A DVD REVIEW: THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE - SPECIAL EDITION (20th Century Fox)

HELL...UPSIDE DOWN.

In the wake of the remakes we have been assigned to endure as of late -- and do I really need to list all of these? -- comes a reissue of a classic disaster genre masterpiece from the early 1970s (of which the in-theaters-now Poseidon is based on and which I will delve into in a little bit) now on DVD, not for the first time, but for the first time with such lavish, extended, thoughtful and downright eye popping extras and supplements especially when compared with the initial THX-approved barebones release.

I always held a soft spot for the Irwin Allen-produced The Posiedon Adventure from 1972 ever since I first saw it, what with Leslie Nielsen (The Naked Gun series) as the Captain of the doomed ship, electrifying performances from Ernest Borgnine, Gene Hackman and Shelley Winters and the overall pre-Titanic doom of being trapped on a capsized ocean liner; sitting through the cable-taped, warbly, worn-out, bleeding VHS copies I had to endure over the years came painfully, but now there's a DVD version on the market to make up for all that -- and it's a visual downright stunner in terms of color and restoration efforts, all of which I will get to shortly. At any rate, to be fair, I have held this aforementioned "soft spot" for most disaster genre films from this era -- cheesy, but addicting, are also Airport, The Towering Inferno, Earthquake, Meteor...and just about all of these have been receiving reissued DVD treatment for fans that want to go back and revisit these cheesy gems.

And I call them cheesy gems because that’s exactly what they are -- my G-d, in retrospect, the performances here are hammy, over dramatic, ridiculously delivered, riddled with unnecessary facial gestures....watching these '70s pictures seems almost laughable by today's standards, but you know something else? I don’t know if the ridiculous excuse for acting that these new-generation young people assigned to these new horror remakes like The Fog, The Amityville Horror, House of Wax or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre deliver is acting either -- in fact, I will take the acting of folks like Vincent Price, Hal Holbrook, Tom Atkins, Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasance in originals like House on Haunted Hill, John Carpenter's The Fog and Halloween over the sexy, flashy "acting abilities" of people like Ryan Reynolds, Paris Hilton or...well....name your latest half naked new "actress" (for relating to teenagers today) here...

Before I go into the backdrop story for The Poseidon Adventure or the plot analysis, let me say this: Fox has created a downright gorgeous, fan-worthy two-disc package for this reissue, to coincide with the remake which just came out helmed by Wolfgang Petersen, Poseidon. At times, I wonder if the film, launched theatrically in 1972, even was worthy of such a lavish DVD treatment....I mean, this was one of those, if one were to look quickly, "typical" '70s disaster epics about an ocean liner upside down and the attempts to escape by the handful of survivors. Originally, the film came released as a "THX-approved" pathetic stripped title under the banner of Goodtimes Home Video (if I am not mistaken), but rights owner 20th Century Fox has gone back, with supervision by director Ronald Neame, producer Irwin Allen and a plethora of documentaries about the story, and created a mega-special edition that is the an absolute benchmark (well, next to modern-day mega-DVD-cuts like Black Hawk Down 3-Disc Deluxe Edition and Gladiator Extended Edition) in terms of what really, really nice-looking, special-feeling DVD boxes should look and feel like sitting up on a collector's shelf. There is an outer box which holds the two-disc keepcase inside (in a strange marketing decision by Fox, the inner DVD box slides out from the left, not the right), and the outer box boasts animated-like images from the film, with the stars running from a suction of sea water, and the bold raised letters proclaiming this THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE SPECIAL EDITION. The set also comes loaded with collectible lobby cards from the film's theatrical debut, pamphlets on the whole story, and an overall solid, tightly-packed feeling, especially over the first release of the DVD. The extras border on mind-boggling for a film of this vintage, but let me start with the story.

What a lot of people don’t know is that The Poseidon Adventure was based on an experience that the author of the book sharing the same name endured onboard the Queen Mary ocean liner, but was later exaggerated for Hollywood use. Sitting onboard the Queen Mary, the author recalled hitting some very, very rough waves and feeling the boat actually tip a bit; when he was eventually searching for a theme for his next book, he remembered his experiences out at sea, and The Poseidon Adventure was born: what would happen if a giant wave hit a cruise ship and the whole thing turned over in the water? Hence was the backdrop of the tale. Irwin Allen, classic producer of Hollywood disaster genre films, was desperate to sell the idea to 20th Century Fox for a motion picture version, but was laughed off multiple times. Finally, through a complicated maze of politics amongst the studio execs, the project was greenlighted and Ronald Neame began filming the picture that "almost wasn't"

Coming off his success in The French Connection, Gene Hackman leads that typical 1970s disaster film all-star cast in the story of the SS Poseidon (actually the Queen Mary refitted for use in this film), on route from New York to Athens, Greece. The beginning of the film sets up the plot, circumstances and characters; it is New Year's Eve aboard the ship, and the Captain (played by a young Leslie Nielsen of Naked Gun and Airplane! fame) is receiving reports from Crete of bad weather up ahead. The beginning of the picture cuts from introducing our main characters -- Hackman as a self-proclaimed preacher, Ernest Borgnine as an ex cop who is now married to an ex hooker (Stella Stevens), Red Buttons as a lonely old man, Shelley Winters and Jack Albertson as a Jewish family-oriented couple amongst others -- and jutting back to the fear that's building on the bridge of the ship because of the reports of tidal waves. We learn the backdrop to each of these characters' "issues;" Hackman is trying to win over people to his version of faith but is a natural-born leader, Buttons is lonely but helpful, Winters and Albertson worry about their grandson and getting home and Borgnine and Stevens are constantly (and humorously) fighting with each other about her past as a prostitute and his character's selfishness and rough edges as an ex-detective. Finally, New Year's Eve rolls around, and while the thousands of gusts aboard the Poseidon join in singing, celebrating and horn blowing, up at the control room of the ship, absolute disaster strikes: a gigantic rogue tidal wave strikes the ship in one of the more visually striking moments of the film, especially considering the technology at that time, sending it completely capsizing and turned over in the water. The remake, by the way, of course enhances this scene with outrageous special effects and such, but still does not explore the characters as well as this one does before the wave simply hits the ship in the new version before we know it.

The challenge to filmmakers now was to create a set that was completely upside down to simulate the situation of a capsized ocean liner. For the remainder of the film, the theme becomes utter survival and ultimately faith, as the handful of those who made it must choose who to listen to and which path to take...Hackman immediately takes lead, claiming that the only way to safety is to continue climbing upwards towards the engine room and ultimately to the bottom of the boat, and out. Borgnine continuously challenges him through screaming and yelling matches as the two men seem convinced their particular method is the right one for escape, although it seems like Borgnine is fighting with Hackman for the sake of fighting as he's used to getting his way; he really doesn’t offer a different escape plan. Along the way, the small group -- comprised now of Hackman, Borgnine, Winters, Albertson, Roddy McDowall, Stevens, Buttons and Carol Lynley as the lead singer of the band that was playing on the ship for New Year's -- run into the doctor of the boat and a group of survivors he is leading in a different direction. Hackman pleads with him to cease following in that direction, but they refuse. As the nearly two hour running time plods on, some of our group of course meet their peril along the way, as Winters does as her 300-plus-pound frame tries to swim underwater to make it to the engine room but ends up suffering a stroke and Hackman ultimately does as he desperately tries to hang from a wheel that controls the steaming pipe that’s blocking the group's final escape to shut off the steam but falls into a smoldering, fiery pool of sea water below in the engine room. Borgnine also loses his ex-hooker wife in a boiling pool of water just before Hackman bites it. The differences in the remake to this in terms of ending? In Wolfgang Petersen's Poseidon, Kurt Russell, Josh Lucas and the survivors wind up jamming the still-moving propellers so they can crawl out the shaft and onto waiting rafts; in the original here, a rescue team (with unidentifiable accents; is it Greek?) ends up drilling through the hull to save the remaining survivors, which came down to Borgnine, Lynley, a little boy, Buttons and Albertson.

VIDEO SPECIFICATIONS:
2:35:1 ANAMORPHIC WIDESCREEN TRANSFER, DUAL LAYER

WOW. That's all I can say about this outrageously beautiful, eye-opening transfer of a film from 1972 -- actually, I am going to say more. From the very beginning of the Fox logo-less opening which shows the Poseidon steaming through the waters on route to its demise on New Year's Eve, the picture quality here is absolutely stunning -- when the shots of the crew in the control room, including Leslie Nielsen as the Captain, begin filling the 2:35:1 letterboxed frame, you can almost reach out and touch the images they seem so real, rich and deep -- fleshtones are frightingly accurate and I've never seen a film from such vintage look so ultimately modern. This even bests some modern-day transfers that were made last month, in fact. Much like Warner's painstaking efforts on the wonderful remastering of The Adventures of Robin Hood, which boasted eye-popping colors from its three-strip Technicolor roots and at times appeared even too sharp, Fox's presentation of The Poseidon Adventure on this Special Edition is downright gorgeous and at times is so clear it can reveal some inaccuracies on the sets. I could not find a hint of noise, grain, or anything distracting in this transfer, and it was simply mind-bending considering the budget constraints and loopholes the production team ran into while creating this. Some scenes towards the later half of the picture -- especially in the daunting dark boiler room sequences -- lose just a slight bit of that glossy, transparent perfection from the opening images...but nothing distracting at all.

AUDIO SPECIFICATIONS:
ENGLISH DOLBY DIGITAL STEREO, SPANISH DOLBY DIGITAL MONO, FRENCH DOLBY DIGITAL MONO, SUBTITLES IN ENGLISH & SPANISH, ALL-NEW AUDIO COMMENTARY BY DIRECTOR RONALD NEAME, ALL-NEW FULL-LENGTH AUDIO COMMENTARY BY STARS PAMELA SUE MARTIN, STELLA STEVENS AND CAROL LYNLEY

Unfortunately, the audio does not hold up as well as the video. In English, we are regulated to a useless 2.0 stereo track that engages your processor/receiver's "Pro Logic II" decoding system if you have it set for auto detection for such sources; there is absolutely nothing going on here. The entire track remains, if you're running Pro Logic II, in the center channel where it's steered (my Onkyo powerhouse drops all these kinds of tracks into the center; mono 2.0, stereo, etc.) and although the PLII circuitry is supposed to create some kind of "Dolby Surround" simulated effect (which it does on a lot of discs) if the material you're playing contains the cues, nothing happened here. I detected no spread to the rears, and an occasional spread to the front two channels, and this was disappointing. Even the mastering volume on the disc was weak; I needed to crank this one up to unearthly levels on my receiver to even make out what characters were saying, and even there, I was able to clearly hear all the ambient noise around me in my room -- my girlfriend talking to me, the dogs clanging their collars and barking, the fan overhead....the scenes where the ship begins exploding underwater opened the audio up a bit, but they were met with a harsh, crackly characteristic so typical of these old films and soundtracks -- the more volume I fed my speakers from my Onkyo, the harsher the explosions became to the point I just backed off on the volume instead of adding gain. The video was clearly the winner on this release; If I am not mistaken, the original release of The Poseidon Adventure came equipped only with a mono track, but as much as Fox wants us to believe this is a reinvented stereo mix, its really not. Its mono for all intents and purposes.

The extras are where this Special Edition really shines -- on the first disc, which shares the feature film and the aforementioned commentaries, there is also an interesting Interactive "Follow the Escape" Feature which allows viewers to access 3-D views and schematics of the ship as they watch the film.

Disc 2 contains all the rest of the awesome behind-the-scenes materials of this package; NINE all-new featurettes include:
The Cast Looks Back
Falling up with Ernie
The Heart of Disaster: Stirling Silliphant
The Heroes of the Poseidon
The Morning After Story
The RMS Queen Mary
Sinking Cooridor
Generations of Fans
Turning Over the Ship

There is also an AMC network special clip called BACKSTORY: THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, storyboard-to-film comparisons, an interactive article from American Cinematographer about the filming techniques used, still photo galleries (including marketing, publicity and behind-the-scenes) and the film's original teaser and trailer. There really is nothing else a fan could ask for; in terms of the quality of these extras, I can share what I had reviewed after watching the feature. The nine new featurettes are interesting with the cast interviews and their experiences filming with the upside down sets and what went into this backbreaking project; the story about the song that's featured in the picture, The Morning After, which went on to win awards, is explored as well, but the whole who sang it/who sang it in the studio/who sang it in the film thing gets a bit complicated and confusing; the "conversations" with a now-elderly director Ronald Neame in which he discusses the "fans" of this picture who began as kids and now suggest the film to other "kids" and how he continues to have letters pouring into him regarding the enthusiasts out there, seemed a bit tacked-on and does not really give the film a "serious" tone, as he suggests the only demographic that will enjoy this Adventure will be....well....kids; the director also doesn’t seem to be in the best of health during these interviews and so they are short and appear to be rushed. He also offers insight as to how they filmed the ship capsizing scene where everyone appears to be "falling" from the ceiling of the ballroom and such; this was a tad bit interesting but seems a bit silly at a certain moment as he says "well, it seems like they are falling quite a distance, but.....in reality....nobody was falling that far...." Did we need someone to tell us that?

Overall, a great package to sit on the shelf next to the remake when it arrives on DVD; hopefully, I will get a chance to pick up the other two disaster flicks from this era that were recently rereleased as well, Earthquake and The Towering Inferno (the latter with the great, faithful and truthful OJ Simpson!). *rolls eyes here*