Deja View: Disastrous Designs

If you looked at the tale end of my most recent post, then you know I had the glorious opportunity not long ago to see two of my top ten favorite movies on the big screen: The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974.) I thoroughly enjoyed watching them this way (in the case of Poseidon, it was my first time seeing it in a theater.) In fact, I'm still not over Inferno and over the last couple of evenings have been re-immersing myself in all the extras to be found on the Blu-ray. (If you've ever met me - or even if you haven't! - you know that I am totally obsessed with Faye Dunaway in said movie and can hardly believe how much of her footage was cut from the release print, thankfully saved in blurry, cropped form for the 4-hour network TV premiere in 1980.) 

My partner-in-crime for this foray into disaster on the big screen was longtime pal Joe, who did me one better than most anyone I know by once portraying Belle Rosen in "Poseidon! An Upside Down Musical" and bringing down the house with his shenanigans. Note "Nonnie" in the background with a stuffed figure meant to be her brother Teddy...!

Anyway, today, we're going to take a gander at a couple of the set design features of these two classic disaster epics and point out why they might seem familiar to loyal 20th Century Fox moviegoers. 

The extraordinary set for the S.S. Poseidon ballroom was symmetrically designed so that it could be used both before and after the stirring capsizing of the luxury liner. It just needed some materials to be reversed or relocated to the opposing point of the film stage. As you glance at the photo above, do take notice of the gilded panels in the back-left near the Christmas tree.  

Sprinkled throughout the dining salon are various large, gold panels depicting any manner of old-world activity from hunting to harvesting and the offering of said revenue to the gods, be it vegetation, fowl or who knows what else.

Though the ship is the S.S. Poseidon and so far as I know that was a GREEK god, the various etched panels are not!

Though it really only stands out after one closely inspects the artwork, these panels seem less self-contained than a designer might intend and appear more as if they are culled from a different far more elaborate overall scheme. Perhaps one like this...

Here we find one of the elaborate rooms to be found in the palace of Egyptian Queen Cleopatra! You may be aware of the 1963 movie which bore her name? 

I'm hard-pressed (and, in truth, don't exactly have the time) to match up specific bits of these pieces of wall art from film to film, but they were definitely recycled from Cleopatra to Poseidon.  

What I believe was done is that the Poseidon production designers wisely chose portions from the massive montage of etchings that were either just beyond camera range or otherwise less featured than some of the examples seen here. 

With that said, there's no mistaking the presence of the huge gent seen to the right of the door in back, with his bow drawn.  

He and the opposing figure were used for the Poseidon ballroom, but switched sides so that they were oriented to face one another rather than have their backs to each other. 

Once the overturning was complete, these panels were flipped the other way so that they'd be part of the upside-down effect. 

This is, of course, where the water eventually began pouring into the ballroom, drowning everyone who didn't climb upstairs with Gene Hackman's bombastic reverend. 

Thus, regardless of their initial design, they suddenly became topsy-turvy water-bearers to the hapless victims of the capsizing!

By the way, on the subject of deja "view," raise your hand if you knew that the attractive brunette seen here in-between The Rosens is Elizabeth Rogers a close friend and frequent cast member in Irwin Allen projects. She also happens to be (albeit with a totally different look) ----

-- one of the ten ladies selected at random to be rescued by helicopter in The Towering Inferno (1974.) 'Course, that doesn't exactly go according to plan. So the same ten ladies, along with two additions, are supposed to then be the only ones able to descend in the disabled scenic elevator. So conceivably she would be among them. 

However, the elevator takes off and, inexplicably, Rogers is left in the Promenade Room and now is primed to be the first woman to escape the fire with that method! (See her standing at the far left of this grouping.) 

Paul Newman asks who is the first to go and she raises her hand...

...then proceeds to make a whole spectacle out of being placed in the chair and lowered to presumed safety. See? Ya shoulda stayed with the elevator! LOL

For this exercise, Rogers received billing in the credits as "Lady in Buoy" at a time when not everyone in a movie got their name on screen! Rogers is but one of many people who appeared in both films. Some of the staff at The Glass Tower were crew members of the S.S Poseidon and there are many crossover party guests as well. 

But back to the subject at hand, which is set pieces being recycled, not people! Take this gargantuan tiered planter situated in the corner of the Promenade Room near the windows. It's HUGE and we're only seeing a small part of it. (The set was built eleven feet off the ground so that cameras could aim upwards towards the skyscraper's inhabitants and also so that water could drain off without collecting - and potentially drowning someone! - during the big finale.)

In the aforementioned finale, Jack Collins (as the mayor of San Francisco) has tied himself to a post near the planter, but the force of the water coming towards him quickly knocks him from his position. 

Soon he, having already signaled a possible heart issue, finds himself being washed over to the edge of the pit which is holding the planter. 

And he's hurled into the abyss, presumably drowned. (We're not expressly shown this, but William Holden seems to indicate that he was lost and he's never shown again.) This towering plant holder was not dripping with water for the first time, however... 

It can be spied here in 20th Century Fox's 1969 release Hello, Dolly! There, it was part of the eye-popping Harmonia Gardens restaurant set. (In fact, there wasn't just one. There was a set of them.) 

Thus, the "planter" which wound up serving as Mr. Collins' watery memorial headstone had once been a fountain in the vast splendor of a movie released five years prior. 

Who'da thunk that this hefty background piece (understandably being overshadowed by La Streisand during the title number!) would one day find itself on the 135th floor of the world's tallest building!? 

To bring this post fully around 360 degrees, the windows seen behind Dolly and the waitstaff in the prior pic are the same ones used to form the skylight-style fixtures on the "ceiling" of the Poseidon ballroom, one of which was the recipient of the legendary fall by Ernie Orsatti! And with that I'll say goodbye till next time.