Although 1970’s AIRPORT is generally credited as the first “disaster movie”, it was 1972’s THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE that made the biggest splash for the genre. Producer Irwin Allen loaded up his cast with five- count ’em!- Academy Award winners, including the previous year’s winner Gene Hackman (THE FRENCH CONNECTION ). The special effects laden extravaganza wound up nominated for 9 Oscars, winning 2, and was the second highest grossing film of the year, behind only THE GODFATHER!
And unlike many of the “disasters” that followed in its wake, THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE holds up surprisingly well. The story serves as an instruction manual for all disaster movies to come. First, introduce your premise: The S.S. Poseidon is sailing on its final voyage, and Captain Leslie Nielsen is ordered by the new ownership to go full steam ahead, despite the ship no longer being in ship-shape. (You won’t be able to take…
What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!
Last night, if you were having trouble sleeping around 2:30 in the morning, you could have turned on your television, changed the station to Movies TV, and watched the 1977 nature-goes-crazy horror film, Day of the Animals!
Now, I should admit that I was not suffering from insomnia last night. Jeff and I are currently up at beautiful Lake Texoma and we just happened to be up late last night and flipping through the stations. I should also admit that, unlike most of the other movies reviewed for this feature, Day of the Animals was not one of “those insomnia-inspired discoveries.”
No, we had both seen Day of the Animals before. The thing with Day of the Animals is that it’s one of those films that, if you see that it’s on TV, you simply have to stop what you’re doing and watch it. Considering that the man had a long career in the movies and I haven’t seen every film that he made, I could be wrong on this but I am fairly certain that Day of the Animals is your only opportunity to see Leslie Nielsen wrestle a grizzly bear.
Leslie Nielsen plays Paul, a businessman who is part of a group of hikers. Shortly before he wrestles with the bear, Paul stands, bare-chested, in the middle of a rainstorm and attempts to taunt God. “Melville’s God, that’s the God I believe in!” Paul shouts, “You want something!? YOU TAKE IT!” Then he turns to one of the hikers and says, “I know what I want and I’m taking it! I killed a man for you!”
Now, at this point, I should probably make it clear that Day of the Animals is not a comedy, though it’s always inspired a lot of laughter whenever I’ve watched it. Day of the Animals attempts to be a very serious horror movie. It even has an environmental message. Because of the hole in the ozone layer, solar radiation is driving all of the mountain animals crazy. Mountain lions attack campers. A grizzly bear wrestles Leslie Nielsen. A group of rats attempt to kill a policeman. German shepherds tear a man apart. And it’s not just the wild animals that are being affected. Leslie Nielsen goes crazy too.
Of course, Leslie Nielsen isn’t the only hiker. Genre vet Christopher George plays the leader of the tour and Lynda Day George is along for the ride as well. If you’ve seen the movie Pieces, you’ll remember Christopher George as the tough cop and Lynda Day George as the tennis pro who, at one point, dramatically screams “BASTARD!” into the wind. Susan Backlinie, who was the first victim in Jaws, also has a role in this film and that seems appropriate. Director William Girdler found quite a bit of success in ripping off Jaws. Before Day of the Animals, he directed Grizzly.
But good ole Leslie Nielsen is pretty much the entire show here. He tries really, really hard to give an intense and frightening performance. In fact, he tries so hard that you almost feel guilty for laughing at times. But then you see that head of perfect silver hair and you hear that deadpan voice saying, “Come here, you little punk!” and you just can’t help yourself.
Anyway, Day of the Animals may be bad but I defy anyone not to watch it.
That’s the question asked in this unjustly obscure film from 1956. Dave Stannard (Glenn Ford) is a wealthy businessman, with a beautiful wife (Donna Reed), a big suburban home, and a butler named Chapman (the great Puerto Rican actor Juano Hernandez). One day, his son Andy (Bobby Clark) does not come home from school. The school says that a nurse showed up to pick Andy up for a doctor’s appointment but neither Dave nor his wife know about any appointment and their family doctor says that he would never send a nurse to pick up a patient.
Andy has been kidnapped. When the kidnappers call, they tell Dave that they want half a million dollars in ransom. Dave gets the money together but is then told, by reporter Charlie Telfer (Leslie Nielsen), that, once the kidnappers have the money, they will have no incentive to return Andy. Since Andy is the only person who could identity them to the police, they may very well kill Andy after getting the money. By paying the ransom, Dave will also be encouraging other kidnappers.
The next morning, Dave goes on television and announces that he will not be paying the ransom. Instead, he announces that if the kidnappers do not immediately return his son, the money will be given as a reward to anyone who helps to track them down.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because Ransom! was later remade by Ron Howard, with Mel Gibson as the father and Gary Sinise as the kidnapper. (Ransom! itself was a remake of a live television drama that aired in 1954.) As opposed to the Howard film, the original Ransom! is a low-key character piece, one that takes place almost entirely in the Stannard home and in which the kidnappers remain largely unseen. Almost the entire movie focuses on Dave, his decision, and his struggle to come to terms with that decision. Was Dave right or was he wrong? Ransom! is stagey but thought-provoking with excellent performances from the entire cast. Even Leslie Nielsen, making his film debut, does well in the type of dramatic role that defined his career until he reinvented himself as a masterful comedic actor.
They don’t make them like this anyone and that is too bad.
Tonight’s excursion into televised horror is the very first episode of Boris Karloff’s Thriller!
Thriller was an anthology series that lasted from 1960 to 1962. Each episode presented a new story of horror and/or suspense. What makes this series especially memorable is that each episode was introduced by none other than Boris Karloff! I’ve seen a few episodes of Thriller (the entire series is on YouTube) and, to be honest, it’s kind of a hit-or-miss show. But Karloff and that mischievous twinkle in his eye makes it all worth it!
This episode originally aired on September 13th, 1960. It’s called The Twisted Image and stars Leslie Neilsen as a man being stalked by two mentally disturbed individuals. This episode was well-directed by Arthur Hiller and, if it’s more of a suspense story than a horror story, it still has its creepy moments.
A few years ago, when I first told Arleigh that I had recently watched the 1972 film The Poseidon Adventure, I remember him as being a bit shocked and amazed that I had made it through the entire film. This was because Arleigh knows that I have a morbid obsession with drowning and that the mere sight of someone struggling underwater is enough to send me into a panic attack.
And The Poseidon Adventure is a film that is totally about drowning. The majority of the cast drowns over the course of the film. The few who survive spend all of their time trying not to drown. The main villain in The Poseidon Adventure is the ocean. The Poseidon Adventure is a film specifically designed to terrify aquaphobes like me.
And there are certain parts of The Poseidon Adventure that freaked me out when I first watched it and which continue to freak me out whenever I rewatch it.
For instance, just the film’s plot freaks me out. On New Year’s Day, an ocean liner is capsized by a huge tidal wave. With the boat upside down, a small group of survivors struggle to make their way up to the hull where, hopefully, they might be rescued. That involves a lot of fighting, arguing, climbing, and drowning.
It freaks me out whenever I see the huge tidal wave crash into the bridge and drown Captain Leslie Nielsen. That’s largely because it’s impossible for me to look at Leslie Nielsen without smiling. (I’ve already written about my reaction to seeing him in the original Prom Night.) When he suddenly drowns, it’s not funny at all.
It freaks me out when the boat turns over and hundred of extras are tossed around the ballroom. I always feel especially bad for the people who vainly try to hold onto the upside down tables before eventually plunging to their deaths. (Did I mention that I’m scared of heights as well?)
It freaks me out when Roddy McDowall plunges to his death because who wants to see Roddy McDowall die? Whenever I see him in an old movie, he always come across as being such a super nice guy. (Except in Cleopatra, of course…) Plus, Roddy had an absolutely chilling death scream. They need to replace the Wilhelm Scream with the Roddy Scream.
It freaks me out when survivor Shelley Winters has a heart attack right after swimming from one part of the ship to another. Because seriously, Shelley totally deserved the Oscar nomination that she got for this film.
And it really freaks me out when Stella Stevens plunges to her death because I related to Stella’s character. Stella was tough, she didn’t take any crap from anyone, and she still didn’t make it. If Stella Stevens can’t make it, what hope would there be for me?
And yet, at the same time, The Poseidon Adventure is such an entertaining film that I’m willing to be freaked out. The Poseidon Adventure was one of the first of the classic disaster films and it’s so well done that even the parts of the film that don’t work somehow do work.
For instance, Gene Hackman plays the Rev. Frank Scott, the leader of the group of survivors. And Hackman, who can legitimately be called one of the best actors ever, gives an absolutely terrible performance. His performance is amazingly shrill and totally lacking in nuance. When, toward the end of the film, he starts to angrily yell at God, you actually feel sorry for God. And yet, Hackman’s terrible performance somehow works perfectly for the film. It’s such an over-the-top performance that it sets the tone for the whole film. The Poseidon Adventure is an over-the-top film and, if Hackman had invested his character with any sort of nuance, the film would not have worked as well as it did.
And then there’s Ernest Borgnine, who plays Stella Stevens’s husband. Borgnine spends the entire film arguing with Gene Hackman. Whenever something bad happens, Borgnine starts acting like Edward G. Robinson in The Ten Commandments. He never actually says, “Where is your God now!?” but it wouldn’t have been inappropriate if he had. And yet, again, it’s exactly the type of performance that a film like this needs.
And finally, there’s that theme song. “There has to be a morning after…” It won an Oscar, defeating Strange Are The Ways Of Love from The Stepmother. And is it a good song? No, not really. It’s incredibly vapid and, while it does get stuck in your head, you don’t necessarily want it there. But you know what? It’s the perfect song for this film.
The Poseidon Adventure is not a deep film, regardless of how many times Hackman and Borgnine argue about the role of God in the disaster. It’s an amazingly shallow film about people drowning. But it’s so well-made and so perfectly manipulative that you can’t help but be entertained.
The Poseidon Adventure totally freaks me out. But I will probably always be willing to find time to watch it.
Much like Thriller, Night Gallery is an old horror anthology series that I’ve recently discovered thanks to reruns on Me-TV. Airing in the early 70s and hosted by Twilight Zone‘s Rod Serling, Night Gallery usually featured two or three stories per episode and even provided a few early credits for director Steven Spielberg.
Of course, Spielberg didn’t direct the episode below but that’s okay. It’s still pretty good. It tells two stories. In A Question of Fear, Leslie Nielsen plays a mercenary who takes a bet to spend the night in a haunted house. In The Devil Is Not Mocked, Dracula talks about how he fought the Nazis during World War II. Interestingly enough, Dracula is played by Francis Lederer who, 13 years later, played the same role in The Return of Dracula.
The episode of Night Gallery was originally broadcast on October 27th, 1971.
Earlier tonight, I read on twitter that veteran character actor and Prom Night co-star Leslie Nielsen had passed away. While people seem to know him best as a former “serious” actor turned deadpan comedian, it is forgotten that Nielsen was — during the 70s — an exploitation and grindhouse mainstay.
Along with playing Jamie Lee Curtis’s father (and no-nonsense high school principal) in Prom Night, Nielsen was also the star of the kung fu classic Project: Kill and the bad guy in Day of the Animals.
The clip below comes from Day of the Animals and it shows Nielsen at his exploitation best:
Here’s a little bit of the movie history trivia that I live for: In 1959, along with famously auditioning for a role in Ben-Hur, Nielsen also came close to being cast in another iconic film. He was among the finalists for the role of Sam Loomis (eventually played by John Gavin) in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.
What would you do if your child was kidnapped?
Through the Shattered Lens 