Prior to “The Matrix,” “Avatar” and “Avengers: End Game,” with their eye-popping computer-generated unique effects, there was “The Poseidon Adventure.”
The 1972 motion picture about an aging ocean liner turned upside down by a tidal bore was made using practical results involving a 22-foot ship reproduction immersed in a tank, upside-down and by hand slanted sets, and actors and stuntmen and -ladies plunging into genuine roiling water or dodging real bursts of steam and fire.
“They were considered state of the art at the time,” said Jared Case, curator of movie exhibit at George Eastman Museum, of such pre-digital strategies, although they often produced outcomes that look “a little bit less than real to us now.”
However, for a variety of reasons, pre-CGI functions are something to commemorate, and the museum’s Dryden Theatre will do that beginning July 5. “It’s a Disaster: Phenomenon Before CGI” includes screenings of nine analog or largely analog catastrophe films dating from the early 1920s to mid-’90s, consisting of “The Poseidon Adventure.”
The series accompanies summer, a time when Hollywood tends to launch its most escapist fare, but the museum’s main goal is to check out how pre-CGI filmmakers helped audiences suspend shock, something Case will speak about when he introduces each picture.For circumstances
, the most significant shot in 1970’s “Airport,” which likewise is on the schedule, involves a character played by Van Heflin being drawn out of a hole ripped through a 747 by a travel suitcase bomb. “They sort of tore him out there with wires, or they tore a stuntperson out with wires,” Case stated. Ouch.
“Earthquake” (1974) and “The Towering Inferno” (1974 ), which like “Poseidon” employed scale models, carefully choreographed stunts and real fire, will be screened, too. Case determined the latter film as his favorite of the disaster category, not only because its impacts were uncommonly excellent and still hold up– “When they’re trying to leave the glass elevator, that’s still exceptionally effective”– however due to the fact that of the motion picture’s massive all-star cast, which was a ’70s disaster impressive hallmark and something you don’t see anymore.
“You never again got Paul Newman and Steve McQueen, not to mentioned Fred Astaire, in one movie,” Case said, speaking about “Inferno,” also featuring O.J. Simpson and Mike Lookinland (Bobby Brady of television’s “The Brady Bunch”). “It was really a who’s who of the time.”
“Inferno” actually was chosen for a best picture Oscar, as was “Airport,” and both were box-office smashes.The 1970s was
an age when hit motion pictures likewise were acclaimed, Case said. “People look back at that time with reverence. The popular movies were likewise great. They were well-made and well-regarded.”
Well-regarded to a level, anyway. “The Poseidon Experience” has an 80% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes (versus the 2006 remake at 33%). But some critics panned it, including Roger Ebert, who pointed out that in the New Year’s Eve party scene, “Everyone is in the ballroom, nicely divided into essential ethnic groups, walks of life and previous Oscar winners.” Bernard Drew wrote in the Democrat and Chronicle that director Ronald Neame attempted to “catch every cliché ever attempted” and lamented characters he dismissed as stock, consisting of a “hip minister” (Gene Hackman), “hysterical twitch” (Carol Lynley) and “set of uninteresting children” (Pamela Sue Martin and Eric Shea). Shelley Winters, by the method, was Oscar-nominated for her representation of a doting other half and grandmother/doomed former swimming champ.The Dryden
series also includes 1995’s “Apollo 13,” which surprisingly utilized a minimum of offered CGI trickery and relied more on set pieces and old-school projection strategies to re-create the real-life area catastrophe. For the floating series, Tom Hanks and his co-stars flew on a NASA aircraft referred to as the “Vomit Comet,” which skyrockets to 30,000 feet and after that dives, producing 23 seconds of weightlessness.
“It’s an extremely smooth amalgam of digital and practical effects,” Case stated of the completed Ron Howard film.
“It’s a Disaster” wraps up Sept. 3 with a screening of 1980’s “Airplane!” The timeless comedy pokes fun at the disaster-movie craze and, similar to the originals it parodies, includes a large all-star cast, consisting of Leslie Nielsen, who plays a physician for laughs in a way that evokes his fatal serious ship’s captain in “The Poseidon Experience.”
“It’s a great deal of enjoyable, and it’s actually well made,” Case said.Films begin
at 7:30 p.m., and tickets are $5 to $11. For a complete list of titles and dates, go to eastman.org.Reporter Marcia Greenwood covers basic projects. Send out story tips to [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @MarciaGreenwood.