The Poseidon Explosion

[Kimmell]

I just have to know-has anyone seen this bomb?

Okay, I picked up this particular title at a local video store in the midwest. Naturally, the first thing that came to mind: a long-lost sequel to the Poseidon Adventure, or an obscure ripoff? The latter is correct.

The cover 'art' features a Titanic-esque ocean liner going down in flames, though the actual Poseidon of said title is actually a rusting freighter of some sort.  

That, and the horrible dubbing (you know you're in trouble when a 14 year-old kid talks with a voice like Lorne Greene), sets the scene for the rest of the movie. The plot, if there actually was one, conisisted of various groups including a tug boat crew, wedding party, city officials, and one violinist trying to prevent the explosion of the S.S. Poseidon, which is mysteriously on fire and half the crew have died. Supposedly a lot of fertilizer is aboard the boat, as well as oxygen tanks. The combined force of these two items, if they explode, would destroy everything within a ten mile radius. Various plans are made, and examples are taken from an earlier similar explosion that happened at the "Texas City" harbor. I didn't make that last part up. No Gene Hackman in sight, by the way.

IMDB lists this film as West German, though it appears to have been filmed in Italy.

Again, if anyone has seen this film, or can make out why it was ever made, please let me know.

[Kimmell]

Clarification:

Further research reveals this movie to be "Explozia", a 1973 flick apparently from Romania. "Poseidon Explosion" was the release title for West Germany.

Still, it defies explanation for it's existance.

[Squishy]

Yikes.

Still, there are a lot of inexplicible films. Ones related to your little discovery would include The Neptune Disaster with Ernest Borgnine--the alternate title was The Neptune Adventure, although it bears no resemblence or relation to Poseidon; the real sequel, Beyond The Poseidon Adventure, which is just...just ghastly, particularly if you read the book*; The Explosion, a Japanese film about a harborful of tankers going up in flames, and Tidal Wave--since you brought up Lorne Greene--a Japanese film about the utter annihilation of Japan, which was hacked up by Roger Corman and re-edited with footage of Greene directing UN disaster relief. Gyaah.

*The book was a "pre-production novelization," which Irwin Allen convinced the author of The Poseidon Adventure to do, even though Paul Gallico's original novel ended with a last-minute rescue as the Poseidon slips under the waves, taking a large part of the rescue party with it.

Writing it as a sequel to the movie, not the novel, Gallico actually had the chutzpah to bring back most of the survivors at gunpoint--then kill off Manny! (Shelly Winters' husband in the movie)--but died before completing the book. After the book was completed by his family, Allen jetisoned the returning characters--after all, they would look quite different so many years later--but kept most (not all) of the plot intact.

(Changes: the Poseidon drifts over the undersea volcano that caused the tsunami that capsized it to begin with; the subsequent full-blown eruption finishes the ship. The villain's femme fatale, in love with the salvager played by Michael Caine in the movie, sees the danger while diving below the ship and sacrifices herself to warn him and the others, dying of the "bends." Also gone: the group of survivors, cornered by a gunman, is inadvertantly saved by a tiger which escaped from its cage during the capsizing! It dies killing the bad guy.)

Gallico could have no inkling what sort of horror Allen, Michael Caine, Sally Field, and Karl Malden would inflict upon moviegoers. (Especially Field. Ugh.) One reviewer remarked, "at least this terrible movie ends the Poseidon franchise--unless Allen creates the TV series Beyond The Poseidon Flotsam."

[Flangepart]

My....what a load of seaweed. He He He. Do you think the acting is better in The Lost Continent? The Brits always make even the most barking mad plot almost decent. Hummmm...." A luxury liner full of tourist and genetic enginers strikes an iceberg in the south atlantic. Survivors use the iceberg as a liferaft, but unknown to them, the genetics experiments have gotten out of their cages, and are roaming the iceberg, creating a struggle between monster fodder and genetic mutants. The hero sacrifices the villians life, choking the lead monster with his corpse. As the survivors think its all over....the camera pans back, and we see three rows of huge dorsal spines sticking out of the iceberg. They begin to glow with a blue/white light......." yes!....now if i only had a title.....