50 Fun Facts About The Poseidon Adventure

What natural event sends a giant wave crashing into the liner in the 1972 film The Poseidon Adventure?

An undersea earthquake raises a huge swell that strikes the liner broadside and flips it upside down, leaving the hull as the only way out.

What do Reverend Scott's followers climb like a ladder to escape the dining room in The Poseidon Adventure?

A Christmas tree is hauled upright so the group can climb to the galley; when the passengers left behind rush it later, it topples under their weight.

During which holiday celebration does disaster strike the liner in the 1972 film The Poseidon Adventure?

New Year's Eve is in full swing when the liner rolls over just as midnight strikes; the original novel sets the disaster on December 26 instead.

Which actress gained thirty-five pounds to play Belle Rosen in The Poseidon Adventure?

Shelley Winters won a Golden Globe for the role and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, having already taken home two Academy Awards.

Which real ocean liner, permanently moored in Long Beach, California, doubled as the SS Poseidon on screen?

RMS Queen Mary also inspired the plot: the novel's author was aboard in 1937 when high waves rolled the liner onto its side.

Which actor, years before his deadpan spoof comedies, plays Captain Harrison in The Poseidon Adventure?

Leslie Nielsen was a straight dramatic actor in 1972; the spoof Airplane! reinvented him as a deadpan comedy star eight years later.

Which song from The Poseidon Adventure won the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 1973 ceremony?

The Morning After was written in a single night as the film's love theme, and a re-recorded single version later topped the US charts.

Which star of The Poseidon Adventure, cast as Reverend Scott, won a Best Actor Oscar during the shoot?

Gene Hackman picked up the Oscar for The French Connection while the cameras were rolling, then went back to playing the rebel preacher who leads the escape.

In The Poseidon Adventure, grandmother Belle Rosen reveals she was once a champion in which sport?

Swimming made Belle Rosen a champion in her youth, so she plunges into a flooded corridor after the trapped Reverend Scott and frees him.

In The Poseidon Adventure, the liner's final voyage runs from New York City to which European capital?

Athens is where the aging liner is due to end its last crossing; in the original novel the ship sets out from Lisbon on a month-long cruise instead.

In The Poseidon Adventure, what is the job of Mike Rogo, the hothead who keeps clashing with Reverend Scott?

Police detective Mike Rogo holds the rank of lieutenant, and after Scott's death he is the one who leads the last survivors to the rescuers.

Reverend Scott is being sent to a new parish on which continent as punishment in The Poseidon Adventure?

Africa is where the church has banished the outspoken Reverend Scott, whose guest sermon on board urges passengers to find the courage to solve their own problems.

What kills Belle Rosen moments after she rescues the trapped Reverend Scott in The Poseidon Adventure?

A heart attack strikes Belle Rosen moments after she surfaces, and she dies in Scott's arms before her husband Manny can reach her.

Manny and Belle Rosen are sailing to meet their young grandson in which country in The Poseidon Adventure?

Israel is where the Rosens' two-year-old grandson lives; the retired store owner and his wife have never met him.

What keepsake does the dying Belle Rosen want passed on to her grandson in The Poseidon Adventure?

Her Chai pendant bears the Hebrew word for life, and the reminder of the child waiting for it helps persuade the grieving Manny to keep going.

Reverend Scott gives his life in The Poseidon Adventure by closing a valve that was releasing what?

Steam from a ruptured pipe blocks the final door, so Scott leaps across burning oil to the valve wheel, shuts it off and falls to his death.

Which crew member tells the dining room survivors to stay put and await rescue in The Poseidon Adventure?

The purser insists that help will come, and most passengers side with him; they perish when water bursts into the dining room.

Which former child star of Lassie Come Home plays the injured waiter Acres in The Poseidon Adventure?

Roddy McDowall made the film between Planet of the Apes outings; his waiter Acres knows the ship's passageways but falls from a ladder during an explosion.

Which 1950s Best Actor Oscar winner plays hot-tempered Mike Rogo in The Poseidon Adventure?

Ernest Borgnine won his Oscar for the title role in Marty, beating Frank Sinatra and James Dean to the award for 1955.

Which actor, later the star of TV's Chico and the Man, plays Manny Rosen in The Poseidon Adventure?

Jack Albertson had played Grandpa Joe in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory a year earlier, and already owned an Oscar for The Subject Was Roses.

Which comedian and Sayonara Oscar winner plays shy haberdasher James Martin in The Poseidon Adventure?

Red Buttons plays the health-conscious bachelor who talks the terrified singer Nonnie into carrying on when she freezes on a ladder.

Which Young Frankenstein star was first cast as James Martin in The Poseidon Adventure, then dropped out?

Gene Wilder was fresh from playing Willy Wonka when he was lined up as the love-shy haberdasher, a part that then went to a veteran comic.

Which British pop singer was offered the role of ship's singer Nonnie Parry in The Poseidon Adventure?

Petula Clark, the voice of the number-one hit Downtown, turned the part down; Carol Lynley took it and mimed to another singer's vocals.

Which actress, Jerry Lewis's co-star in The Nutty Professor, plays Linda Rogo in The Poseidon Adventure?

Stella Stevens plays Mike Rogo's wife Linda, who insists the couple follow Scott and later loses her grip and falls near the end of the climb.

Which producer, nicknamed the Master of Disaster, followed The Poseidon Adventure with The Towering Inferno?

Irwin Allen directed the action scenes of both films himself, after a decade spent making science-fiction adventure series for television.

Which British director of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie took charge of The Poseidon Adventure?

Ronald Neame was recruited after the contracted director left, and later called it his favourite film because it earned him enough to retire comfortably.

Which author of The Snow Goose wrote the 1969 novel that became The Poseidon Adventure?

Paul Gallico made his name as a New York sportswriter before turning to fiction, and his capsized-liner novel attracted little attention when it first appeared.

Which studio put up half the budget for The Poseidon Adventure after Avco Embassy cancelled the project?

20th Century Fox agreed to cover half of the cost, and the producer talked two friends into matching the studio's share.

Which composer scored The Poseidon Adventure, earning an Oscar nomination, and later The Towering Inferno?

John Williams composed and conducted the music five years before Star Wars, yet no soundtrack album of it went on sale until 1998.

Which singer took the Oscar-winning theme song from The Poseidon Adventure to number one in the US in 1973?

Maureen McGovern was working as a secretary when a record executive heard her demo; her single spent two weeks at number one and earned her a Best New Artist Grammy nomination.

Besides Best Song, The Poseidon Adventure received a Special Achievement Academy Award for which craft?

Visual effects earned L. B. Abbott and A. D. Flowers the special Oscar; the capsizing was staged with a 22-foot model liner in a studio tank.

Which humor magazine spoofed The Poseidon Adventure on a 1973 cover showing only its mascot's feet?

Mad hid Alfred E. Neuman's face for the parody issue, showing just his feet poking out of an SS Poseidon life preserver as he floats upside down.

The 22-foot model liner built for The Poseidon Adventure is now displayed at a maritime museum in which city?

Los Angeles houses the model in its Maritime Museum, a former ferry terminal building in the harbour community of San Pedro.

What piece of equipment tilted the dining room set of The Poseidon Adventure to mimic the ship rolling over?

A forklift hoisted the set, built right side up, to a tilt of up to thirty degrees; the room was then flipped upside down for the scenes that follow.

In The Poseidon Adventure's capsizing scene, the passenger Terry falls from a table and crashes into what?

A skylight in the ballroom ceiling, by then far below him, ends the fall; actor Ernie Orsatti did the stunt himself and went on to a career as a stuntman.

What fate awaits the aging SS Poseidon after its final voyage in the 1972 film The Poseidon Adventure?

Being scrapped is the plan, and the new owners' representative orders full speed to save money, which stops the captain taking on stabilising ballast.

The producer of The Poseidon Adventure had earlier created which 1960s science-fiction TV series?

Lost in Space ran for three seasons on CBS and was conceived as a science-fiction version of The Swiss Family Robinson.

Which 1970 Burt Lancaster film started the disaster-movie craze that The Poseidon Adventure joined?

Airport earned ten Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and was followed by three sequels of its own.

Which passenger's study of the ship tells Reverend Scott where the hull is thinnest in The Poseidon Adventure?

Robin Shelby, the boy travelling with his teenage sister Susan, has spent the voyage visiting the bridge and engine room to learn how the ship works.

Rescuers cut through the hull beside which part of the ship to free the survivors in The Poseidon Adventure?

The propeller shaft tunnel lies where the steel plating is only an inch thick, so the survivors bang on it until an answering knock comes from outside.

Which British actor plays tugboat captain Mike Turner in the 1979 sequel Beyond the Poseidon Adventure?

Michael Caine's skipper boards the wreck to claim salvage rights, but the sequel earned back only about a fifth of its $10 million budget.

Which former TV sitcom star plays passenger Celeste Whitman in the sequel Beyond the Poseidon Adventure?

Sally Field made the sequel in the same year as Norma Rae, the union drama that won her a first Best Actress Oscar.

In Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, what cargo is the villain Dr. Svevo secretly recovering from the wreck?

Plutonium is what Svevo's team is really after; they board the capsized liner posing as Greek Orthodox medics answering its distress call.

Which actor, a former James Bond villain, plays Dr. Stefan Svevo in Beyond the Poseidon Adventure?

Telly Savalas had played Blofeld in On Her Majesty's Secret Service and had recently finished five seasons as television's Kojak.

Which German director, already known for seafaring thrillers, made the 2006 big-screen remake titled Poseidon?

Wolfgang Petersen had already made the submarine epic Das Boot and The Perfect Storm, yet the $160 million remake left its studio tens of millions out of pocket.

Which actor plays former New York City mayor Robert Ramsey in the 2006 remake Poseidon?

Kurt Russell's character is also an ex-firefighter, and he shares the screen with Josh Lucas and Richard Dreyfuss.

In the 2005 television remake of The Poseidon Adventure, what capsizes the ship in place of a giant wave?

A terrorist bomb blows a hole in the hull, and water pouring into one side tips the cruise ship until it rolls completely over.

Which pop star from a chart-topping hip-hop group plays ship's singer Gloria in the 2006 remake Poseidon?

Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas is credited under her real name, Stacy Ferguson, and also performs songs on the film's soundtrack.

Which Blade Runner star plays Bishop August Schmidt in the 2005 television remake of The Poseidon Adventure?

Rutger Hauer stars alongside Adam Baldwin, whose Mike Rogo is reimagined as a sea marshal assigned to watch over the cruise ship.

In The Poseidon Adventure, the captain is warned of a huge swell coming from the direction of which island?

Crete is the direction the bridge is told to watch; the captain has barely issued a distress signal before the wall of water hits the ship broadside.