The one that started them all - 1972 "The Posideon Adventure" coming to Blu-ray

Wonderful news. Been waiting for this one.

David

Airport was the movie that started the Disaster Films of the 70's.

Just watched this DVD again last night.  The movie still holds up as a fun disaster movie, even though I had to concentrate to forget Leslie Nielsen's later career change.  I confess I've only seen the original.  Never saw the sequel with Michael Caine or either of the remakes.

At last! Given how long Towering Inferno has been on blu-ray, this seems way overdue. Cannot wait.

Let's hope Fox dosen't blow this

Of the 70s, yes. But the grand daddy of them all is The High and the Mighty. Wonder if we'll get that one and the other Batjac films since we're getting Hondo.

I still remember seeing When Time Ran Out in the movie theater.   For a long time, it was the barometer of a really, really, bad, BAD movie.

 

But it did have all the usual touchstones of a big celebrity disaster movie, right?

 

The Poseidon Adventure was on the early end of this idea and there was still some freshness to it.

 

The other thing is that the earlier disaster movies were quite gleeful about offing the characters in suprising ways during the movie - so you never really knew who was "safe".  By the time you get to movies like WTRO or The Cassandra Crossing it was pretty much a given that the leads would survive.  With movies like Earthquake and earlier, that was never a given.

Wouldn't the Grand-Daddy Of Them All be No Highway In The Sky (1951) with James Stewart

And about time! I think of it as the first big distaster film, as there's not much distaster in Airport (& it hasn't aged well). It's so much better than the souless remake. I think it's becouse the group of people are your average ocean liner bunch, old, fat, unfit, & there's Gene Hackman with that bad comb-over, whereas in the remake they're all olympic standard swimmers & divers that seem to be able to hold their breath for ages. The transfer that turns up on Film4 in the UK looks superb to me, & I'll be very happy with a HD version of that.

I just wish the ending was a bit more upbeat.

Thank the Lord. LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG overdue

If it had several sub-stories like The High and the Mighty, with each passenger having to face a crisis of some sort, yes. Since it doesn't, no.

But I'd love to have No Highway in the Sky on Blu, or at least DVD. All I have is the DVD I dubbed from my VHS.

Yeah, the film worked especially well because it featured characters who represent real, every day people. Not everyone was some rich jerk, socialite or super model/olympic swimmer. Anyway, I hope Fox does a little better in the transfer department with Poseidon than they did with Towering Inferno. That looked really drab.

I wouldn't put No Highway in the same classification, if for no other reason than that it's more of a suspense film than a disaster movie.

 

I'd still love to see it released on DVD someday.

No Highway has been on my favorite list for decades.  Used to have a gorgeous 16mm print, in which Georges Perinal's cinematography came through on all twelve cylinders.  Check out his CV, and you'll see where I'm coming from.  The participation of Alec Coppel (Vertigo) in the screenplay didn't hurt either.

 

This is not just another Reindeer movie.  It's a terrific film in league with the best of those who pit someone who believes totally that something horrible will occur, or why something is occurring.  It's really in the league with "whistleblower" films, or productions such as Erin Brockovich.

 

Love to see Fox give it a Blu-ray release.

 

Interestingly, it continued a relationship between director (Henry Koster) and star (James Stewart) that continued for many years.

 

RAH

NO HIGHWAY IN THE SKY sounds like a perfect title for Twilight Time.  It has the stars, it has the cult status and it has notable cinematography.  How is Malcolm Arnold's score?  I have never had a chance to see this film, but it has been on my want list just with Stewart, Dietrich, Johns, and Hawkins in it. 

OK, why not Zero Hour, the grand daddy of the inspiration for the parody of disaster movies.

I have seen and liked No Highway, but man, it's been years.  Having read these comments now, though, it would be a day one pre-order.

For reasons that will be clear in a month (having to do with another Henry Koster/James Stewart collaboration), I would personally love to see No Highway get a Twilight Time release at some point.  Among other things, it features a very good performance by James Stewart, and a good supporting performance by Marlene Dietrich.

 

I agree with Robert Harris - it's more of a whistleblower story.   And it builds up an amazing head of tension before it's done.   It's a movie where you live in certainty that something horrible is about to happen, and it's only a question of when.

 

A drama teacher of mine once taught us what I think is the Hitchcockian definition of suspense and terror:

 

One situation is a guy walks into your classroom and says "I've put a bomb in the desk.  It will go off in five minutes unless you can figure out a way to disarm it or get out."  That's suspense.

 

The other situation is a guy walks into your class room and says "I've put a bomb in the desk.  It will go off soon but I'm not telling you when."  That's terror.

 

I always liked that as a situational definition - and it definitely applies to No Highway.

 

With the Poseidon Adventure, part of the fun is that you have the big disaster happening early on, and then you have a series of mini disasters that befall our heroes as they try to find their way out of the mess.  It's still fresh in The Poseidon Adventure.  With a later movie like When Time Ran Out, the devices have become so predictable that as soon as you see the river of molten lava, you immediately know that SOMEBODY is about to fall into the darn thing...

Well for all the gloom & doom about Blu-ray releases, there's a ton of great stuff coming so far this year!

I really hope that isn't the cover. I knew Fox would screw this up.

The one that started them all - 1972 "The Posideon Adventure" coming to Blu-ray

I thought AIRPORT (1970) started the trend of disaster films and that THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE was one of its first offshoots.

That's beautiful.  I know what's going into my case when I get it.

The ship is from the last VHS and first DVD release. The special edition back in 2006 cover was if they where trying to make it look like a Die Hard film. Anyways, it looks babdly photoshopped to be truthful, plus where's 40th Anniversary mentioned on the cover, oh wait it will probably be just a sticker on the packaging.

I wish the cover was better, but I suppose becouse most of this stuff is sold online, it doesn't matter that much these days. The worse covers I have are from Sony, their two Hammer sets, Icons Of Adventure & Icons Of Horror, they look like very bad bootlegs, but the discs inside look great.

Hey wait a minute--how come it looks like Gene Hackman is pulling Stella Stevens by the arm? She was Ernest Borgnine's wife!! What's goin on here?? Was there a deleted scene?

And while I think that art is delicious, it's so over-the-top that it also kinda looks like a fold-out back cover from MAD Magazine.

I know that the prices quoted are Online and Retail. I'm hoping that the first week of release, the Retail will match or be less an the Online - I want this in my hands on Release Date.

David


Oh, and I'm sure that Fritz Nilsen will put out a terrific replacement cover. (see the Blu Ray Custom Cover art thread)