Ever since a preview for "The Poseidon Adventure" first
scared me away from a
deep-sea fishing trip in 1972, I have been compelled to
watch practically every
disaster movie ever made (yes, even those SUPER crappy ones
made-for-TV).
The movie that freaked me out in when I was a kid. Even
though I saw it over
and over, I always dreaded the moment when the "dead burned
guy" appeared
in the fiery upside-down kitchen. The commentary by Pamela
Sue Martin on the
Special Edition DVD indicates that she hated seeing him
there as well.
"One of
the Ten Most Popular Pictures of Our Time."
My point exactly.
All the
big stars were constantly in peril during the 70s. Look at
poor Ava Gardner!
When it came time for "Earthquake" to premiere on TV, NBC
aired it as "The Big Event"
and added many extra scenes - mostly of Debra Lee Scott
sitting in an airplane
with her fiancee, mundanely discussing the fate of Los
Angeles, without the benefit of
SENSURROUND.
The lady
with glass in her face in "Earthquake." When we first moved
to Los Angeles and I got a job in a tall office building,
this image would
come back to haunt me...I would literally scamper from the
building for
fear or ending up like this.
Here's
the one-sheet for Airport 1975. Wouldn't a small plane
striking the
front of a 747 travelling at 500 miles per hour pretty much
rip the whole
upper deck apart? If you look closely, you can see one of
the only fatalities
in this disaster - the co-pilot zipping out the little hole
in the cockpit. And
bottom right, there's Helen Reddy as the intrusive singing
nun Sister Ruth!
Karen Black as Stewardess Nancy in "Airport 1975."
Cross-eyed and helpless,
you can practically hear her screaming "Oh my God,
something hit us!!" Fantastic.
Two years later. Bigger and better? Lee Grant as the bitchy
wife
more
than makes up for the appearance of blind singer Tom
Sullivan
as the annoying piano player. Mercifully, he dies halfway
through.
Actually, there are quite a few casualties in this one!
OMG - If
you visited the Universal Studios Tour in 1978, you might
have been lucky enough to get selected to participate in
the
"Airport '77 Screen Test!" I would have killed for this
chance...
1978 also saw the arrival of "The Swarm" from producer
Irwin Allen.
All through the 70s we were told that killer bees would
overtake North
America and wipe us all out, so why not build a disaster
movie around
all that hype? According to performer Bradford Dillman,
"The Swarm
was populated by a swarm of stars prostituting
themselves...But how
could I point a finger at any of them when I was the
busiest hooker
in the game?"
OK, look at this and tell me that a good time isn't in
store! Please note that the"stars"
Jimmie "J.J." Walker and Martha Raye aren't even pictured!
And the answer to the
question posed in the ad copy above is an implausible
"yes," as long as George
Kennedy is able to open the cockpit window and fire off a
flare gun while flying at
the speed of sound.
By the
time this movie came out in 1980, Irwin Allen was pretty
much done with the genre, and so were audiences. Still, the
crossing the lava bridge sequence was pretty good....
By 1997,
disasters were back...and, boy, were they pissed!
Contrast and compare with the volcano flick above starring
Paul Newman. Anne Heche the new Bissett? I think not.
Look at this - an inflatable ship disaster! If we would
have had this when I was
a kid...I mean, come on! I was throwing lawn furniture into
the neighbors pool
pretending that it was the flooding ballroom on the "S.S.
Poseidon."