The Poseidon Adventure (1972, Ronald Neame)

There’s got to be a morning after. (*facts not in evidence.)

Inevitably, there are spoilers here. Read with care. Thanks! Furthermore, this year I’m trying something different: a series of “theme events,” starting with Disaster Blasters, a look at four disaster movies: The Poseidon Adventure, The Horror at 37,000 Feet, Earthquake, and The Towering Inferno. Hope you enjoy the new format!

What is it? The Poseidon Adventure, directed by Ronald Neame, written by Stirling Siliphant and Wendell Mayes, based on the novel by Paul Gallico, and starring Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters, Jack Albertson, Carol Lynley, Red Buttons, Stella Stevens, Pamela Sue Martin, Eric Shea and introducing Roddy McDowall as Acres.

First viewing? No; I recall seeing it several times as a kid, although, truth be told, I think I have more childhood viewings of Beyond the Poseidon Adventure under my belt. In the Letterboxd era, I watched it 2 June 2021 and 31 December 2024 (Happy New Year!).

What’s it about? On New Year’s Eve, an undersea eathquake creates a tidal wave that capsizes the luxury liner Poseidon, on its last voyage before retirement. A handful of survivors — Reverend Scott (Hackman), ex-cop Rogo (Borgnine), his ex-sex worker wife (Stevens), an elderly Jewish couple (Winters and Albertson), a haberdasher (Buttons), a brother and sister (Martin and Shea), singer Nonnie (Lynley) and waiter Acres (McDowall) — attempt to climb through the now-upside down ship to reach the one possible place they might be rescued.

What are your thoughts about it? In a move that couldn’t be more 2025, we’ve finally reached our first disaster movie here at Against the ’70s. The disaster movie is one of my favorites¹, and if I were to “hazard” a guess, I’d say it’s because it, moreso than most genres, straddles a conceptual line right smack between cinema and ttrpgs, which is the whole point of this site. In its ideal form², a disaster movie is about watching a group of disparate people in the midst of some calamity, trying to navigate and overcome dangerous physical obstacles in order to ultimately reach safety. The parallels with ttrpgs, particularly those in the D&D/fantasy mode, I hope are immediately apparent.

The disaster movie was not invented in the ’70s — you can go all the way back to the silent era for examples, and if you’ve never seen New York get destroyed in Deluge (1933, Felix E. Feist)³, holy shit — but disaster movies had a moment at that time. The cycle began with the box office hit Airport (1970, George Seaton) and extended by the success of today’s film, The Poseidon Adventure. For people of a certain age, these movies cemented the idea of a huge cast of big names in a perilous situation, making us wonder, per The Poseidon Adventure’s own poster, “Who will survive?”

I’m not sure if this poster popularized the “cast in a series of square portraits along the bottom” style. Regardless, to my mind disaster movies are synonymous with it.

The unwieldy casts are certainly an aesthetic requirement for the spectacle of it, but they also fulfill a narrative one as well. These movies are rarely the story of a single protagonist; more often, they act as a panorama of society, stories about The People and how they represent what’s best and worst about ourselves. It’s well known that The Poseidon Adventure uses its upside-down ship as a metaphor for the world (in 1972) being topsy-turvy.⁴ Up is down, down is up, no one knows which way to go, can our Representations of the People find the way to the morning after?⁵

In order to make that work, though, we need to see these people in their “natural state,” before the aqueous crisitunity arrives to reveal their true natures. Every disaster movie has the first act before the disaster itself, and The Poseidon Adventure’s first act is shaky at best. Every character has a single trait, and each one is introduced in a laboriously cutesy or otherwise annoying way. Little boy Robin (Shea) is a know-it-all about ships. His older sister Susan (Martin) is responsible for him, and it stresses her out. (Oh, and she’s infatuated with Reverend Scott, so two things.) Mr. Martin (Buttons) is a lifelong bachelor with no relationships to speak of.⁶ Mr. and Mrs. Rosen (Albertson and Winters) want to get to Israel to see their new grandchild. Mike Rogo (Borgnine) is a vice cop who married Linda (Stevens), the sex worker he busted, and she’s understandably status-conscious. They only communicate with each other via shouting. Nonnie (Lynley) is a dippy hippy singer, who loves her brother and is unprepared for the real world (a capsized liner). Acres (McDowall) is a Scottish waiter. (That’s it. That’s the character.) All of these introductions are dopey, full of “as you know” dialogue, and are otherwise insufferable.

I’m glad the filmmakers had this shot, where Scott witnesses the fate of those who didn’t follow him. It’s painful for both him and the audience.

But none of them hold a candle to the introduction of Reverend Scott (Hackman), one that hits all three of those buttons in a way that would shame a champion Defender player. We first meet Scott in a deep discussion with the ship’s chaplain (Arthur O’Connell), their respective philosophies clanging against each other llike ships colliding in the night. Conflict is a great way to illuminate character! But here’s how we learn about Scott:

CHAPLAIN: You deliver sermons like this, it’s a wonder you’re still an ordained minister. Or are you?
SCOTT: The best kind. Angry, rebellious, critical. A renegade. Stripped of most my so-called clerical powers. But I’m still in business.

Motherfucker describes himself in a way no non-psychopathic person has, in the history of ever. The two credited screenwriters just throw up their hands and have Scott read from the audition sides. It’s even more egregious when, a few scenes later, he gives a sermon to the cast that explicates his character just fine. It’s a testament to Hackman’s God-tier skills that he almost, almost makes it work.

JOB INTERVIEWER: Describe your work ethic.
ME: The best kind. Angry, rebellious, critical. A renegade.

WIFE: You want to have what kind of sex?
ME: The best kind. Angry, rebellious, critical. A renegade.

DRIVE-THROUGH: What kind of dipping sauce would you like with that?
ME: The best kind. Angry, rebellious, critical. A renegade.
DRIVE-THROUGH: So, honey mustard.

“It’s a wonder you’re still a caption in an Against the ’70s post. Or are you?” “The best kind. Angry, rebellious, critical. A renegade.”

The first thirty minutes of The Poseidon Adventure is a real shitshow, if only in the screenplay department. Neame’s camera and blocking are rooted in the classic forms of ’50s and ’60s Hollywood, with nary a trace of the then-developing New Hollywood style. It may not look modern, but Neame and the cast make sure it’s a smooth watch.

Then the tsunami hits, turning not just the ship and people upside down, but our relationship with the narrative as well. All those weaknesses from the first act are there, and let’s not kid ourselves, they’re still weaknesses. But something interesting happens. Now these characters must do more than gab about who they are, what they want, whether they’re rebellious or a renegade and what the difference is. Now they have to act if they want to survive. But how to act when there is nothing but uncertainty in every direction? A door could lead to escape or a watery grave, and there’s no way to tell.

Everyone’s paired up with their relevant partner. No idea why Carol Lynley looks like she was photoshopped in here.

And this is why those terrible first thirty minutes work despite themselves — they tell us what each of these characters brought with them to survive the ordeal. Reverend Scott brought his unwavering faith in himself and humans in general. The Rosens brought their love for their unseen grandchild. Mr. Martin brought a clarity about both himself and the world around him — he’s the one to suggest climbing up to the bottom of the ship. Susan brought her faith in Scott and her duty to her brother, and Robin brought his knowledge of the ship; like Danny in The Shining, he’s explored the maze, if only figuratively. Linda Rogo, former New York City streetwalker, brought her instincts, leading her to (correctly) trust Scott over her own husband.

Just because they brought something is no guarantee of survival, and some things are actively harmful. Nonnie has only her memories of her now-dead brother, which act as an anchor, and only clear-eyed Mr. Martin can get her to release them. Acres brought a Scottish accent. He’s the first of the group to die.

Here’s Nonnie singing to her brother. Between her stroking his hair and the way she nearly dies because she can’t get over his death, there’s a distinct suggestion that her relationship with him is uhhhhhh unhealthy.

Then there’s Mike Rogo. He’s not a leader, he’s not an independent thinker, he’s a follower who just wants to do what everyone else is doing. (He’s a cop, so that tracks.) This aligns him with the Chaplain and the Purser (Byron Webster), whose belief in the status quo gets both them and countless others killed. Rogo only survives because what brought was Linda. He doesn’t have an institution to take orders from, so he takes them from his wife. (Not without a lot of yelling first, though.) Nevertheless, by all rights, Rogo should be marked for death, if not for his lemmingness, then for his dumbassedness. Yet he lives and it’s Linda who falls to her death. Why?

A little help?!

Let’s start with a different question. Who is the protagonist? If the protagonist is the character who actively pursues a goal, then it must be Scott, who takes charge in leading the group.⁷ And if Scott’s the protagonist, Rogo must be the antagonist. (It can’t be the disaster, because that’s a non-sentient event that can’t want anything.) Rogo questions Scott every step of the way, the skeptic to his believer. (The Rogos are the only main characters — other than the Rosens, natch — who don’t show up for Scott’s sermon.) The adventure isn’t just a series of physical problems and their attendant solutions. (Yet it’s that too.) It’s also the conflict between faith and doubt, being a leader and being a follower.

At the end, Scott finds himself hanging from a burning wheel above a lake of fire.⁸ Before he dies, he calls on Rogo to take over, to take over the ministry if you will. Rogo has just lost Linda, and in seconds, Scott will be gone too. He’s spent the entire movie, and probably his entire life, following other people’s orders. Now the only person he can listen to is himself. (Admittedly, and hilariously, he still needs a little Linda-style haranguing from the ever-astute Mr. Martin.) “God wants winners, not quitters,” Scott preached earlier, and this is where Rogo and Scott find common ground, where the transfer can take place. Rogo is loud, dumb, and impatient, but he’s not a quitter.

Not a quitter.

So this is what the film has been building up to. Rogo doesn’t die because, against all audience expectations and common sense, he is the heart of the story. He is the only one who changes in a significant way, from follower to leader, from skeptic to believer. He couldn’t die because he was Scott’s double the entire time, and as such, was the only one who could carry on his legacy, if only for the next few minutes. I wonder, though. He got everyone through a vertiable gate of Heaven. He changed. But, in the end, did it take?⁹

I’ve marked Rogo as the antagonist, but if you’re looking for the villain, here’s your huckleberry. This guy is the owner who makes the Captain have the ship go faster while not having enough ballast, leading to the disaster. Why would he do that? So he can get the Poseidon into dock and sell it for scrap. It wasn’t intended as such, but it works as a metaphor for predations of private equiity.

How many stars out of five? Three and a half burning hot valves out of five.

Where can I stream it? As of this writing (2/22/25), you can stream it on Amazon Prime, and rent it from Amazon, Apple TV, Fandango At Home, Google Play, Microsoft, and Spectrum. You can also buy it from the same vendors, except for Google Play and Spectrum.

What can we take from it? No directly derived game material from The Poseidon Adventure today. Instead I want to talk about the disaster movie genre in conjunction with ttrpgs. This is another one of my mini-essays, like what I wrote about martial arts in the Cypher System or gialli in ttrpgs.

NOTES ON THE DISASTER MOVIE GENRE IN TTRPGS

PROBLEMS

Back at the top, I noted how the disaster genre and ttrpgs share a major similarity, in that usually, both deal with a group of individuals with distinct talents or qualities on a perilous journey to a safe destination. One might think, then, that running a disaster movie-themed ttrpg session would be relatively easy.¹⁰ Ironically, there’s a number of hidden pitfalls to traverse, because what makes a disaster movie enjoyable is direclty opposed by what makes a ttrpg fun.

There’s two issues at play. The first is that disaster film structure implies an extremely linear, railroaded adventure — first this obstacle, then that obstacle, and so on. All films are linear experiences, but translating those experiences into a ttrpg session doesn’t always result in a linear game.¹¹ The missing element is choice. Choice is the bedrock foundation of traditional ttrpgs — the game is a simulation of a story, and players get to make the decisions that create that story. In a disaster movie like The Poseidon Adventure, we rarely see the characters make prosaic choices like “take the north corridor” or “go east” like one might expect in, say, a dungeon adventure. Instead, they’re moving from setpiece to setpiece, based on the screenwriter’s desires. A GM doesn’t have that luxury.¹²

The second problem is about the obstacles themselves. In a traditional ttrpg, traversing obstacles like these is usually handled by some kind of roll. The result of that roll can be success or a failiure, or it can often fall in between these extremes. But even if the result is a failure, that almost never means the game comes to a halt, because of character death or some kind of impassable route. The result of a roll should always push the story forward, not stop it. But the obstacles in a disaster movie are almost always demand one of two results, and no other: succeed and survive, or fail and die. Even if you try to find a result that’s middle ground, you end up with something like, “The bridge splits in two, but you manage to hold onto one half, which slams into the wall, and now you’re dangling from a vertical surface over certain doom.” But that’s just restating the initial problem. This character can only survive or die. Even combat in a ttrpg can have many gradations of success and failure. How might it be possible to resolve this issue?

IDEAS TOWARDS SOLUTIONS

There is a solution, I think, but it’s one I can only see the contours of, but not the whole thing. It’s also maybe a cop-out.

The solution is to make an entirely new game.

Hear me out! What I propose is that what should be made¹³: an indie-style ttrpg, one that’s short, maybe even only a few pages long, and extremely focused on gamifying the highlights of a disaster movie scenario. and intended for single session of play. The trick, if you will, is to explicity embrace the bugs and turn them into features. Make the game a linear railroad. Make the game revolve around survive or die. Make character death a recurring and meaningful event. These are the strengths of the films, and they should be the strength of the game.

I’m not a game designer, and even if I was, I don’t currently have time to pursue this project. So the best I can do for now is offer two lists, one of what I consider to be the bedrock ideas or experiences of the game, and a second list of spitballed ideas to make the first list work.

• The game should conclude over a single session, approximately 2 hours or less, no more than 4.
• The game should probably be GM-less, or at least should be able to be facilitated sans GM.
• The session should be bifurcated into unequal halves, which we’ll temporarily label “The Boring 1st Act” and “The Good Parts.”
• “The Boring 1st Act” is the character generation part of the game, which happens at the table. Each character should be defined by a few words or a sentence (“cheerful waiter,” “hippie singer,” etc) and What They Brought (a relationship, a skill, an object, memories, etc.)
• The “Good Parts” is a predefined number of “setpieces,” dangerous obstacles the characters have to overcome or else be killed. Once the last obstacle is overcome, whoever survives wins (“wins”).
• There should be some mechanical link between a character description and What They Brought and how they manage to survive a setpiece.
• When a character dies, it should be a Big Deal, affecting the other characters in both roleplaying and mechanical ways.
• There needs to be a mechanism by which a player who has no more living characters still gets to play and contribute.
• The intention of the game is to model the lowercase-h everyday heroism of the characters, and there shouldn’t be any backstabbing — this isn’t Poseidon (2006, Wolfgang Petersen). At the same time, there should be an option for a character to sacrifice themselves for the good of the group.

Here’s the second list. Again, this is just me spitballing ideas. It’s probably not wise or possible to incorporate all of them.

• There is a resource, represented by stones, coins, or even dice, called Trust. Characters have a pool of it to spend — putting Trust in other characters — and a pool of it that represents the Trust others have put in them. Trust has some kind of mechanical bearing on the setpiece portion of the game.
• Expanding on this: if players normally have more than one character, then maybe the player holds onto their Trust points, and distributes them as makes sense.
• If Trust were represented by dice, then the Trust pools could be rolled to determine setpiece outcomes.
• If each player had their own set of dice that was a unique color (green for player #1, black for player #2, etc) then it would be possible to track which characters another character has put their trust in. Assuming you could find a reason to make that relevant.
• Setpieces could be determined by a set of cards. The card could describe the obstacle or problem, and maybe it says something like the “The character with the most Trust [something]” and “The character with the least amount of Trust [something].” Generally, characters with more Trust will have better outcomes, but not always. Or Trust is dice, perhaps the Trust pool is rolled to see what happens.
• Another idea, to faciitate some Scott/Rogo-style conflict, two setpiece cards could be drawn, and the players use Trust to vote which one to tackle.
• Also, perhaps the character descriptions and What They Brought can be invoked (a limited number of times?) to add or subtract Trust from a pool.

So: there you go. Some ideas splayed on the table. I have an inkling to explore some of these (and maybe generate a few new ones) in an imaginary play session write-up. That won’t show up for a few more posts, so sit tight.

ISN’T THIS JUST JASON MORNINGSTAR’S GAME, FIASCO? There are similarities. However, I don’t believe Fiasco, as written, is exactly what I’m looking for. Fiasco is about a group of people who bring their tragicomic comeuppance upon themselves, and what I’m looking for is pretty much the opposite, ordinary people doing small-scale, heroic things. Could Fiasco be hacked to make this game? Almost certainly, and I’ll be looking at the rulebook to see what I can do.

NEXT TIME, ON AGAINST THE ’70S: The Horror at 37,000 Feet (1973, David Lowell Rich)