It is possible to go one better than a lifeboat for oceanic claustrophobia
What you do is have a luxury liner completely capsized by a tidal wave, and you let ten people live on in a pocket of air, their only hope being to make their way through fire, dead bodies and endless amounts of water of the sinking ship to a propeller shaft, where the hull is thinnest and where there is a chance of rescuers cutting their way through
This was the terrific idea set up in Paul Gallico's most well-known book, which descended with awful disappointment on to the screen, but caught the public fancy, and started a cycle
And while the tense adventure lacks the austere presence of George Kennedy, no one could ask for a better set-up for suspensenaturally, when the genesis was with that old master of mass emotions, Gallico But oh, what a waste was there in Ronald Neame's motion picture
Partly it was due to the lack of the technical perfectionism of a Hitchcock, and much more to the stereotyping of the characters and the excruciating banality of their dialog There was a muscular clergyman to lead, an old Jewish couple still in love after some time of marriage, a hot head detective and his well reformed happy hooker wife, a young lady Pamela Sue Martin, (and his nice younger brother) and a hippie girl singer who were there presumably to give a pleasant show of legs in hotpants, a lonely haberdasher, and a nice cool steward along for the ride
Gene Hackman was cast as the preacher the most unlikely reverend I could imagine Presumably he was chosen because of his well-deserved success as the cynical, determined New York narcotics cop in "The French Connection." He played the character every bit as rough and tough Whenever he heaved his muscles and opened his mouth I anticipated the coming of "I got the God connection."
But one must not blame the cast There were fine actors among them and it was not their fault that the situations were evidently prefabricated, that the characters were as realistic as the cutouts at the back of a cereal box, living and dying as contrived "incidents."
This was the terrific idea set up in Paul Gallico's most well-known book, which descended with awful disappointment on to the screen, but caught the public fancy, and started a cycle
And while the tense adventure lacks the austere presence of George Kennedy, no one could ask for a better set-up for suspensenaturally, when the genesis was with that old master of mass emotions, Gallico But oh, what a waste was there in Ronald Neame's motion picture
Partly it was due to the lack of the technical perfectionism of a Hitchcock, and much more to the stereotyping of the characters and the excruciating banality of their dialog There was a muscular clergyman to lead, an old Jewish couple still in love after some time of marriage, a hot head detective and his well reformed happy hooker wife, a young lady Pamela Sue Martin, (and his nice younger brother) and a hippie girl singer who were there presumably to give a pleasant show of legs in hotpants, a lonely haberdasher, and a nice cool steward along for the ride
Gene Hackman was cast as the preacher the most unlikely reverend I could imagine Presumably he was chosen because of his well-deserved success as the cynical, determined New York narcotics cop in "The French Connection." He played the character every bit as rough and tough Whenever he heaved his muscles and opened his mouth I anticipated the coming of "I got the God connection."
But one must not blame the cast There were fine actors among them and it was not their fault that the situations were evidently prefabricated, that the characters were as realistic as the cutouts at the back of a cereal box, living and dying as contrived "incidents."