The Furniture: Accuracy and Allegory in "The Poseidon Adventure"
Wednesday, August 19, 2020 at 11:00AM Daniel Walber's series on Production Design offers a digestif for our Shelley Winters festival. Click on the images to see them in magnified detail.
Does it matter to you if a disaster movie is realistic? This is an honest question. How solid is your suspension of disbelief when it comes to airplane explosions and burning buildings, tsunamis and earthquakes? Do you sit on the couch fact-checking on your laptop while expensive catastrophes unfold on your TV?
I ask this because I was surprised to learn how much the team behind The Poseidon Adventure cared about accuracy. Paul Gallico, who wrote the original novel, was inspired by an actual trip on the Queen Mary he took in 1937, during which the ship turned on its side. And he did plenty of research to make sure it was possible for an ocean liner to be flipped entirely upside down by a rogue wave.
Director Ronald Neame and production designer William Creber were equally concerned. By the time The Poseidon Adventure went into production, the Queen Mary had begun a long retirement docked in Los Angeles. Much of the film was shot on the real ship, including this pleasant glimpse at the deck...
There’s Shelley Winters and Jack Albertson as Belle and Manny Rosen, a couple of Jewish grandparents on their way to Israel to meet their brand-new grandchild. Later, these two will become crucial to The Poseidon Adventure’s attempt at allegory, like a spiritual sequel to Ship of Fools. But for the moment they’re just another detail in Neame and Creber’s meticulous construction.
So meticulous, in fact, that the interior sets back at the Fox Studio were built from archival photographs and the Queen Mary’s original blueprints. Everything was to be as precise as possible, presumably to make the horror seem all the more real.
And, frankly, it works. As a feat of engineering, the ballroom set is astonishing. Creber and set decorator Raphael Bretton would have deserved their Oscar nomination for the central sequence alone, a nightmare New Year’s Eve party with just enough flying tinsel to overwhelm the audience.
There’s even a falling piano!
That the tables and chairs remain stuck to the ceiling, even after the ship has fully rolled over, may seem like a rush into the surreal. Yet this was yet another well-researched detail, as cruise ships often bolt down the furniture in case of rough seas.
The thing is, there’s still half a movie left. We’ve had a realistic disaster, now what? From here, the script positions the Reverend Scott (Gene Hackman) and his small band of survivors as stock characters in a vague allegory of faith and self-empowerment. The production design follows as best it can, abstracting and escalating the vibe. Does it make much sense? Absolutely not. But it’s a hoot to watch a Jewish grandmother climb an enormous Christmas tree, regardless of whatever bizarre point the film is trying to make about the doomed and sheepish crowd below.
And she makes it up just in time.
The water bursts into the ballroom, drowning everyone who refused to listen to Reverend Scott. From here, the film’s focus shifts from the ship as a whole to this small group of survivors, whose journey will get stranger with every step.
The next obstacle is the kitchen, a dungeon-like chamber littered with burnt corpses and gas flames. Belle takes one look at the scene and panics, refusing to go any further. Manny manages to get her through, but it’s hard not to read her reaction as a reference to another, much more real death chamber.
Next is an internal shaft, a forbidding column in the ship’s normally hidden underbelly. It’s the first set that offers absolutely no grounding in the familiar. It looks like something out of a video game.
Then Neame and Bretton begin to play a bit more with the “upside down.” The first example is this barbershop, which Red Buttons suggests might inspire a new trend, trimming the hair of hanging customers.
There’s also a bathroom, which is remarkably clean under the circumstances.
All the while they’ve been searching for the engine room, the place with the thinnest hull. All of the dramatic tension on the way is built from the Reverend Scott’s confidence in this one route as the way of salvation. He has his believers and his skeptics, and it shifts as they go.
When they finally arrive, it is with a mix of relief and horror. The engine room looks like hell. This may be a bit out there, but it reminds me a little of Patrice Chereau’s production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, another grand and expensive 1970s allegory. The iron, steel and fire suggest a 20th century gone wrong, civilization leading to an industrialized death.
We’ve surpassed the momentarily surreal and the comically upside-down. Here is a space of real allegorical potential, a nightmare of oil and flame. The Reverend Scott and Belle are the first to arrive, swimming up through a sunken passageway. He nearly doesn’t make it, actually. Belle rescues him from a watery grave, pushing him through the water with the lungs that once won her an award from the Women’s Swimming Association. But then she promptly has a heart attack and dies, forever to rest in the engine room of the S.S. Poseidon.
Her sacrifice saves the Reverend, who will then go on to sacrifice himself in turn, leaping onto a steaming hot valve to get a door open. It’s the last obstacle, one more challenge before everyone else can go free. Before he plummets into the burning water below, he manages one last brimstone speech, shouting at his god in anger and frustration.
And so Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons and the rest get to survive. It doesn’t seem fair, but then again perhaps it’s smart to give the death scenes to the good actors.
What does it all mean? Well I suppose one could read the Reverend Scott and Belle Rosen into a Christian Evangelical allegory of self-reliance and the sanctity of life, with the Holocaust as little more than a metaphor and the unseen Israeli grandson as an apocalyptic prop. Heaven knows this is a phenomenon that has only become more entrenched since 1972. But one could just as easily consider the whole movie to be Hollywood showmanship seasoned with thematic nonsense, like all the other blockbuster literary adaptations of the era.
Reader Comments (21)
Interesting facts when we went to a lecture by the production designer
The black fountain and the stained glass ceiling were taken from the Hello Dolly Harmonia Gardens set...I remember pointing out the fountain when I first saw P Adventure!
Not sure it's quite CABARET-level but a deserving Art Direction nominee nonetheless!
The intro to this is a beauty. I rarely think about the realism of disaster movies or action movies unless the things we see are defiantly unrealistic and draw attention to their ridiculousness. BUT both my father and brother regularly get caught up with arguing about the realism or the physics or whatever of various action movies in a way i find hilariously beside the point.
On the other hand i never suspected that POSEIDON ADVENTURE of all things was realistic!
and i love that your article both respects and side-eyes the movie... it's the perfect reaction really considering.
I watched this one recently for the first time. I laughed at the movie quite a bit, but it was still thoroughly enjoyable. I've sat through many a stupider disaster films. And it really did have impressive sets.
As a child, nothing was as visually startling as when the passenger hanging from an upside-down table fell backwards onto that lighted plane of glass. I was also mesmerized by the scuttle hole that takes Roddy McDowall. As an adult, nothing is as visually startling as seeing the wiggle & jiggle of low-cut dress wearing Stella Stevens and the hot pants of Carol Lynley and Pamela Sue Martin. Guess this classic offers something for everyone! I’m still trying to erase the memory of seeing Grandma Shelly Winter’s underwear during her underwater swim...
LOVE this movie and loved reading your in depth look at its design. That care and all the other effort that went into the movie I think shows on screen and is part of why it was so successful when it came out.
The remake has none of the detail nor care that went into this, it's faceless interchangeable characters and settings never engage the audience which is part of why it is such a dud.
This was very interesting,you never really feel it's a set,poor Stella Stevens has the cruellest death as she nearly makes it.
This was when disaster movies had heart and characters you cared about while cheering for the deaths of stupid people. Today's disaster movies just has none of that.
I watched this movie at such a young age and all I remembered were Carol Lynley's legs. I have since grown to appreciate more of the movie. There could be an article about the costuming of the movie as well.
Joel6- you are completely right about the remake. It is shot with such dark lighting and the women all have similar dark shades in their wardrobe that when I watched the trailer an underwater scene was shown and I had no idea who I was seeing. The women all looked alike. Turns out it was Mia Maestro the only actor actively trying in the remake.
Agree that this is a really fun movie to enjoy and not take terribly seriously, but I always shed a little tear for Shelley when she expires. The remake was really awful—a prime example of totally impersonal and mechanical filmmaking. The original is a masterpiece by comparison.
Disaster Movies are like Biblical Movies - they need to take themselves seriously but with the ability to laugh at themselves. This should have been nominated for Best Picture instead of The Towering Inferno, but in 1972, you know? And Shelley Winters could have taken a third golden statuette, right?
The turning over of the ship remains one of the most effective disaster effect sequences in film history- everything works and yes it's so real you believe every moment.
"It looks like something out of a video game."
not in 1972, unless they stumbled upon a pong court
"...a Christian Evangelical allegory of self-reliance and the sanctity of life, with the Holocaust as little more than a metaphor and the unseen Israeli grandson as an apocalyptic prop"
that's A LOT of subtext for a 70s disaster pic
A WONDERFUL FILM, WHICH IS ALL TOO EASY FOR CYNICS TO BASH. THE PRODUCTION DESIGN WAS FANTASTIC, AS WERE ALL PRODUCTION AREAS INCLUDING CINEMATOGRAPHY AND MUSIC. ONE OF THE BEST FILMS OF A FANTASTIC YEAR. ONE THAT ALSO GAVE US CABARET, DELIVERANCE AND THE GODFATHER.
Both one of my faves disaster films, and also one of my faves religious films of all time.
The film is heavy on the religious subtext and with a strong positive feedback, favoring the theology of liberation, which has been so crucial in Latinamerica from the 70s till nowadays.
The less said about Petersen's remake, that was an absolute (pun intended) disaster on all counts, the better.
This movie gave me nightmares when I first saw it as a child on daytime television. And I love the details here in the set. Almost enough to make me want to rewatch it all these years later.
This is far and away my favorite disaster movie. I saw it at about ten years old and have seen it a handful of times since. It's about as "realistic" as these things can get, no doubt being helped by coming in at the beginning of the disaster genre before things like The Swarm had to ramp things up to ridiculous levels.
It really helps having good actors in these roles and focusing on specific characters. I didn't recall that this was supposed to be the Queen Mary and it's fun to know that scenes from the movie were filmed on the actual ship in Long Beach. Shoot, now I'll have to watch it again!
" I’m still trying to erase the memory of seeing Grandma Shelly Winter’s underwear during her underwater swim..."
TOM, don't worry. If you've ever cared for an ailing parent/grandparent (or non relation even) it all becomes demystified and just matter of fact very quickly.
I adore this film, though my favorite disaster film will always be The Towering Inferno, which also has an excellent Oscar-nominated set design, without the challenge of everything topsy-turvy. Both movies affected me so deeply in my childhood. Poseidon is such a terrific entertainment. I know Shelley gets all the critical raves, but Stella Stevens is truly memorable in this.
My all time favorite disaster movie, and thevoid99 gets it right. It has soul and heart, and is not a video game like today's movies.
brookesboy-A big YES to Stella Stevens being memorable!! I loved all the characters....except Carol Lynley's-I know she's scared but I kept thinking "If somebody else has to go PLEASE let it be that whining crybaby!"-but Stella was my absolute favorite.
She and Ernest Borgnine were magic together.