movie cruise ship upside down

• the scene of Rev. Frank Scott's (Gene Hackman) persuasive speech to some of the survivors: ("Everyone above us before the ship turned over is dead. Because now they're under the water....There's nobody alive but us! And nobody's going to help us except ourselves. lt's up to each one of you...The sea's gonna keep pouring in. We're gonna keep settling deeper and deeper. We may even go under before we get up to the bottom to cut our way out. But it's something to try. It's a chance. We might make it. lf you stay here, you'll certainly die!"); he claimed that their only hope of rescue was found 'upwards' at the outer hull, which was now above water
• in response, only about 10 passengers joined Scott to move to the ship's hull (only 1" thick); after a series of explosions, the ballroom was flooded and those not in Scott's small group began to drown; many frantically attempted to climb a Christmas tree as a ladder to get out of the ship's grand ballroom, but it fell backwards from the weight of too many people
• the various perils of the journey to the hull, including water rapidly rising, blocked passageways, explosions, and squabbles between survivors
• the exciting water-rescue scene when Jewish passenger Mrs. Belle Rosen saved Rev. Scott from drowning when he was pinned down by a collapsed panel, and gasped: "You see, Mr. Scott, in the water, I'm a very skinny lady," and then died of a heart attack after admitting: ("I guess I'm not the champion of the Women's Swimming Association anymore... Enough is enough. Let me go. Please, let me go. Give this, give this to Manny. Tell him he has to give it to our grandson for both of us. You see, that's the sign for life. Life always matters very much"); Rev. Scott grieved over Belle's body: "Oh, God. God, not this woman. Oh, God, not this woman"
• the scene of detective cop husband Mike Rogo's reaction to his ex-prostitute wife Linda's death when she fell after a rocking explosion -- he angrily vented his rage at Rev. Scott and sobbed: ("You! Preacher! YOU LYIN', MURDERIN', SON-OF-A-BITCH! You almost suckered me in! I started to believe in your promises! That we had a chance! What chance? You took from me the only thing l ever loved in the whole world. My Linda. You killed her! You killed her! You killed her. You killed her")
• Rev. Scott's sacrificial death as he ranted at the heavens and God for their predicament: ("How many more sacrifices? How much more blood? How many more lives?! Belle wasn't enough! Acres wasn't! Now this girl! You want another life? Then take me!"); as he dangled from a circular control valve wheel, he closed a critical steam vent that released scalding hot steam and blocked everyone's way while yelling to the others: "You can make it! Keep going! Rogo! Get them through!" and then let go and fell into a flaming pool of oil and wreckage himself
• the triumpant ending in which the sole six survivors reached the propeller shaft tunnel and banged on the thin hull to attract rescuers to cut through the metal with a blow torch to save them; Mike expressed his changed opinion of Preacher Frank: "The preacher was right! That beautiful son-of-a-bitch was right!"

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The '70s Thriller That Did Sinking Ships Better Than 'Titanic'

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The Big Picture

• The Poseidon Adventure is a gripping disaster film with realistic and intense visual effects that bring the sinking ship to life.
• The film features a diverse and relatable cast of characters, each with their strengths and contributions to the group's survival.
• Compared to Titanic , The Poseidon Adventure offers a more engaging and unpredictable storyline, making it a must-watch for fans of disaster films.

Titanic is an epic movie, one that chronicles the final hours of the fateful ship in excruciating detail, deftly switching between fact and fiction to weave its narrative. Every moment is a testament to director James Cameron 's insistence upon complete accuracy, right up to how the stars looked in the sky that night. But what if you were told that, as good as Titanic is, there's another film about a sinking ship that is arguably more engaging? That film is The Poseidon Adventure , the 1972 film that turned the disaster genre upside down. Literally.

The Poseidon Adventure

A group of passengers must embark on a harrowing struggle for survival after a rogue wave capsizes their cruise ship at sea.

What Is 'The Poseidon Adventure' About?

The Poseidon Adventure , one of a spate of films with a who's who of 1970s celebrities , begins aboard the SS Poseidon, with company representative Linarcos ( Fred Sadoff ) ordering Captain Harrison ( Leslie Nielsen ) to empty ballast and proceed to Athens at full speed, which Harrison does reluctantly. The focus then switches to the ship's dining room that evening, which so happens to be New Year's Eve. Among the passengers are Detective Lieutenant Mike Rogo ( Ernest Borgnine ); his wife Linda ( Stella Stevens ); Reverend Frank Scott ( Gene Hackman ), who is struggling with his faith; Susan ( Pamela Sue Martin ) and her brother Robin ( Eric Shea ), en route to meet up with their parents. Also on the ship are retired store owner Manny ( Jack Albertson ) and his wife, Belle ( Shelley Winters ); James Martin ( Red Buttons ), bachelor; and Nonnie ( Carol Lynley ), the ship's singer (who so happens to be singing the Oscar-winning "The Morning After"). The captain is called back to the bridge when an emergency report is received about an undersea quake that has sent a huge wave toward them. It's too late for any evasive maneuvers, though, and the tsunami flips the ship over , killing and injuring almost everyone on board.

Once the ship becomes relatively stable, the survivors assess their situation. Scott strongly urges them to make their way upwards towards what is now the exposed outer hull. Unable to convince everyone, Scott leads a small group, the aforementioned passengers, to the galley door up above, and with the help of Acres ( Roddy McDowall ), an injured waiter up top, positions the Christmas tree for use as a ladder. Just as Scott reaches the top, a series of explosions rocks the ship, causing seawater to flood the ballroom. Those who stayed behind try desperately to climb up the tree, but the weight of everyone knocks the tree into the water, resulting in their deaths.

How Do the Survivors Escape the Ship in 'The Poseidon Adventure'?

The ragtag group of survivors finds the galley, only to discover the fire door, hot to the touch, is shut, forcing them to take another route. They climb the underside of a nearby staircase, with the water nipping at their heels. Denied access to the main passageway due to an obstacle, the group heads towards an access tunnel into the funnel and climbs, only for more explosions to rock the boat and send Acres to his death. His loss instigates an argument between Scott and Rogo, which pauses when another group of survivors happens by. Led by the ship's medic, they are heading towards the bow of the ship. Scott is still adamant that the engine room offers their best chance, so Rogo gives him five minutes to find it before they turn tail and walk with the other group. Scott does find it, only the engine room is on the other side of a flooded corridor, so he takes a rope, secures it, and tries to swim to the other side with the other end for the others to follow. He gets trapped, however, prompting Belle, a former trained swimmer, to dive in and free him .

Sadly, the act leads to Belle suffering a fatal heart attack, forcing a shattered Manny to move on without her. They make their way to the engine room door across a catwalk, but another explosion sends Linda to her death and ruptures a nearby pipe, which begins spewing scalding-hot steam. Scott, feeling that God has abandoned them outright, leaps for a burning-hot valve wheel to shut off the steam, and slowly does so. But Scott can't get back to the group, so he tells Rogo to lead them from there and lets go of the wheel, falling into the flaming oil below. The remaining survivors, at long last, enter the propeller shaft room, where they bang on the hull to catch the attention of any rescuers. They are successful, and the rescuers cut a hole through the hull and pull the six out, the only six to survive the disaster .

'The Poseidon Adventure's Visual Effects Won an Oscar

Titanic is a stunning achievement in visual effects , aided by CGI to bring the demise of the mighty ship to life. The Poseidon Adventure couldn't lean on those same tools and, as a result, the catastrophe that befalls the SS Poseidon seems that much more real. The oncoming wave that swallowed the ship, followed by the chaos in the ballroom as the ship is turned upside-down, is one of the greatest disaster movie sequences of all time. So effective, so visceral, that The Poseidon Adventure landed a special Academy Award for technical achievement . One example of the magic behind the movie is the hydraulically controlled dining room set, built to tilt as much as 45 degrees, with an "after" set, with the room's table on the ceiling and the skylight on the floor, that completed the effect.

The set itself had the cast and crew navigate around the fire, through ductwork and shafts, navigating through reversed ladders, stairwells, and twisted steel. The Poseidon Adventure doesn't cheat the audience. The film looks consistently like what a ship would look like had something similar happened in real life. The passengers aboard Titanic didn't face obstacles to reach the top (well, the steerage class did, briefly), but instead faced obstacles once they were already on the top deck, trying to find a way off the boat safely. The SS Poseidon seems almost determined to keep the group away from freedom at every turn. The film is also aided by the fact that these effects and set designs are the result of a situation that isn't implausible, or at the very least not all that far removed from an "unsinkable" sinking ship .

'The Poseidon Adventure' Boasts Superior Characters

The Poseidon Adventure boasts no less than five Academy Award winners, and it shows. Each character has a depth to them that makes them more relatable. Not that Titanic does not, but if you don't relate to Jack ( Leonardo DiCaprio ) or Rose ( Kate Winslet ) , it's unlikely you're going to find yourself relating to the two extreme groups of people aboard: the powerful first class, and the poor (but far more fun) steerage class. The wide variety of personalities found in the survivor group in The Poseidon Adventure gives the viewer more options to find someone they can relate to, someone they can look at as an example of how they would react in a similar situation. The characters draw you in, engaging the viewer in caring about how their story ends .

More importantly, the characters all have something to contribute . Robin, fascinated by the ship, knows enough about it to confirm that Scott's assertion to head to the engine room is the right call, as that is where the hull is at its thinnest. Acres and Rogo aid the others in ascending the funnel. Belle jumps into the water to save Scott and the group, utilizing skills that haven't been used in years, ultimately sacrificing herself for the survival of the others. Scott is able to encourage Manny to keep moving, that he still has something to live for after the death of Belle. Rogo leads the group on the last leg of their journey. The most fascinating story is Scott's, the minister at odds with God. He takes the leadership role when no one else would step forward after the disaster . He rails against God, berating Him for having abandoned them, cursing at Him as he closes the valve, becoming a Christ figure whose "Why hast though forsaken me" moments lead into his selfless act that clears the way to freedom, at the loss of his own life.

Before Kate Winslet, This Oscar-Winning Actress Was in the Running for 'Titanic's Rose

A Rose by any other name...

Overall, in comparing the two films it becomes a battle between the sheer spectacle and love story of Titanic versus the determined pursuit oof surivival in The Poseidon Adventure . Each has its merits, of course, but if you truly want to be engaged in a sinking ship film where the ending is unknown as opposed to a countdown to a well-known maritime casualty , do yourself a favor and check out The Poseidon Adventure . You'll fall head over heels for it.

The Poseidon Adventure is available to rent on Apple TV+ in the U.S.

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Josh Lucas, Kurt Russell, and Cast Discuss "Poseidon" Adventure

Josh Lucas knows that actors have it easier than other people. But the making of " Poseidon " was an incredibly difficult undertaking, he said. "I never compare what we do to a real job," he said. "But truthfully, this was a close to going to work on an oil rig as you can get."

In a press conference with reporters, cast members and director Wolfgang Petersen said the film was not an easy one to make, but it was a fascinating experience.

" Poseidon " tells the tale of a New Year’s Eve cruise gone horribly awry. After the titular ship is hit by a rouge wave, it turns upside down. Believing that staying put will mean certain death, a group of passengers strike out on their own, braving fires, electrical wires, and lots and lots of rising water.

Petersen has made several films that involve disaster on the ocean, and Lucas said the director told him "Poseidon" would be the third in a loose trilogy.

"The first conversation he and I had was, ‘I want to do what’s essentially a trilogy — " Das Boot ," " The Perfect Storm " and this one — and deal with moving from a huge Hollywood-type panoramic party setting into a claustrophobic hell and an ascent out of that hell," Lucas said. "But not in a spiritual sense like in the book, just from a pure survival [standpoint]."

The ocean can be both a calming and unsettling natural force, which is why it appeals to his artistic sensibilities, Petersen said.

"You go to the water and dream," he said. "There’s a long, endless horizon and there’s a lot of space where your thoughts can go. [But] It’s the biggest force of nature, with the most destructive kind of absolute frightening force."

And in fiction when things go wrong on a grand scale, cast member Mike Vogel said, audiences can enjoy the high drama in comfortable conditions.

"Be it with this or any disaster movie, there’s something within us as humans that we’re drawn to catastrophe for some reason," he said. "We want to experience that without having to experience it. It gives you a chance to keep one foot in each world without getting hurt."

In this case, Kurt Russell was excited about the possibility of working with Petersen on the reconfiguring of a classic genre film.

"I’m not much on sequels, and I’m not on remakes; I don’t like or dislike them," he said. "I think [it’s about] if you read a good script or there’s a director you want to work with. That was the thing for me. In this case I really wanted to work with Wolfgang.

"There are lots of movies that I wouldn’t want to have any part of doing a second part of, or remake of," he continued. "This is quite different from the first."

The original " Poseidon Adventure ," made in 1972, starred Gene Hackman , Ernest Borgnine and Shelley Winters . The film helped to kick off the "disaster movie" genre that was popular in the 1970s. Mia Maestro said while she enjoys "The Poseidon Adventure," it’s something that could benefit from an update.

"I love the original movie," she said. "I think there are many interesting connections between the old characters and the new characters.[And] I thought it was the perfect movie to do a remake of. We have so much more technology and the special effects are so much more incredible these days.

"I don’t think you should do a remake of Bergman , or a Fellini movie, because how can you top that?" she continued. "But a genre film? I think it’s pretty great."

"If you can do ‘ Mutiny on the Bounty ‘ three times , you can do ‘Poseidon,’" Russell said.

The film is relatively brief at 99 minutes, and there isn’t a lot of delving into the characters’ backstories or inner workings. But that was very much by design, Lucas said.

"You can’t have bogus dialogue," he said. ‘[People] are not gonna get to know each other in that situation. The sets and the kind of filmmaking Wolfgang was doing was so violently heightened. [If] you come into a room and there’s dead bodies around the room, you’re not going to have conversation about, you know, ‘where you from?’ In a sense, it honored the truth of the situation more than it would have otherwise."

While that might mean that there aren’t a lot of opportunities for actors to make grand speeches, Russell said that’s fine by him, as films made with big sets and lots of special effects require different things from their casts.

"If you’re doing "Poseidon" or " Backdraft ," these big movies that have a lot of activity in them, you work with it," he said. "What you try to do is be as good a part of it as you can to help tell the story that that director wants to tell. Whatever you’re going to do, whatever your part is in helping bring that about, do that to the best of your ability."

But while the actors spend much of their time onscreen reacting to the dangers around them, Lucas said there are little opportunities to show some of the subtle aspects of a character.

"You’re not really acting much in this movie, you’re reacting," he said. "The thing I try to settle into and connect to is, who is this guy inside and what can you show from the inside that’s not through dialogue — that’s through subtle little moments of this man’s independent rogue-ish danger and mysteriousness at the beginning. All that has to be totally internal because it’s not dialogue and that becomes an interesting challenge in a reactionary environment."

And that environment was hazardous for the actors. While many of the images in the film were created using CG effects, the actors were shot on a huge soundstage to depict the upside-down ship.

"It was a serious set," Vogel said. "There were several close calls."

Russell came down with a throat infection. Both he and Vogel had pneumonia. Russell also unintentionally hit Lucas in the face with a metal flashlight, causing [the] production to shut down for a day while Lucas was taken to the hospital. Lucas was hospitalized again when he fell and snapped a muscle in his thumb, an injury that required surgery.

"For the first two and a half months of the movie it was one thing after another," Russell said. "I just kept being sick."

"We were hurt, and everyone was sick," Lucas said. "You’re dealing with a human Petri dish."

In addition, the effects of the water took their toll in other ways.

"I was wet for five months," Lucas said. "I’m soaking wet in every single scene. Your skin gets so soft that you can cut it with your fingernail. It’s gross. It’s absolutely amazing what happens to your body when you’re in the water for that period of time."

"It was the underwater stuff that was psychologically difficult to do because once you went in there wasn’t any getting out," Russell said. "You also have no goggles on so it was very difficult to see because of the lighting. You were dependent on someone swimming in to give you air and then they had to lead you out. By the time you reach the end, you’re out of air."

But the environment also made for a very realistic experience, Lucas said.

"I really like physical filmmaking," he said. "There’s a real sense of physical truth in this movie — there’s nothing fake. I mean, we were there. Obviously the boat is not real, but all those environments, all that fire, all that water, [they’re real]."

Because of the intensity of the shoot, there was real camaraderie among the cast and crew, Lucas said.

"I find it boring when actors sit around and say, ‘Aww, everyone liked each other,’" he said. "Truthfully, had we not like each other on this movie, it would have been impossible because it was so physically difficult. There was an odd lack of ego, where everyone was showing up and saying, this is extremely difficult, let’s help each other through it which is kinda what the characters had."

How audiences will react to the film is, of course, another matter altogether. Peterson said he is always excited to have a big movie out around the summer, but he also hopes the audience will be entertained.

"It’s a pro and con [situation]," he said. "There’s a lot of excitement about summer movies, but there’s huge competition out there. I have decidedly mixed feelings."

There’s one thing that Vogel is certain of, though: he’ll never go on a cruise.

"Never," he said. "I’m just not a water guy."

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Rent Poseidon on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

What to Know

This remake of The Poseidon Adventure delivers dazzling special effects. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that any of the budget was left over to devote to the script.

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Thirty-four years after disaster film producer Irwin Allen inverted a cruise ship in the name of entertainment, Wolfgang Petersen -- who knows a bit about boat-themed cinema -- has upended another Poseidon and drowned thousands with $160 million worth of watery effects.

Petersen, the director of "Das Boot" and "The Perfect Storm," aimed to close out his nautical trilogy "using all the tools we have to make it truly frightening and really realistic and really get across the idea what disaster is. That's what I wanted: realistic, very hard-edged, scary like hell." His version, based on Mark Protosevich's screenplay, keeps the original concept but scraps just about everything else from Paul Gallico's novel and the 1972 film, including the characters. "Neither would work today," he explains.

The assemblage of would-be escapees now includes Josh Lucas as a professional gambler, Kurt Russell as the ex-Mayor of New York traveling with his daughter (Emmy Rossum) and her fiancé (Mike Vogel), Richard Dreyfuss as a despondent architect, Jacinda Barrett as a single mom and Mia Maestro as a stowaway.

Why sign on for a film where the actors take a back seat to the effects and you're guaranteed to be wet most of the time? For Dreyfuss, it was the hefty paycheck. For Lucas, it was the physicality of the role. And for Russell, it was the chance to work with Petersen and perform a key underwater sequence that we won't spoil here.

Vogel liked the idea of being in a huge disaster flick. "We're drawn to catastrophe for some reason and we want to experience that without having to really experience it. I think that's why films like this and 'The Day After Tomorrow' are wildly popular," he muses. "You realize how little a part you actually play. The star of this movie is that boat, that water, and that's what Wolfgang does best."

Those elements came to life with the help of more than 600 visual effects, starting with the computer-generated ocean and ship exterior that opens the film. Lucas' solitary jog was filmed against a green screen at the Sepulveda Dam in Los Angeles and integrated with CGI created by the team of visual effects supervisor Boyd Shermis.

The Poseidon's interior took massive shape on five soundstages at the Warner Bros. Studio lot in Burbank, California, where Stage 16 housed a 95-by-100-by-22 foot tank with a capacity of 1.3 million gallons, enlarged since Petersen made "The Perfect Storm" there.

The crew built most sets in both right-side-up and upside-down versions, the latter requiring unique specifications. It took 100 crewmembers five months to build the 72-foot high inverted ship lobby, using 750,000 pounds of I-beam steel , 10,000 sheets of plywood, and rust-resistant auto body paint. The crew built most of the sets atop hydraulic gimbals that tilted side to side, fore and aft, and could pitch and yaw. The ship's bridge was too large to rotate in one piece without scraping the soundstage's ceiling so it was built and shot in two sections.

"The first time we walked onto the upside down lobby set, everyone started laughing because they'd never seen anything that elaborate," remembers Vogel. "Then Wolfgang put on 'Thus Spake Zarathustra' and started directing to this loud music. It was all surreal."

The inverted surroundings were disorienting at first, says Rossum. "You do get used to having the lights on the floor, although they're really hot and sometimes would burn through our shoes."

Fire came into play in several sequences, including one featuring Lucas diving under water aflame with burning oil. John Frazier's special effects team treated flat pieces of metal with propane and suspended them two inches above the water's surface to achieve the fiery effect as seen from below.

Other scenes required massive quantities of water. Ten 8-foot-diameter culvert pipes served as the conduit for the 90,000 gallons of water used to submerge the ship's ballroom. Cameramen in wet suits and goggles operated five cameras set at different speeds -- and sealed in watertight housings -- captured the action.

The actors also spent a lot of time submerged in water. Jacinda Barrett described a grueling 10-day shoot involving Lucas and her trapped son: "To make us sink a bit in the water they would put weight belts on us. They put an added weight belt on me because I wasn't getting low enough and they put extra on Jimmy and I didn't know they did that. I kept going lower and lower and I had this kid in my arms, and my eardrums felt like they would burst. The water safety people rushed in, but it was really scary. Your normal senses of judging things are out the window once you're underwater. You can't see anything. I was always worried that if I was really panicked they'd just think I was doing a good job acting!"

The actors also had to contend with air hoses blowing in their faces under water to get their hair out of the way. "And because there was so much bubbling, they had to tie all the debris with fishing wire so it would stay in place," says Barrett, noting that Petersen "wanted us to do as much of the stunts as we could. The only moments where I saw it wasn't me and was a CGI person, was in the ballast tanks -- I could see CGI bodies in the waterfall."

Next, we'll take a look at how the "Poseidon" actors trained for their roles and the difficulties of working underwater.

Water, Water Everywhere

Working underwater presented unique physical and mental challenges for the actors. Lucas is a certified diver, but says that "Poseidon" was "the most difficult, physical water work I've done. The fact that you cannot see was so challenging. And being wet for five months -- I'd sit in a hot tub or kid's pool between takes rather than dry off -- your skin gets so soft that you can cut it with your fingernail. It's gross. It's absolutely amazing what happens to your body when you're in water for that period of time."

For Kurt Russell, the difficult part was the inability to see underwater and having to depend on the safety divers' guidance and air. "Once you're in there, there's no way out. It's difficult to put your trust in someone," he explains.

All cast members underwent training prior to the film and practiced holding their breath under water. "I had to learn how to scuba dive, freedive -- some of the scariest situations I had ever been in," notes Rossum. "To prepare to breathe underwater they would sink this Plexiglas cube over my head. It was quite claustrophobic. I'd give them a sign when I was out of air. But I got to a minute and a half."

Speaking of claustrophobia, Rossum and the other actors spent one of the most intensely suspenseful sequences in a narrow air conditioning duct. Quarters were so tight that Petersen had to use a 3-inch diameter Panavision snorkel lens, and the only light in the sequence came from flashlights carried by the actors. "We were in there for a week and a half, with water rising from below," recalls Maestro. "We had to keep up the energy and the tears. It was exhausting."

Despite precautions, the sets were still danger zones for the actors, who ended up battered, bruised and sick. In one underwater moment, Russell accidentally smashed Lucas in the eye with a flashlight, and that's Lucas' actual blood you see in the scene.

"I was hospitalized on this movie for two different injuries, when I had stitches on my eye and when I snapped a muscle in my thumb," elaborates Lucas. "We were hurt, everyone was sick. You're dealing with a human Petri dish. Those safety divers have been down there eight hours, and they're peeing in the water, definitely."

Dreyfuss admits to that bodily function, and Barrett says child actor Jimmy Bennett copped to it as well. "Plus you're tracking in all the dirt on your shoes into the water," she points out, adding that she avoided illness with doses of Chinese herbs, but couldn't escape a nasty scrape on her leg.

Vogel developed swimmer's ear, and he and Russell both got pneumonia. "Fortunately I had ten days off so I could get healthy and be in good shape for the underwater stuff I had to do," Russell says. Dreyfuss wrenched his back and would "crawl home" daily, and Rossum "was pretty much purple from the neck down with bruises because the floors were so slippery and my shoes were so slippery."

The scene where the escapees are waiting to see if a ballast tank hatch will open was the scariest for Rossum. "We were really in that enclosed space and the top was set to open on a pulley system. But what if the pulley system failed? Kurt was like, 'Just don't think about it, just don't think about it, everything will be fine.' It was the hardest thing I've done in my life physically," she says of the shoot. "But fear is 80 percent mental and if you can overcome it you'll be fine. Plus, I had to show the guys that girls aren't wusses!"

Levity on the set was a welcome and necessary tension-breaker. According to Rossum, Dreyfuss and Lucas were the biggest jokers. "Josh wanted to play a practical joke on Wolfgang and throw a bucket of water over his head on one day because we were five months in and he had never gotten wet. But he didn't do it."

The cast members praised the director for his easy-going demeanor and way of working. "I think maybe if we didn't work with a director like Wolfgang the shoot would have been torturous, because if we had the normal 16 hour days a film takes we would all be so exhausted. We were in at 7:00 a.m., had soup at 11:00 a.m., lunch at 1:00 p.m., and were done almost every day by 7:00 p.m. They weren't really long days so we got to rest."

Vogel says Petersen and cast camaraderie helped counteract the physical misery and were "what pushed us through this for six months, all of us encouraging one another and being wet and sick together. Wolfgang is so calm and relaxed, and that spread out over the entire crew." He'd readily work with the director again, as would his co-stars.

For more information on "Poseidon," check out the links on the next page.

Petersen says that he's done with boats for the moment, and some of the cast members are as well. While Rossum has fond memories of an Alaskan cruise she took with her mother and would like to take another to Antarctica, Vogel, Lucas and Barrett won't be booking one any time soon. "I have no desire to go on a cruise ship now," Barrett declares. "I'm done. Never."

• Mike Vogel assumes a British accent in the upcoming film "Caffeine."
• Kurt Russell's next project may be the comedy "Ashes to Ashes," directed by his significant other, Goldie Hawn.
• Richard Dreyfuss teaches civics at Oxford.
• Josh Lucas will lend his voice to Ken Burns' next documentary.
• Emmy Rossum, a classically trained singer, is working on a pop music album.
• Jacinda Barrett has "School for Scoundrels" and "The Last Kiss" coming out in the fall. After that, she'd consider "another type of action movie that was maybe not in the water. You know those 'Crouching Tiger' movies where they're flying on top of the bamboo trees? I'd love to do something like that. The harness work is really fun."
• Wolfgang Petersen, will direct the sci-fi story "Ender's Game." "I want to work with kids," he says. "It's a very difficult book. It will be great if we can pull it off."

Lots More Information

Related howstuffworks articles.

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• How SCUBA Works
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• If water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen, why can't we breathe underwater?
• Why do my ears pop when I dive in the deep end of the pool?
• What causes "the bends"?

More Great Links

• Official "Poseidon" Site
• The Poseidon Journals -- behind the scenes reports
• "Poseidon" on IMDB
• "The Poseidon Adventure" on IMDB
• "The Poseidon Adventure" Fan Site

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51-year-old disaster movie critiqued for survival capacity by expert.

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• The Poseidon Adventure 's capsizing sequence is not believable according to cruise ship captain Wendy Williams. Tsunamis do not look like they appear in the film.
• Williams explains that larger objects on cruise ships are secured, but tables and chairs are movable. The quick turning of the ship in the film is also unrealistic, and in real life, ships fill up with water when they capsize.
• While there may be air pockets inside a capsized ship, the likelihood of survival for an extended period of time is highly unlikely. The thickness of the ship's hull can vary depending on its build and class.

An expert critiques the survival capacity of the 1972 film The Poseidon Adventure . Released 25 years before Titanic , The Poseidon Adventure was a different take on a sinking ship endeavor. The Gene Hackman-starring film follows the story of a group of passengers who struggle to survive after a wave capsizes their cruise ships.

Cruise ship captain Wendy Williams breaks down The Poseidon Adventure ’s capsizing sequence, evaluating how survivable the event would be. Speaking with Insider , Williams broke down three aspects of the sequences. Williams debunked several myths perpetuated from The Poseidon Adventure , including how tsunamis look out at sea and the thickness of a ship’s hull. Speaking on the capsizing sequence, Williams pointed out that in real life, ships do not have tables and chairs bolted down. This usurps the fundamental visual element of the scene, wherein ship passengers cling onto overturned dining tables. Ultimately, Williams gave the film’s believability a paltry “ 2 or 3 ” out of 10.

“This one looked like Niagara falls on its side. Not a believable wave. Tsunami is biggest when it kind of hits the shore. Out at sea, a tsunami might just be a wave like any other wave. So the fact that this is a tsunami and not a real wave, yeah probably not that believable. Being that a tsunami wave wouldn’t look like that, you wouldn’t necessarily navigate away from the actual wave. But you would navigate away from the area of concern if you could. I do remember seeing this as a kid, and I remember the dining room scene, and everything going upside down. Are tables, and chairs, and pianos and things secure on cruise ships? Larger vessels, they have something called a heavy weather or a Heavy Object Register List. And yes, larger or big ticket items that can cause a lot of damage like a piano–that could literally go through a wall of a bulkhead–so they are secured. Tables and chairs, no. They would be movable. And for the vessel to turn that quickly, so that people would have to hang onto things…not believable. If a ship was to capsize, they don’t just turn total quickly, they fill up with water. Would there be a sustained amount of time that people could have survived inside there? I mean, possibly yes. There would be air pockets. But the likelihood of there being that much air, that much time, highly unlikely. The shaft alley, that’s interesting, because the shell plating thickness is only 1 inch. That is probably icebreaker class. One inch would be exceptionally thick. Ship hulls are not that, not that thick typically, but in engine spaces, technical spaces, they would be. Thickness varies depending on how the ship was built and for what class. I’d probably give is a 9 as far as fun movies go, believability, 2 or 3.”

How Would The Poseidon Adventure Improve If Made Today?

Williams' assessment of The Poseidon Adventure is brutally honest. Picking apart every aspect of the film’s survival narrative, Williams pulls no punches when breaking down just how many vessel-related inaccuracies the film contains. The only positive Williams throws The Poseidon Adventure , and possibly the one reason it scored a 2 out of 10, is that it is possible that an engine room would be supported by a thicker, one-inch hull. Williams' ratings were not entirely dramatic, as she rated Titanic 's sinking fairly highly , for example.

Related: Titanic True Story: How Much Of The Movie Is Real?

Looking closely at these scenes, it seems there are parts of The Poseidon Adventure that could be improved today through technological advances. The tsunami is a prime example of this. In The Poseidon Adventure , the wave that overtakes the boat has a comically robotic retreat, sweeping all too perfectly over the boat. Today, CGI could likely solve this issue, as films like Avatar: The Way of Water and Dune make use of VFX to better render the massive movement of bodies of water or other materials. 2014’s Interstellar , for example, creates a mid-ocean CGI huge wave on a distant planet, showing the development of the technology.

What The Poseidon Adventure still lacked, however, was the level of research needed to more accurately reflect a disaster event of that nature. CGI could make a wave look better, but it would not solve the fact that out-at-sea tsunamis do not appear that way, and should not be labeled as such. Furthermore, the thickness of the ship’s hull is a fact that exists only in dialogue, as The Poseidon Adventure is making no attempt to show audiences details of the inside of a hull, or anything of that nature. Analyzing The Poseidon Adventure is a fascinating study on the intersection between VFX and quality research when depicting disaster on screen.

Source: Insider /YouTube

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• On New Year's Eve, the luxury ocean liner Poseidon capsizes after being swamped by a rogue wave. The survivors are left to fight for their lives as they attempt to escape the sinking ship.
• It is New Year's Eve, and over 2,000 passengers & crew are ringing in the New Year aboard the huge cruise ship 'Poseidon' when it capsizes on the open sea in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean! A small group of survivors find themselves unlikely allies in a battle for their lives. Preferring to test the odds alone, career gambler Dylan Johns ignores captain's orders to wait below for possible rescue and sets out to find his own way to safety. What begins as a solo mission soon draws others, as Dylan is followed by a desperate father searching for his daughter and her fiancée--a young couple who hours before couldn't summon the courage to tell him they were engaged and now face much graver challenges. Along the way they are joined by a single mother and her wise-beyond-his-years son, an anxious stowaway and a despondent fellow passenger who boarded the ship not sure he wanted to live but now knows he doesn't want to die. Determined to fight their way to the surface, the group sets off through the disorienting maze of twisted steel in the upside-down wreckage. As the unstable vessel rapidly fills with water each must draw on skills and strengths they didn't even know they possessed, fighting against time for their own survival and for each other. — Anthony Pereyra (hypersonic91yahoo.com)
• The stories of several people unfold on a magnificent ship, Poseidon. Heroine Jennifer Ramsey, the 19-year-old daughter of a patronizing former New York mayor, and her fiancé Christian are finding it difficult to tell her father that they're engaged. A single mother and her son Conor run in (literally) to Dylan Johns, a professional gambler and hit it off right away. Elena has agreed to be a steward's entertainment for the cruise if he takes her to New York to see her injured brother. Architect Richard Nelson is drinking himself into a stupor after his boyfriend ditched him. When a rogue wave hits and the ship overturns, the captain tells the surviving passengers that the ballroom is an air bubble and that they will be safe until help arrives. Dylan isn't so sure and sets off to look for an avenue of escape. Conor asks Dylan to take he and his mother. Richard knows that the boat cannot stay afloat upside down. Ramsey insists on going with to find his daughter in the nightclub. The five people take the steward Marco to help them find their way to the bottom/top. In the nightclub, most are dead after being electrocuted by the numerous lights. Survivors are Jennifer, Elena, Lucky Larry and Christian, who is caught under a light. The two groups of adventurers converge and have to fight fire, electricity, tight spaces, elevator shafts and most of all, water. — christiefan1
• The MS Poseidon, a luxury cruise ship, is on a year-end transatlantic crossing to New York. Jennifer (Emmy Rossum) is with her fiance, Christian (Mike Vogel), and they consider how to tell Jennifer's father, former New York City Mayor Robert Ramsey (Kurt Russell), about their engagement. In the galley, stowaway Elena (Mía Maestro) searches for her friend, a waiter named Valentin (Freddy Rodriguez). Architect Richard Nelson (Richard Dreyfuss) is making a phone call to his estranged lover. In the grand ballroom, Captain Michael Bradford (Andre Braugher) delivers a New Year's Eve speech before introducing the singer, Gloria (Fergie). Dylan (Josh Lucas), a professional gambler and retired Naval sailor, and Robert play Texas Hold'Em with Lucky Larry (Kevin Dillon). Jennifer, Christian and Elena are partying in the nightclub. Richard is with his friends, talking about his heartbreak. As Dylan walks with his winnings, he bumps into Connor (Jimmy Bennett). Maggie (Jacinda Barrett), Connor's mother, arrives and chats with the gambler. On the bridge, officers see a 150-foot rogue wave coming towards them, while everyone celebrates the New Year countdown. On the promenade deck, Richard, who is contemplating suicide, sees the wave and retreats inside. Though the crew on the bridge sounds warning alarms and turns hard to starboard to meet the wave head-on, the Poseidon turns too slowly. It is hit broad-side and capsizes. Passengers are swept overboard, fall to their deaths in overturned high-ceiling areas or are crushed to death by falling debris. In the galley, crew are incinerated by flash fires caused by rupturing gas lines. In the ballroom, Robert, Dylan, Richard and Maggie wake up, realizing that the ship is now upside down. Robert sees Connor on the piano, which is now on the ceiling. Robert and some officers rescue Connor. In the nightclub, Jennifer looks for Christian, who has been pinned by a fallen light. They and Elena are the only ones to avoid being killed by the combined dangers of the sprinklers activating and numerous broken wires and lights electrifying the water. Captain Bradford reassures the passengers by telling them that a set of GPS beacons were launched during the collision and that help is on its way, therefore they should stay put. Some passengers hesitate. Dylan disagrees and concludes that the bow Thrusters of the ship are the key to survival. He is joined by Robert, Richard, Connor, Maggie and Valentin. The group makes their way through the kitchens to a service elevator. Using a table to bridge the space across the shaft, the group pries open an opposing set of elevator doors. Everyone survives until the table drops as Richard is being pulled up by Dylan. The service elevator, severely damaged by the collision, begins to plummet towards them, and Richard is forced to shake the crewman off. Valentin falls down the elevator shaft and is killed immediately by the fall, and the elevator crashes down moments after Richard is pulled through the doors. The group manages to force the elevator doors shut just before a gas explosion set off by the falling elevator reaches them. Meanwhile, in the nightclub, Elena and Jennifer rescue Christian, with help from Lucky Larry. Robert and Jennifer reunite with the other survivors. The group reaches the lobby and uses a damaged elevator as a bridge. As Lucky Larry takes his turn to cross, an engine smashes its way through the lobby floor above and kills him. Large amounts of leaking fuel follow through the opening in the floor and is ignited. Dylan finds a fire hose and jumps into the flaming water, making a zip line that the others use to cross. In the ballroom, the windows at last give way, the room floods and the surviving passengers, Captain, Gloria and the crew inside are drowned to their deaths. As the surviving group tries to escape from the rising water, they hear all the people from the main hall screaming for help. they go into an air vent which leads to the ballast tanks. Elena struggles to continue moving through the air vent due to her claustrophobia. Robert tries to smash the cover of the vent, but fails, and calls Connor to assist him in the hopes that Connor's smaller fingers will be able to undo the vent screws. Elena successfully gets inside the vent and offers her necklace to be used as a screwdriver. The cover opens and the group climbs into the ship's ballast tank, where they locate a hatch. Robert and Dylan realize that only great pressure can open the hatch, and they flood the chamber. The hatch opens, and they swim through to the next chamber. Elena's dress becomes caught as she swims through, and she hits her head on a sharp beam and loses consciousness. Richard turns back to rescue her, followed by Robert, Dylan and Christian, and takes the unconscious Elena back where Robert tries to revive her, but she dies from her injury without regaining consciousness. The group finds themselves in the galley and see the bow section is flooded, telling them the obvious: the Poseidon is sinking by the bow, and fast. While finding a new exit, an explosion in the engine room causes the bow to rise out of the water and forces the stern down. All of the water in the bow rushes towards the stern, and the stern of the Poseidon sinks underwater. Robert, Christian, Jennifer and Richard go first, leaving Dylan, Maggie and Connor behind. Maggie and Dylan find Connor trapped. He is eventually saved by Dylan and the three reunite with the group. In the engine room, Richard opens a cover and the bow Thrusters, still trying to turn the ship to starboard, begin blasting air into the room. Knowing that the control room for the propellers is now below water, Christian and Robert debate who should go, knowing the one may not come back. Christian decides he will, only to find Robert has already gone. Underwater, Robert finds the off switch broken, but manages to hit the reverse button instead just before he drowns. The propellers briefly stop, then begin turning the other way, and Dylan finds a nitrogen tank and throws it into the propellers. The ensuing explosion destroys the motors for one of the three bow Thrusters. After climbing through the propeller tube, they jump overboard and into an inflatable raft. The survivors start rowing for their lives, as a wave is thrown up as the Poseidon rights herself again, pushing the survivors away from the ship. The Poseidon is too badly damaged to remain afloat anymore, however, and, with her bow pointing high into the night sky, she sinks by the stern in the foaming waters as the handful of survivors looks on. Finding a flare gun in the raft, Dylan fires it, and they wait for rescue. Sometime later, a group of helicopters finds the raft and moves in to pick up the survivors. Just before the credits roll, at least three ships are shown to be racing towards where the Poseidon sank.

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What’s the Movie Where the Cruise Ship Flips Upside Down?

By Michael Ferguson

What’s the Movie Where the Cruise Ship Flips Upside Down? If you’re a fan of thrillers, then you may be familiar with the movie where a cruise ship flips upside down. The movie is called The Poseidon Adventure, and it was released in 1972. It stars Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, and Shelley Winters.

The main plot of the movie revolves around a group of passengers who are on board the S.S. Poseidon when it capsizes due to a rogue wave caused by an underwater earthquake. The passengers must then make their way to safety by climbing up through the ship’s inverted hull and decks as they battle to survive against rising water levels and other obstacles.

One of the most iconic scenes in the movie is when Gene Hackman’s character, Reverend Scott, leads a group of survivors in prayer while holding onto an overturned lifeboat to prevent them from washing away. This scene has been parodied many times over in pop culture references since its release.

The Poseidon Adventure was one of the first disaster films ever made and it was a huge hit at the box office, grossing over $93 million worldwide and spawning two sequels. It also won two Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects and Best Song (“The Morning After”). The film has also been added to National Film Registry for being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant”.

10 Related Question Answers Found

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A Freak-Wave Flip-Out? Not Likely

By Kari Haskell

• May 14, 2006

"Poseidon," the $175 million remake of the 1972 disaster classic, "The Poseidon Adventure," sailed into movie theaters last week at about the same time that the world's biggest cruise ship, Royal Caribbean's new Freedom of the Seas, glided into New York Harbor.

There's no question that at 237 feet high and 1,112 feet long, Freedom of the Seas is big. But is it, or any other luxury liner, invulnerable? Could a real cruise ship get its world turned upside-down, as happens to Hollywood's make-believe behemoth?

" 'Poseidon' is good clean fun, but it's not likely to happen," said Dr. William Asher, principal oceanographer at the applied physics laboratory at the University of Washington.

In "Poseidon," the ship's passengers are partying hard when a freak 150-foot wave strikes the luxury liner broadside, rolling it over. The surviving passengers and crew have to work their way through the bowels of the ship to the surface.

"A wave as large as 150 feet hasn't been observed, the largest is around 120 feet," Dr. Asher said. But even if such a huge rogue wave hit, modern ocean liners are big enough, and have enough safety systems like stabilizers, that while passengers might be in for a bit of a roller-coaster ride, they wouldn't do a loop-the-loop.

"The larger cruise liner, the more stable it is," said Dr. Owen T. Hughes, an oceanographer and engineer at Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

Though there haven't been reports of large cruise ships capsizing, rogue waves have destroyed container ships and tankers, and have damaged passenger vessels. In 2001, two cruise ships encountered waves that broke bridge windows. In 1998, Cunard's Queen Elizabeth 2 was struck by 90-foot wave. The captain detected it on radar in time to turn the ship to face it head on, so that little damage occurred.

With extreme conditions, a freak event could happen, Dr. Asher conceded. But with modern technology, even a good old-fashioned Titanic-like collision with an iceberg is highly unlikely. "You can't run your ship into an iceberg anymore, the radar is just too good," he said. "It would have to manned by a complete idiot."

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American teen missing in Germany after leaving cruise ship, police say

Aydin brown, 14, hasn't been seen since 7 a.m. on thursday when he left the caribbean princess cruise ship in the port town of rostock-warnemünde, police said., by carlo angerer and antonio planas | nbc news • published july 5, 2024.

An American teenager disappeared Thursday from a cruise ship in Germany, police said.

Fourteen-year-old Aydin Brown has not been seen since 7 a.m. Thursday when he left the Caribbean Princess in Rostock-Warnemünde, a port town on the Baltic Sea, police said.

Brown stands about five-feet-seven inches tall and has long dark hair. He was last seen wearing a dark jacket, dark pants and retro shoes, police said.

24/7 New York news stream: Watch NBC 4 free wherever you are

No one with the Caribbean Princess could be immediately reached Friday afternoon for comment.

Police are also searching for a witness who may have seen the boy on the morning of his disappearance. The witness is described by police as between 20 and 25 years old. His stature is slim and he has long hair which was braided into a ponytail.

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He was last seen wearing a light shirt, blue pants and a black jacket. He wore brown headphones, police said.

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The witness is asked to urgently report to the criminal investigation department in Rostock.

The witness is believed to have seen the missing teen at about 7:30 a.m. Thursday at the train station in Warnemünde, police said.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

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