I stumbled across ‘Beyond The Poseidon Adventure’ on tv earlier this year. It was a good one or two week period for my telly watching. Also on the tv around that time was ‘The Enemy Below’ (1957)(same year as James Dean Story, I’ve not forgotten about it) and some film about a blimp .. ‘The Hindenburg’ (1975) http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1010556160/tt0073113?ref_=tt_ov_i,
but I missed the end of that movie, I’d gotten a bit drunk and almost burned the house down, you could say, ironically so.

So anyway it turns out that ‘The Enemy Below'(1957) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050356/?ref_=tt_rec_tt

was Spielberg’s inspiration for the plot of ‘Jaws'(1975), an above-and-below-water game of cat and mouse. Substitute the Russian submarine for a man-eating shark and Robert Mitchum for a gnarly Robert Shaw, and voilà, you’ve got one of the greatest movies ever made!

Back to this afternoon’s subject, ‘Beyond The Poseidon Adventure'(1979), an inverse oasis amongst the mélange of Michael Caine’s career.

and on that submerged Oasis who do we find? Not Noel Gallagher, he left that ship.

Sadly not Liam either, instead we’ve got baldy detective turned baddie, who loves ya baby, Telly Savalas.

great

1980 Oscar winner Sally Field does her best to keep the proceedings bearable, but needles to say, she didn’t win the Oscar for this movie.

and Michael Caine, he’s no Gene Hackman. Gene Hackman shall henceforce be referred to as ‘God’. Only he could have drained the seas and rescued this shipwreck.

Why am I even talking about this movie??? Its pretty bad, but I remember it made me laugh, a lot. Through its sheer unnecessariness, its total obsurdity. Why make a sequal to ‘The Poseidon Adventure'(1972)??? It’d be like remaking ‘Towering Inferno’ to wade about in its ashes and hope, by god, for it to catch fire again just for something exciting to happen.

At least they must’ve learned their lesson eh?? No? What do you mean ‘Poseidon'(2006)?? No they ddidn’t. Yes you did! YES you DID Brett! You dug up Richard Dreyfuss. And Richird Dreyfuss doesn’t like to be dug up by anyone other than Mrs Speilberg. I’ve not watched it and I don’t plan to.

What I do plan to do is dig out screenshots from the end of ‘The Poseidon Adventure'(1972) and compare it with the beginning of ‘Beyond The Poseidon Adventure’ (1979). In the movie it’s the morning after, in real time it’s 7 years later. That’s interesting right? Anyway that’s why I’ve been blethering on about it. One side-by-side image to follow.

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