men have ordered “Full steam ahead!” into a storm – after all, it would be terrible publicity to arrive late at harbour. Needless to say, it’s a terrible idea, as the Poseidon is hit by a tsunami and flipped upside down. Everyone at the top of the ship is killed, leaving only the party goers in the promenade room alive. Who is going to make it out from the one of the most famous disaster films of all time?

Produced by the Master of Disaster himself Irwin Allen – he personally staked half the budget and made a fortune – the ship’s passenger log is a host of Oscar-winning stars, each balancing soapy plotlines. Gene Hackman is the maverick priest, body pumping with muscular Christianity, who believes God helps those who help themselves. Ernest Borgnine is a grumpy police chief, on a long-delayed holiday with his ex-call girl wife Stella Stevens. Shelley Winters and Jack Albertson are a retired couple heading to Israel to see their grandson for the first time. Red Buttons is an unlucky-in-love fitness freak, Roddy McDowell a plucky steward. Pamela Sue Martin and Eric Shea are two (unbearable) kids travelling to join their parents while Carol Lynley is the ship’s terrified singer.

The Poseidon Adventure cemented the tropes you’d come to know and love in disaster films. The maverick leader, the grouchy contrarian, a plucky pensioner with a vital skill, adorably brave kids, a self-sacrificing nice guy… They’re all in here, the actors playing these cardboard cut-out characters with gusto as they climb up the endurance obstacle course set of an upside-down cruise liner.

Allen’s film takes a while to get going: a quarter of the run time is dedicated to setting up the various character dilemmas. Is a member of the crew a former client of Stevens’ Linda? Will Gene Hackman find new purpose in his faith? Will Red Buttons find love? Neame shoots these opening exchanges with the uninspired professionalism the exposition-filled dialogue demands (there are several variations on “What am I doing on this ship? Let me tell you…” lines). But what makes the best of these films work is when the soapy shallowness manages to make the characters endearing. It’s what happens here: the cast could do these scenes standing on their head, but gosh darn it we end up hoping the Rosens will live to see their grandson at the foot of Mount Sinai.

The film of course “starts” proper with that wave hitting. At which point, Allen (and Neame) knows exactly what works. He makes the stakes clear, the target simple (climb up, get out) and taps into common fears of falling, drowning etc. He knows how to make us thrill at the stunts – that tipping ballroom, with various stuntmen plunging downwards – and throw in the odd moment to remind us how tragic it all is (like Red Buttons sadly laying his jacket across some poor soul).

It also understands that we need to feel smarter than the crowd of extras caught up in the drama. When Gene Hackman earnestly tells everyone their only chance of survival is up, we want to feel that we’d be smart enough to go with him, rather than join the sheeple listening to the literally-out-of-his-depth purser (“What you’re suggesting is suicide!”). Allen knows we need to feel smarter so much he later throws in another group led by a confident-but-wrong authority figure (the ship’s doctor) blithely walking downhill to the flooded aft, ignoring Hackman’s cries that they are striding to a watery grave.

No, we’d definitely be with the plucky stars. After all Hackman can’t be wrong! (Gene Hackman’s priest, for all his bluster, is remarkably unpersuasive – he even only just holds onto authority in the group). The stunt work and production design as the battered stars climb up the overturned ship to the hull are remarkable – not for nothing did this scoop nine Oscar nominations – and while the film is undeniably slightly cheesy, it’s played with an absolute earnest seriousness by the cast (Hackman, to his eternal credit, acts as if his life depended on it – which considering it’s clearly a pay cheque role other actors would have coasted through is admirable).

The set pieces are superb. As the cast is whittled down, the deaths carry a certain weight – again conveyed by the honesty of the grief from those left behind. Shelley Winters bagged the best role – and the most iconic scene – as an overweight old lady with a Chekhov’s skill, performing (at great cost) an act of heroism no one else could manage. (She landed an Oscar nomination, largely for this stand-up-and-cheer moment with a sting). Most get a moment to shine – although Carol Lynley’s pathetic, panicking singer (she can’t swim or climb or hold her breath or run…) who spends her time shrieking tries your patience no end.

The film is so much about the experience of seeing this group of people overcome death-defying climbs, swims and flames that when the survivors stagger into the sunlight, the film abruptly ends. It’s all about the ride, with most of the plot points established earlier settled by someone dying on the way up. But it’s entertaining and lands just the right side of involving. The characters may be artificial, but we still care about them.

The Poseidon Adventure was a massive hit and still the best maritime disaster film made (certainly much better than its belated, lame, remake). Allen cements a formula where swiftly sketched characters, played by recognisable actors, go through endurance tests in front of us via terrifying set-ups and death-defying stunts. It’s grand, old-fashioned entertainment, perhaps taking itself a little too seriously, but giving us lots to gasp and cheer at.

Newman and McQueen tackle a huge blaze in The Towering Inferno

Director: John Guillermin, Irwin Allen

Cast: Steve McQueen (Fire Chief Michael O’Halloran), Paul Newman (Doug Roberts), William Holden (James Duncan), Faye Dunaway (Susan Franklin), Fred Astaire (Harlee Claiborne), Susan Blakely (Patty Duncan Simmons), Richard Chamberlain (Roger Simmons), Jennifer Jones (Lisolette Mueller), OJ Simpson (Harry Jernigan), Robert Vaughn (Senator Gary Parker), Robert Wagner (Dan Bigelow), Susan Flannery (Lorrie), Shelia Matthews Allen (Paula Ramsay), Jack Collins (Mayor Ramsay)

Architect Doug Roberts (Paul Newman) flies into San Francisco for the grand opening of The Glass Tower, the newly constructed tallest building in the world which he has designed for developer James Duncan (William Holden). A celebration with the rich and famous is planned – too bad Duncan’s rogueish son-in-law Roger Simmons (Richard Chamberlain, smarming like his life depends on it) has saved a few dollars by stuffing the building with sub-standard wiring. Surely the world’s largest building can’t catch fire? You bet it could – and only heroic Fire Chief Michael O’Halloran (Steve McQueen) has the expertise to put it out.

The Towering Inferno was the peak of the “all-star disaster” genre. It was bought to the screen by Producer (and “Master of Disaster”) Irwin Allen, and pretty much ticks all the boxes you expect from the genre. A star at every turn! A huge running time! Constant denials that anything could go wrong (of the “This building can’t burn down!” variety)! Kids in peril! Death-defying stunts! A brave pet! An elder statesman of Hollywood risking life and limb! A scoundrel we can boo! A tear-jerking death! The Towering Inferno pretty much has it all, and it plays every single beat with the sort of po-faced seriousness that was already starting to look a bit silly by 1974.

Films like this work because audiences – as we’ve seen time and time again – never lose their taste for watching things get trashed. In the 1970s every studio wanted its own mega-budget disaster film. The Towering Inferno’s real uniqueness is the story behind its making – two studios had competing “Skyscraper on Fire!” projects but, instead of competing, pooled their resources to make one mega hit. So, Warner Brothers The Tower and 20^th Century Fox’s The Glass Inferno became this.

Irwin Allen was handed the keys – because no-one did it better – and each studio contributed a star. McQueen and Newman spent almost as much time negotiating equal terms as acting in the movie. Both were paid 10% of the gross and agreed they would have exactly the same number of lines (many of Newman’s final scenes sees him perform stunts wordlessly, as he burned through his allotted lines during the 40 minutes he spends on screen before McQueen turns up). The billing was negotiated carefully: their names would appear on screen together with Newman slightly higher, but McQueen’s name to the left (both could therefore claim they were “first billed”).

Their interest in the film pretty much ended there. Newman was famously disparaging of what he called “a piece of shit” and the only time he did something purely for the money. He coasts through on those blue eyes and twinkly grin. Eager that his character be absolved of responsibility (he has designed a tower that will claim 200 lives!) Newman’s architect is continuously absolved of any responsibility by the rest of the cast and leads on saving lives. McQueen grabbed the better role as the all-action fire-chief, riding in after 45 minutes (thus wisely missing out the tedious build-up of the soapy plot lines), takes charge and does nothing but manly action, but he also looks like someone going through the motions.

But then they know the things that will be remembered are the set-pieces. As flames stretch up the building, our star names dodging explosions, climbing up shattered staircases, dodging collapsing ceilings and taking on vertigo-inducing heights, it’s hard not to be excited. As in all disaster films, the disaster takes a strong moral stance. Of all the characters who die only one ‘doesn’t deserve it’. Aside from that, the actors playing philanderers, swindlers and bastards inevitably bite the dust, while the upstanding and noble pretty much see their way to the end.

The disaster sequences are impressive – and the fire-effects are really well done. Allen directed the ‘action sequences’ – aka the only bits of the film you really remember – while Guillermin handled ‘the acting’ (the dull, soapy, badly written bits you forget). The cardboard characters (no wonder they catch fire so easily!) could have had their personalities scribbled on the back of a stamp, and are pretty much dependent on the charms of the actors playing them. Fred Astaire’s gentle conman (the sweetest grifter you’ll ever meet) is a ludicrous character, but works because of Astaire’s twinkle-toed charm (Astaire grabbed a wave of affectionate awards nominations). Jennifer Jones plays off him rather well in the film’s ‘heroic elder statesman of Hollywood’ role, as a woman who puts herself at huge risk to save two kids (and their deaf mum) from immolation.

But pretty much all the character-based stuff in Towering Inferno is ludicrously silly, with some strikingly bored actors (Faye Dunaway looks like she wants to be anywhere else) but it hardly matters as we are there to watch the world burn. Which it does to spectacular effect, and the reassuringly, camp predictability of the film’s events is endearing – and raises a few good-natured laughs (you have to laugh at something like this, even though it wants to take itself so seriously). The Towering Infernowas the largest of all the disaster flicks of the 1970s. Allen shoehorns in a few points about fire safety in tall buildings for the ‘serious bits’, but his heart is in consigning most of the second tier of his all-star cast to dramatic, firey deaths. Overlong, very silly but rather sweet.