"Poseidon" Droplets

Elsewhere on this blog I have mentioned the importance of The Poseidon Adventure to me, my childhood brain having been suitably warped by it during a TV viewing circa 1975. Today I will share a few more tidbits, pieces of trivia, photos and the like.

Based on a book of the same name by Paul Gallico, The Poseidon Adventure concerned the attempt at survival of 10 passengers whose cruise ship has been overturned by a tidal wave. The ship now being upside down, the people had to climb upwards to the “bottom” of the ship in order to meet any rescuers who might be there.

Inspiration for the novel came from a boat trip the author was on once in which the sea was so rough, it nearly capsized the ship! He envisioned what it would be like had that actually happened and worked from there.

The protagonist of the story, Reverend Scott, was portrayed in the book as a blonde, handsome, very athletic type of man (who went by the nickname “Buzz!”) With no harm intended to Gene Hackman, who did a wonderful job in the film, this is not exactly the way the character translated to the screen. Other character differences from the source novel include the following: Susan and Robin Shelby’s parents, Dick and Jane, were on board with them, not awaiting their arrival at the end destination. Nonnie was a chorus dancer, not a singer. The Rosens were delicatessen owners, not hardware store proprietors. Mr. Martin, far from being a lonely man, was having an affair with widow Wilma Lewis. Additional followers of the Reverend included ever-boozing Tony “The Beamer” Bates and his girlfriend Pamela, mild-mannered bookkeeper Mary Kinsdale and playboy Hubie Muller.

Linda Rogo, one of my favorite characters in the movie (played by Stella Stevens) was far more nasty and antagonistic in the book. She was basically irredeemable and when Irwin Allen asked Stevens to take the role, he emphatically asked her not to read the book, as he wanted the character to be less horrible. Stevens still had many snarky and mouthy lines, but was able to temper her characterization with unscripted bits of consideration and remorse.

Shelley Winters got miles of publicity out of the fact that she gained weight to play Belle Rosen. She claimed to have put on 30 pounds, though Carol Lynley was quoted shortly after as remarking that she “always weighed that much.” Truth is, though Winters did gain a bit of weight for the part, she nonetheless was padded further! This somewhat explains the bizarre goings on under her skirt during the underwater rescue sequence. See the attached picture of Winters showing off her true shape sans the padding that was usually under her dress.

Winters was taught to swim (and one can only imagine what else) by Johnny Weissmuller and so had no qualms about that aspect of her role. She did, however, burst an eardrum during filming. Most of the cast did his or her own stunt work whenever they could and that resulted in several injuries along the way. Carol Lynley was afraid of heights and so virtually all of her long shot scaffold scenes were performed by a double.

Though director Ronald Neame basically dismissed any notion of it as poppycock, the film unquestionably has Biblical overtones to it. He claims that they were merely setting out to make an entertaining adventure film and never gave any thought to symbolism. However, one look at Hackman carrying the overturned Christmas tree on his shoulder while disbelieving passengers look on is all anyone should need to see the obvious Christ/cross carrying imagery. The only way anyone in the movie can survive is to believe in the Reverend. Each survivor must endure a trial by fire and a baptism. Of course, the Reverend also makes the ultimate sacrifice in order to deliver his people to the promised land and still, only faith in what he was saying, will get them out.

Stevens’ character, an ex-prostitute in the film, has a sort of Mary Magdeline presence and is often shown with Hackman more than she is her own husband. Her husband, as portrayed by Ernest Borgnine, is an unyielding “Doubting Thomas” until finally being won over. Isaiah 11:6 contains the oft-used phrase “and a little child will lead them” and Reverend Scott continuously takes the advice of 10 year-old Robin Shelby regarding the escape route. People have occasionally complained that most of the people who survive the film are boring and colorless. “The meek shall inherit the Earth” anyone? (Okay, so maybe that’s a bit of a stretch!)

For all the success of the film and the rabid, cult-like following it has engendered, Hackman almost completely refuses to discuss it. Stevens says that he was and is miffed at the way his hair is styled (ratted up and teased into a comb-over) and has never gotten past it. Whatever the reason, he has never taken part in any of the many fan events or participated in interviews or extras prepared for cable or DVD. It should be noted, also, that he refused to play Lex Luthor as bald all of the time (or for even much of the time!) in the Superman movies, so perhaps Stevens is on to something with Gene and his hair…

Burt Lancaster had been offered the role initially, perhaps due to his Elmer Gantry-esque background, but turned it down. Other considerations include Sally Kellerman as Linda Rogo, Petula Clark as Nonnie and Esther Williams as Belle Rosen. The latter seems like a no-brainer, though there’s no way she could possibly have had the same impact that Winters ultimately did. Williams claimed in her autobiography that then-husband Fernando Lamas wouldn’t allow her to accept the part. Ms. Clark, by nixing the role, also passed up the chance to record what would have been another hit song for her, the Oscar-winning "The Morning After." (Clark also turned down Jacqueline Bisset's role in Airport, demonstrating either a supreme lack of or surplus of sense, depending on one's point of view!)

The whole message of the novel seems to have been shifted in preparation for the screen. For example, in the book, the surviving passengers, who followed the Reverend through every torturous obstacle, emerge half-naked, oil-soaked and almost dead from lack of oxygen only to find that other people have escaped from another location with barely a scratch or scuff! The film, however, firmly asserts that the only people to make it are the ones who steadfastly followed the Reverend’s commands. This does make for a far more heroic figure and reinforces that what the people went through was ultimately worth it.

Though I heartily recommend reading the book, it is a far darker tale involving vivid depictions of grime, gore, flatulence (yes!) and even rape and unexpected death. The two renditions, while inexorably bound, are not precisely the same tale in the end. They make interesting parallel treatments of the same basic story and compliment each other in some ways. Needless to say, I do NOT endorse the 2005 TV miniseries, nor the 2006 big screen remake, and, while the 1979 sequel Beyond the Poseidon Adventure is pathetically ridiculous, I can’t help but accept it as a hopeless orphan since it was the product of Irwin Allen and came to life in that glorious, but short lived, age of the all-star disaster film.

Check Out These Swingers!

Today, we’ll examine a few TV & movie Tarzans. Typically, the first name that comes to mind when thinking of the famous vine swinger is the first sound film Tarzan, Johnny Weissmuller. Having essayed the role from 1932 to 1948, he was also the actor with the longest span of portrayal.

Weissmuller’s early years have a touch of mystery to them, mostly because he and his family fudged his place of birth (Austria-Hungary, but changed to Windber, PA) in order to ensure his eligibility for the 1924 Olympics where he won three gold medals as a swimmer. He also took a bronze that year as part of the water polo team and then returned in 1928 to win two more golds. Weissmuller never lost a race during his entire swimming career and set 67 world records! Prior to his acting in films, he swam with Billy Rose’s Aquacade where, if you believe Esther Williams, he not only tried to seduce her throughout the time they worked together, but also sported an eye-popping endowment.

The first film in Weissmuller’s series, Tarzan, the Ape Man, is an unqualified classic and also contains an adult sensibility that would be absent from many of the subsequent films. Made in the “pre-code” era, Weissmuller’s loincloth was at its skimpiest and his female costar Maureen O’Sullivan had a nude, underwater swimming scene. Later films would have both the stars slightly more covered up and also impose a sort of conventional family dynamic upon the couple and their eventual adopted son ‘Boy.’ Weissmuller, perhaps, stayed too long at the fair, so to speak, where this role is concerned and his later entries in the series are cheaper and more routine.

Lex Barker, who then inherited the role, is featured elsewhere on this blog. One of the beefiest and cutest-looking Tarzans was Gordon Scott, who owned the role from 1955 to 1960. A bodybuilder with big arms and a tiny waist, Scott was discovered in Las Vegas as a lifeguard and signed for the part in the wake of 200 prior applicants. Though his first couple of films in the role are nothing tremendous, Scott is the first Tarzan to appear in color onscreen and his last two features, Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure and Tarzan the Magnificent are widely considered among the best ever. His first attempt (Tarzan’s Hidden Jungle), however, costarred Vera Miles and the pair were married for a while during the 1950s. Are ya getting this? Vera Miles got to have sex with Gordon Scott! No wonder her skin stayed so dewy fresh for all those years.

A Tarzan TV series was suggested in 1958 starring Scott and he filmed an extensive, three-part pilot for it, though, for some reason it was not picked up. This was put together as the movie Tarzan and the Trappers and later shown on TV in 1966. Scott worked in Italian films, sometimes with his pal Steve Reeves, for a time, but really didn’t work in films past the late 60s. Though he did make more than a few personal appearances at conventions and so on, his later years were less than successful. In fact, he spent the last six years of his live living in the spare bedroom of a fan, passing away in 2007.

In 1966, the screen’s first real hairy-chested Tarzan made his debut. Mike Henry, a former Pittsburgh Steeler and L.A. Ram, is, despite a pretty brief run at the part, many folks’ favorite. He only did three Tarzan movies from 1966 to 1968, but his lean, dark good looks and amiable persona made him memorable in the part.

Henry had a very rough time of it, the series by now being filmed in strenuous locations such as Mexico and Brazil, where he suffered from injuries, infections and even a serious chimpanzee bite to the chin! The latter incident led to stitches and a three-week recovery thanks to Monkey Bite Fever. He was intended to star in yet another TV version of the story, but he not only turned it down but also sued the producers for the conditions under which he’d been working during the previous films.

Henry has a notorious fight scene with an animal in one of his films (I believe it is Tarzan and the Valley of Gold) in which his loincloth flips up, revealing something underneath. Rumors persist that it’s one of his balls, but I have always believed that it is a jockstrap. In any case, despite all of his problems and reservations concerning the experience, he was a very good Tarzan.

Some people might be surprised to learn that he later appeared as Jackie Gleason’s sidekick in Smokey and the Bandit and its sequels. He also did no fewer than three Charlton Heston films and two with John Wayne as well.

When the TV deal with Henry didn’t work out, a series was finally put together starring 6’4” bit actor Ron Ely. The show, which ran from 1966 – 1968, got an unusual kickoff when three former Tarzan’s met Ely to swing on vines for the press. The Tarzans were Jock Mahoney (one of the least favorite from Poseidon’s point of view), Johnny Weissmuller (Oh dear Lord, JW, that loincloth!) and a rather little known one named James Pierce, who had portrayed the King of the Jungle in a 1927 silent film! (See below)

Ely, who did virtually all of his own stunt work, incurred a ridiculous number of injuries during the filming of the 36 episodes! These include, but are not limited to: burns, bites, a dislocated shoulder, open wounds, cracked ribs and sprained wrists! In 1975, he starred in the (unsuccessful) film Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze. (Ronny doesn't look all that bronze in the attached photo!) By 1980, he had moved on to comparatively safer work such as hosting the Miss America Pageant after the departure of Bert Parks and the game show Face the Music. Face the Music, which only ran for a year and a half, will nonetheless be a vivid memory to people of a certain age. The bonus round would play songs with titles related to a certain star and each step of the way featured early pics of that star from infancy up to the way they looked in their hey day.

Tarzan, as a franchise, did many little gay boys a favor over the years because it was perfectly acceptable to watch one of the films in a theater or on TV, yet they always afforded prolonged glimpses of handsome, muscular, nearly naked men!

Consider this Warning...

1970s film audiences could not seem to get enough of all-star casts facing some sort of epic peril! With airplanes, ships, skyscrapers and the ground itself already having failed to protect man from disaster, this suspense thriller posed the question: What would happen if the nation’s primary sporting event (The Super Bowl) were subject to panic caused by a deranged sniper?!

Trouble is, the NFL wouldn’t allow the makers of Two-Minute Warning to use their likenesses and logos, nor even the name “Super Bowl.” So the film had one arm tied behind its back from the start as two generic teams met up for the “Championship” game. Still, that aside, the conceit that a stadium could be packed to capacity with screaming fans who are held in the grip of an unknown, steely wacko who can start killing at any moment is enough to generate a significant amount of tension.

Putting a spin on the popular “box movie” style of poster format, this one has all the stars’ faces in circles representing the rifle site as seen through the eye of the gunman. Though he continually and randomly lands his site on the stars throughout the bulk of the movie, the film’s title should be an indication of when hell really starts to break loose.

The mainstay of 70s action and disaster films, Charlton Heston, is on hand as a police captain in charge of rooting out the mysterious and heavily armed assassin who has perched himself above the scoreboard at the L.A. Coliseum. John Cassavetes costars as head of the SWAT team brought in to take the guy out. These two gentlemen couldn’t be more unalike in career trajectory or acting style and it aids in their onscreen rivalry. Completing a triangle of harried officials is Martin Balsam, excellent as a Coliseum official.

A buffet of (then) familiar faces rounds out the rest of the cast, portraying ticket-holders for the big game, unaware that their lives could be snuffed out at any moment. Beau Bridges (a favorite of director Larry Peerce, having appeared in several of his previous films) and Pamela Bellwood are a married couple with two young children. Their family is under immense stress thanks to the economic situation at the time and they simply want to have a good time at the game. David Janssen and Gena Rowlands (Cassavetes’ real life spouse) are a battling couple, trying to make their relationship work despite obstacles in each of their personalities. Jack Klugman is a gambler in danger of being snuffed out and who has everything riding on the outcome of the game. A priest played by Mitchell Ryan is seated next to him, giving what support he can. Marilyn Hassett (the director’s wife at the time and, thus, even more of a favorite than Bridges!) is an attractive lady stuck on an excruciating date, but finding herself drawn to the man seated on her other side, Rhoda’s David Groh. Finally, Walter Pidgeon plays a pickpocket, eagerly taking the opportunity of a crushing throng of people to get his job done.

While the film does take a significant amount of time to work up to its explosive climax, there are a few eventful moments beforehand such as when the gunman decides to try out his weapon and when he is discovered by security officer Brock Peters. It’s mostly a steady build up to the big moment when the man opens fire, aided greatly by some Oscar-nominated editing. A creepy (if repetitive) score underlines the anxiety while the complete anonymity of the gunman, absent of even a clear motive, lends a coldness to the scenario.

Things get fun when panic ensues. Bridges (who is being shockingly mistreated by uniformed police officers) takes off running through the deserted, heavily littered pathways of the Coliseum only to be confronted by a rabid, terrified throng of people coming the opposite way. We’ve all seen people rush onto the football field after a big game, but in this film, they’re running because standing still can lead to instant death!

As the panic grows, Hassett (or her stunt double, rather) is knocked out of the relative protection of an escalator and is left dangling high above the tarmac. This was, for me as a child, an indelible image and one that I always wished to replicate at the local malls whenever I was on a similar device. Naturally, without the then-chic leather boots and hunter green skirt, I never could have achieved quite the same effect, though.

It must be said that the crowd scenes here come off as unnecessarily cynical and cruel. Would people really act the way they do here, crushing each other and knocking each other everywhere? Perhaps. Still, in the aftermath of 9/11 I was never made aware of this type of behavior as people tried to escape the Twin Towers. Rather, I heard of heroics and helping amongst the people trying to get out. Who knows if we just weren’t told about the selfish people or if there were none? Additionally, the police here come off as quite violent and unkind in their handling of the situation.

The overall callous brutality of the film and the vivid way in which several people are killed led to some serious problems for the network trying to air the movie on TV. Also, typical for the time, there was plenty of spicy dialogue that was deemed too vulgar for the viewing audience. (Naturally, by now, all this is tame stuff, however.) So the film was augmented in quite a hideous way with newly shot footage offering up a preposterous excuse for the gunman’s assault and a whole new subplot about an art heist taking place next to the venue! This rendition of the film is notoriously bad. Even those who hated the original (and there are plenty of people who did and do) admit that the re-fabricated version is worse.

Poseidon has never let such a thing as good taste stand in the way of his enjoyment of all-star spectacles that also include panic and destruction. The fact that real-life sports announcers Howard Cosell, Frank Gifford and Dick Enberg appear briefly and that The National Anthem is crooned by none other than Merv Griffin (!) only adds to the fun. This movie also cemented my fixation on Rowlands’ hair, her distinctive blonde wave falling over one side of her face as oversized sunglasses find differing ways to implant themselves within it. Then there’s Heston’s deadly unappealing knit tie and his sunglasses that appear crooked in the majority of shots.

If you can stomach the generification of the football game and its teams, chances are you will find yourself compelled by the aura of dread that hangs over the film until it all comes apart at the seams. A similar (some say greater, though I am not one of them) film is 1977’s Black Sunday, in which terrorists hijack the Goodyear blimp in order to explode it over The Super Bowl, this time the real Super Bowl!

I Saw What Joan Did!

In keeping with the recent Halloween season, we will examine today the late-career films of Miss Joan Crawford, in which she partook in the horror genre (not that she would admit to them being in that field!) To set the stage for this career shift:

Following the death of her last husband Alfred Steele, a Pepsi-Cola executive, Crawford went back to work in the office romance drama The Best of Everything, a 1959 film in which her role was cut down somewhat in the editing room. (Stories vary as to whether she was tricked into taking the part by the promise of a larger role which was never intended to see the light of day or whether it was due to running time or what, but the fact of the matter is that her part is easily the most fascinating one and should have been left alone! It is true, however, that in the source novel her role is practically nonexistent.)

Things didn’t exactly heat up after that, despite her professional and captivating performance, so in 1962 she took on a very unusual role in a very unusual film with a highly atypical (for her) costar! At her own suggestion, she and her old rival Bette Davis paired up for What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, a creepy tale of two aged sisters and former performers living together and battling it out over whether to move. Bette played the title character, a grotesque, crumbling battle-axe who has never let go of the Shirley Temple-esque curls she sported as a child star and who seems mentally wounded by a long ago incident. Joan is her wheelchair-bound sister, a starlet whose career was ended by a car crash. Joan had never allowed herself to look this bad on film and was insecure about it at times. At one point she exclaimed, "You've taken everything else away, but you won't take my nails!" when it was suggested that she lose the manicured look on her hands.

It was an uneasy alliance from the start, but they got through it. Bette delighted in kicking Joan around the floor and Joan retaliated by weighting herself down when Bette had to carry her (resulting in a severely strained back!) They took turns haranguing the director Robert Aldrich, though they remained professional on the set and got the job done quickly to avoid going over budget. Joan got miffed when Bette kept repeating a remark of old boss (and current backer) Jack Warner’s in which he referred to them as “old broads.” There were some other darts thrown on both sides, but the kicker was when Bette got an Oscar nomination and Joan didn’t. Joan offered to accept the award for each of the other four ladies should they win and when Anne Bancroft did (for The Miracle Worker), Joan got to go out on live TV and pick it up, she also posed with it for the press as was the custom at that time.

This led to some serious bad feeling towards Joan from Bette and their follow-up film Hush, Hush… Sweet Charlotte (Baby Jane having been a big success) was a virtual war zone of one-upsmanship, vituperativeness, shunning and hatred, ending up with Joan in the hospital with (real or imagined) pneumonia, soon replaced by Olivia de Havilland.

Not long after this quagmire, Joan hooked up with gimmicky shock-master William Castle who decided to feature her in a thriller in which there would be no question who was in charge! Strait-Jacket, about an axe-murderess who is released from an institution and goes to live with her brother and her now-grown daughter, marked a full-on descent into the horror genre. Of course, now, the horror is found in the hilarious styling that was chosen for her and in the overwrought scenes including one in which she tries to seduce her daughter’s fiancé! Despite the tacky trappings, Joan gives an excellent performance in it, especially in the few scenes that feature her with less make-up and (mostly) her own salt and pepper hair. There were few, if any, publicity shots of her in “dowdy” mode, most of them featuring the more eye-popping sight of her swinging an axe! Columbia Pictures got in on the fun by augmenting their logo to reflect a beheaded torch bearer!
Miss Joan asserted herself right off the bat by having Anne Helm, who was cast as her daughter, fired. One story has it that she didn’t like Helm’s acting. Helm says it was because she dared to call Crawford “Joan” upon first meeting. In any case, Joan’s The Best of Everything costar Diane Baker was brought in. Even she had some complaints about her role being diminished slightly by Joan, but, let’s face it, people paid to see half-cracked Crawford. She even got one of Pepsi's board members a featured role as one of her psychiatrists! Also making his debut in a non-speaking role as young Crawford’s husband (and murder victim) was Lee Majors! How many people can claim that Joan Crawford laid in bed next to a plaster model of their disembodied noggin?! Lee can.

This collaboration a success, Joan then appeared in a glorified cameo role in Castle’s I Saw What You Did, a campy hoot about two teens and a baby sister who delight in calling people up randomly on the phone and exclaiming the title phrase to them. Trouble starts when they call a man who has just offed his wife! Crawford plays the killer’s next-door neighbor and potential love interest.

In this film, Joan has hair higher than she ever got it before or after and accents the already arresting look with a necklace that appears to weigh ten pounds! She has very little to do here, but does it well, and has a thoroughly unforgettable sequence in which she grabs one of the girls and calls her a tramp, drunkenly screaming at her and shoving her around. She appeared to approve of these gals a lot more than she did of some other young costars she’d have over the years, but they were really never seen again after this.

Her male costar here was John Ireland and he has a doozy of an attack scene which is sort of a reverse of Psycho in that the victim is in the bathroom, but the killer is in the shower! According to Betsy Palmer, John and Joan had a wild, passionate affair a decade earlier when they were in Queen Bee together. Not sure if they rekindled anything this time out or not. Incidentally, Queen Bee also featured a young female costar that Joan wasn’t keen on and she really enjoyed giving her face a good whack when the script called for it! (Pictured to the right are Joan, John and said costar Lucy Marlow.)

Retaining her top-billing status, no matter the caliber of the vehicle, Joan then starred in Berserk, all about a female circus owner and ringmaster whose attraction has become the scene of continuous grisly murders. Producer Herman Cohen relates that Joan looked at the film as a drama with some horrific moments, not as a horror film, but anyone can see by the title and the poster’s artwork what was intended. And how many “dramas” involve someone falling onto a bed of knives, being sawed in half and having a spike driven through his head?

Garish in color and filled with oddball characters (and even a musical number performed by four circus freaks!), the film is made even campier by the inclusion of a love affair between 60-something Joan and hunky TV cowboy Ty Hardin who plays a mysterious high wire performer. One highlight of the film is a hair-pulling catfight between pneumatic Diana Dors and a fellow carny. Earlier in the film, Joan barks, “You SLUT!” to Dors, seemingly enjoying this new era of more permissive insults. As a favor to the star, Edith Head whipped up the ringmaster ensemble and Joan was justifiably proud of her physique at this stage of her life.

When Rod Serling decided to introduce a color follow-up series to The Twilight Zone called Night Gallery, a three-part pilot was shot and Crawford starred in one of them (directed by a young Steven Spielberg!) She played a savagely selfish, wealthy, blind woman who extorts the corneas of a desperate poor man in order to see for a mere 12 hours or so. Things don’t turn out as well as she would have liked, however. This contains some of Joan’s very best late-career acting and she’s thrilling to behold.

Her final feature film is very likely her worst ever. Trog concerns the discovery of a prehistoric man and his training by a leading scientist played by Crawford. Hopelessly, rinky-dink in many ways, the film is pretty much a mess, though she’s clearly trying to give it her best. She still looks good, all things considered, except appears rather silly when called upon to don a construction hat or wield a rifle. Her screaming out the word “TROG!” gives one a taste of how angry she could be at home if things weren’t done right, though I will go to my grave believing that Christina exaggerated the better part of her character-assassinating memoir. Starring opposite “Trog” was just a tad less prestigious than when Miss Joan used to pair up with Clark Gable, The King of Hollywood or any of her other costars of the golden era.

Joan’s very final bit of dramatic screen work was in 1972 on the TV series The Sixth Sense (repackaged under the Night Gallery label for syndication.) She portrays a woman (imaginatively named Joan) who winds up stranded at a house with several young people who seem to want to hold her there against her will and do her some harm. If you ever get the chance to see this, DO NOT miss the finale in which she breaks character to talk to star Gary Collins about her own instance of when a “sixth sense” occurred in her life.

In 1974, Joan attended an event to honor her pal Rosalind Russell who was suffering from illness and appeared bloated from shots of cortisone. The garish flashbulbs of the photographers caught the ladies in mostly unflattering ways and Joan believed that the newspapers deliberately published the worst of the lot just to be cruel. (This still happens today, by the way, despite the advances in digital photography and so on. Check out Playbill.com sometime and look at the elderly celebs who are attending an opening, caught startled and unbecoming by the throngs of paparazzi!) With that, she decided that if that’s the way she looked, then no one was going to see her ever again and, for all intents and purposes, she never made another public appearance, passing away in 1977. She sat for one final portrait by John Engstead, but the former social butterfly was mostly cocooned up. It should be noted that she was offered roles right up until the end, sometimes in projects that would have lent her resume an elegant final touch, rather than Trog, such as the part of Ma Kent in Superman.