Despite A Stellar Cast This Film Sucks Big Time
I think the tagline said it all. How could a director with such a great cast turn out such a horrid film?
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MovieChat Forums > Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979) Discussion > Despite A Stellar Cast This Film Sucks B...
Irwin Allen, the director, was a hack who was financially motivated by the 70s disaster craze. He was responsible for bringing other disastrous turkeys (pun intended) to the big screen (e.g. The Swarm). At least he tried harder with The Swarm, which was funnier and more entertaining (unintentionally so), even though it was still a bad and overlong film.
Perhaps many of the actors were just happy to be in the company of such a distinguished ensemble. Some of them were probably handsomely paid. I thought I had seen some awful Michael Caine pictures and performances (e.g. The Magus, The Swarm) but this is one of his worst. He was basically overacting and playing a role that was written ineptly and emptily.
"...sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.” ~ Cool Hand Luke
I remember that when this film debuted theatrically, it did not open wide. I lived in the suburbs of Boston at the time, and it only opened on 4 screens (why I remember this, I can't say) locally. At the showing, the theatre passed out "dummy" newspapers that had headlines of the Poseidon disaster. These were similar to movie programs that were more common in the '60's and early '70's. I still have mine.
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