The Deep Six

By J.C.

THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE

Directed by RONALD NEAME

Screenplay by STIRLING SILLIPHANT

and WENDALL MAYES

The S.S. Poseidon, bound from New York to Athens on her last voyage, is struck by "an enormous wall of water" and capsizes out of sight of land. Many passengers are killed immediately, others die slowly of injuries sustained during the first impact or in subsequent, secondary disasters such as floodings and explosions. The only slim hope of survival is to crawl torturously up through the gutted bowels of the ship toward the hull, where the steel is thinnest, hoping that after agonizing hours, help will arrive.

It is exciting even to think what film makers like John Boorman (Deliverance) and Don Siegel (Dirty Harry) might have done with this material. Alas, this movie was directed by Ronald Neame (Scrooge) who saw his role as that of a traffic cop, his main concern to get his actors where they were supposed to go without bumping into each other too often.

The Poseidon's passenger list is a manifest of stereotypes, her cargo cliches. The hero is Reverend Frank Scott (Gene Hackman), a sort of seagoing Malcolm Boyd who exhorts his shipboard congregation to "have the guts to fight for yourself--God loves brave souls." Also among the survivors are a beefy cop (Ernest Borgnine) and his new wife, a reformed whore (Stella Stevens); a teen-age girl (Pamela Sue Martin) and her obnoxious little brother (Eric Shea); an aging Jewish couple (Shelley Winters and Jack Albertson) en route to the holy land; a timid haberdasher (Red Buttons); a willowy rock singer (Carol Lynley); and a plucky waiter (Roddy McDowall). With God as his copilot, and with a good deal of muscle, Hackman leads them ever upward, through sets that look as tortuous as a miniature golf course.

The script, which abounds in inane dialogue, is particularly vicious to women, who are portrayed as woefully helpless, weepy creatures who would surely perish without men to pull them through. The actors generally do better by the script than it deserves. Stella Stevens, looking well used but winning, is genuinely touching, Shelley Winters engagingly hammy. Gene Hackman, who seems to have the lion's share of the bad lines, nevertheless acquits himself very nicely indeed. There is one scene in which he is required to pray to God, pleading with him and admonishing him, that Hackman, against all odds, manages to make believable.

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