The arrival of the New Year and its accompanying celebrations are associated with hope.
Of course, we look back on the year that was. The year-end television news will inevitably feature lists of people we have lost, accompanied where possible by lines of mourning. But nevertheless, we look forward, of course, with trepidation, but also with hope.
For this reason, one of the best New Year's watches will always be Irwin Allen's 1972 chestnut The Poseidon Adventure (streaming on Disney+ and Hollywood Suite). If you press play at exactly 11:35:15 pm, your New Year's countdown will sync exactly with the movie's New Year's countdown.
Warning. This may not work if your streaming service includes ads.
Another warning: this is fucking stupid. If you can't enjoy a certain level of unapologetic chatter, you might be better off with Wolfgang Peterson's sly, instantly forgettable 2006 remake of Poseidon (on Netflix).
Plot: The cruise ship SS Poseidon makes its last voyage to Athens before its money-grubbing owners scrap it. The owner forces the ship's captain to travel at top speed, a move that will compound the risk when a giant tsunami capsizes the boat, leaving a brave few to race upward to the bottom of the ship in hopes of escape.
The Poseidon Adventure came out in 1972, the same year as The Godfather and Cabaret, a couple of years after Arthur Haley's Airport revitalized the disaster movie genre with a can't-miss formula: lots of big stars, impressive visual effects and plenty of tragic deaths.
Producer Irwin Allen scored a major success by casting Gene Hackman in the title role of rebel minister Frank Scott. Hackman (sadly one of the names on this year's tribute list) won an Oscar for his portrayal of obsessed New York cop Popeye Doyle in The French Connection just last year. It seemed like a step back for him to go from such gritty material to a film that was literally drenched in melodramatic excess.
Hackman reportedly called it a “money job” when confronted by Poseidon Adventure superfan Ben Stiller while making The Royal Tenenbaums.
But he'll be damned if Hackman doesn't sell it on his personality alone. There's probably never been a movie in which a single actor rode so hard. Bless him: he gave us hope.
Here are five more reasons to watch The Poseidon Adventure this New Year.
1. Leslie Nielsen as Captain Harrison. Before the disaster movie parody Airplane turned his career around, Nielsen played many authority figures in this vein. A minute before the giant wave hits, Harrison turns to his subordinate and says, “By the way, Happy New Year,” and it's almost impossible to prevent a reflexive chuckle.
2. The feverish pathos of James Martin (Red Buttons), an unwillingly lonely haberdasher, in conversation with the near-catatonic cruise singer, Nonnie (Carol Lynley), whose brother died in the capsizing.
James: Nonnie, your brother is dead.
Nonnie: Did you like his music?
James: I would dance to this… if I had someone to dance with.
3. The Oscar-winning song There's Got to Be a Morning After is a direct prediction of the troubles to come: “Oh, can't you see the next morning? It's waiting just beyond the storm. Why don't we cross the bridge together? And find somewhere safe and warm.” If only people would listen to the lyrics.
4. Hackman's climactic diatribe when he is forced to sacrifice himself to save the remaining survivors. This suggests a rather provocative reading of the entire film: God is the bad guy.
5. The way Gene Hackman pronounces waiter Roddy McDowall's name: “Acres.”
If you want to enjoy watching a mid-'70s disaster movie set on a giant cruise ship without irony, there's always Richard Lester's Juggernaut (available on Tubi). The film was released just two years after The Poseidon Adventure and somehow manages to deliver the necessary drama and tension without tugging at the heartstrings.
