S03E02 — The Poseidon Adventure

SPOILER ALERT: This episode and transcript below contains major spoilers for The Poseidon Adventure.

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Grab your life jackets, baby listeners—we’re diving into The Poseidon Adventure! 🚢 From rogue waves and upside-down ballrooms to a reverend who really needs to chill, we’re breaking down the wild differences between book and film. Expect fiery deaths, awkward romances, and Shelley Winters absolutely stealing the show. Come for the chaos, stay for the family banter—this episode proves that sometimes disaster is just more fun on screen.

Featuring hosts Timothy Haynes, Donna Haynes, Rebekah Edwards, and T. Josiah Haynes.

Final Verdicts

If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, we recommend waiting to read our verdicts. (But you’re probably grown, so do what you want!)

The book version of The Poseidon Adventure leans darker, cluttered with too many characters, racism, and even an unnecessary assault subplot, while the film streamlines the story with fewer survivors, higher stakes, and a stronger emotional punch. The movie amps up the action and heart—most notably with Belle Rosen’s heroic sacrifice—making it the definitive disaster classic.

Donna: The film was better.
– Book Score: 5/10
– Film Score: 8.5/10

Rebekah: The film was better.
– Book Score: 4/10
– Film Score: 6.5/10

Josiah: The film was better.
– Book Score: 9/10
– Film Score 6/10

Tim: The book was better.
– Book Score: 6/10
– Film Score 9/10

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Full Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Josiah: Oh no. I need to save them. They’re drowning in two feet of water drowning. Oh, no, no. That’s terrible. 

[00:00:09] Rebekah: But wait, what? If you have any parting words 

[00:00:12] Donna: for your family, what would they be? Yes, yes. Don’t watch the 2005 TV mini series of the Poseidon Adventure. It is a pale limitation of the original. Make sure my family knows.

[00:00:26] Tim: All right, everybody, it’s time to climb to the bottom of the ship. Oh, the water’s two and a half feet deep. We’ve got to go now.

[00:00:39] Rebekah: Tragedy’s. Hilarious. I mean,[00:01:00] 

[00:01:00] Rebekah: hey, welcome to the book is Better podcast. We are a family of four and we are reviewing book to film adaptations. Specifically today we are reviewing the Poseidon Adventure. A 19, hold on, lemme get this right. Is it a 1972 disaster film Gore, based on a 1969 work of the same name by Paul Gallico or Gallico 

[00:01:27] Tim: Co.

[00:01:28] Rebekah: I thought, see I got it right the first time. I was proud of myself. Mm-hmm. So, spoiler alert for both of those things that are. Uh, more than 50 years old. If you, uh, don’t want them spoiled, then I don’t know why you clicked on this episode. So, uh, anyway, we are the family and we would love to introduce ourselves to you.

[00:01:47] Rebekah: Before we hop into the episode, we’d like to start with a little fun fact. Um, and, uh, I’m, I’m gonna go last this time, but your guys’ fun fact for today is, as a [00:02:00] child, did you make up any games based on movies or TV shows? 

[00:02:06] Josiah: Hey, if, if I’m allowed to go first, let me say I cringe when I remember how I made a Jedi Academy in my neighborhood and I made sure that I was the Jedi master in charge of everyone in the neighborhood.

[00:02:21] Josiah: Whether they were a padawan or a knight or a fellow master. 

[00:02:27] Tim: Mm-hmm. 

[00:02:27] Josiah: I’m just thinking of my early obsessive compulsive tendencies and control freak tendencies all coming through at the same time. And I’m Josiah the brother, son. I try not to forget of the brother, son of this group of survivors and the, my username for today is the Hackman.

[00:02:52] Josiah: Yeah. 

[00:02:54] Rebekah: You still have something about Cordy SS in there from a previous episode recording, I believe. 

[00:02:59] Donna: Oh [00:03:00] cool. How did it keep it? Mine doesn’t keep, Hmm. I don’t know. Mine does Interesting all the time. 

[00:03:06] Josiah: Interesting 

[00:03:06] Donna: cookies. Interesting. 

[00:03:07] Josiah: The flood man. 

[00:03:10] Rebekah: Awesome. Are is next, could I say? Uh, I will go next. I will also note on Josiah’s fact.

[00:03:16] Rebekah: I think that was also a nod to him being a future author because he kept copious notes in notebooks of all the people in the academy and all their grades. I mean, it was, it was quite impressive for their, for them at like 12 years old to see this listing of all this, all this categorized in a book. I thought it was pretty cool.

[00:03:39] Rebekah: But what am I, I’m a mom. 

[00:03:41] Josiah: I mean in, I’m glad they thought it was cool. 

[00:03:42] Rebekah: It’s 2025 and all I am saying is that nerds rule the world now. So yeah, like I support everything about Josiah learning all those things at an early age. ’cause it’s what’s made him a great author and it’s what will make him a great addition to a publishing house next year.

[00:03:59] Rebekah: So, [00:04:00] alright mom, you can go now. I am Donna, or today known as Chicky, the casino cashier. And I, um. We played a very silly game, a re we re, we recreated the Miss Universe pageant. Okay. And I don’t think I’ve talked about this on podcast before and it’s very embarrassing that I did this. So maybe Josiah, I guess I can, you know, I can be, be a, a little understanding of your thought.

[00:04:36] Rebekah: Um, I, I was either Miss France or sometimes, sometimes I would pick one of the other European countries, but one of my friends always wanted to be Miss Hawaii 

[00:04:56] Tim: and I, since it’s a Miss Universe pageant. 

[00:04:57] Rebekah: Yeah. But Hawaii [00:05:00] is, you know, it’s glamorous. And so, and then we had one girl in our group. And this is so horrible, but I’m gonna tell on myself, we always made her be Miss Grease because we didn’t think her hair looked clean.

[00:05:16] Rebekah: What? I’m not kidding. And I have repented. That’s so mean. I genuinely have asked God to forgive me for that. I’m not kitty, I’m not being funny about that. But I go back and go, Donna, what in the world is wrong with you? So anyway, yeah, that was the game we played, that we recreated after a TV show. 

[00:05:38] Tim: Well, when the Poseidon Adventure came out, I was 11 ish, something like that.

[00:05:45] Tim: And I remember we did play a game based on this movie. We had a, a large mimosa tree in our backyard, which we could climb. And because Hold on. 

[00:05:57] Rebekah: What is the mimosa tree? I’m sorry. [00:06:00] All I know is mimosa the drink. I know now Im, I know. Okay. I know 

[00:06:04] Tim: it’s a fast growing tree. It has very tiny green leaves on it, and it has.

[00:06:11] Tim: Um, little cotton puffs. They look kind of like makeup puffs. Uh, anyway, it’s an easy to climb tree because it usually spreads quite a ways. Um, it doesn’t grow really, really tall. We had one that was about 20 feet tall, I suppose. Uh, but it spread out and there were lots and lots of branches you could climb.

[00:06:34] Tim: And so we recreated the scene in the big ballroom when the, when the boat goes over, and we would hang from the branches until we couldn’t hang anymore, and then we would fall the 10 feet to the ground and, you know, that’s really cute. We do that over and over and over. We were excited by that. My name is Tim.

[00:06:54] Tim: I am the dad and the husband. We’re so grateful. You are [00:07:00] group of passengers? Mm-hmm. 

[00:07:03] Rebekah: Uh, so I have an alternate fun fact, alternate. Fun fact for just me. How many times do you think I thought that this was a fantasy or sci-fi novel because of something that was stated in the book? Just a wild guess. Is that for us 

[00:07:18] Tim: to 

[00:07:18] Rebekah: guess?

[00:07:19] Rebekah: Yeah. You guess for me. Five times. I had four in my head. 

[00:07:24] Josiah: 17. 

[00:07:26] Rebekah: It’s actually not that bad. The correct answer is two, because the first time when they hit whatever they hit, that caused the boat to capsize. I genuinely, the way it was described was like there was something there that wasn’t there before. As if like an alien had like, oh appeared like, like out of nowhere and that was the sci-fi part.

[00:07:47] Rebekah: Then I thought maybe there were vampires involved because at one point the lights go out and someone who smells strongly of garlic runs past all of them. And then they realize in a minute [00:08:00] it’s like, actually somebody has like abandoned the little party. But I genuinely was like, oh my gosh, is he hunting vampires and he has garlic?

[00:08:07] Rebekah: Like, that’s what, and then I was like, this is not the same book. I am reading a vampire book right now, like another one. So anyway, I am the daughter slash sister slash um. Producer and mastermind extraordinaire and, uh, I did not understand this book for briefly. So 

[00:08:27] Josiah: anyway, uh, that’s all me. What did you expect before you were reading it?

[00:08:35] Rebekah: Not fantasy or sci-fi, because I’ve seen the film and I’ve seen a long time ago, I didn’t watch it this time, but I’ve seen the 2005 like tv. Mm-hmm. Like miniseries or whatever. So I knew that it wasn’t, but I was like reading the book and like, I read almost the exclusively fantasy sci-fi things. I don’t like epic fantasy.

[00:08:53] Rebekah: But anyway, it was just, it was just a confusing thing. 

[00:08:59] Josiah: [00:09:00] Am I correct in saying there’s a 2005 TV series, mini series and a 2006 movie? 

[00:09:08] Tim: I don’t think it was 2005. Mm-hmm. Mini series. I think it was a year or two earlier than that. 

[00:09:13] Rebekah: Yeah. Okay. It is somewhere around there though, right before the remake, early 

[00:09:17] Tim: two thousands, and then 2006 was another movie remake.

[00:09:21] Rebekah: Mm. We did not specifically say we’d cover it for the podcast, but dad and I have been watching it and there’s a, it’s three parts. We’ve watched one and almost the full second part, and I will just say out there, Steve Gutenberg is uh, one of the characters and he, his wife. And his love interests are some of the worst actors I’ve ever seen in a thing before.

[00:09:48] Rebekah: They’re so bad. There’s no, it’s just really not great. It does flesh out more of the story, which is kind of fascinating that they can take it out from what the movie should do. But [00:10:00] casting is story great. We don’t have to make a big thing for this, but I do wanna say, how bizarre is it that in 2025 when you hear made for TV movie, it means it’s probably gonna be good because like Netflix and HBO and like Prime are doing like incredible TV shows, incredible movies, but it wasn’t that long ago.

[00:10:18] Rebekah: 20 years ago, made for TV meant kind of, it was trash, it was gross, low budget, bad, low budget, whatever. It’s just such an interesting, like change just in general. But alright, I don’t wanna hold us up too long. Uh, dad, why don’t you walk us through what happens in the Poseidon Adventure? 

[00:10:38] Tim: I will, and just before I say that, I’ll add to what your comment was back in the sixties when they produced Star Trek, the original series, it was an extremely expensive television show.

[00:10:51] Tim: May not seem like it now. Mm-hmm. Wow. But that’s one of the reasons I got was Modern Tech at the time, so quickly. Yep. Yep. So our plot summary, [00:11:00] picture a grand seafaring ocean liner. In the image of the Queen Mary, she’s been purchased by a consortium of profiteers who have refit her as a cargo ship with a limited pasture iner capacity so they can rush her across the ocean to the United States to be scrapped.

[00:11:19] Tim: The consortium representative has intervened numerous times to keep her on schedule. She couldn’t take on cargo before the transatlantic trip to keep her on her timeline. She’s riding high with little to no ballast subject to the rolling Seas. Her passengers suffer for the hasty actions. A rogue wave washes over her and capsizes the once majestic ship.

[00:11:43] Tim: In a classic disaster movie scene, the passengers and crew find themselves injured and confused in an upside down world in which they must travel down to the thinnest section of the hall by climbing up through the battered ship. A small [00:12:00] group of survivors enjoin the risk. While most of the living and injured passengers and crew await rescue by staying put in the grand ballroom, as the ship slowly sinks, some of the adventurers meet their deaths as they’re led by the humanistic Reverend Scott to get to the propeller shaft before the rescuers give up their efforts.

[00:12:21] Rebekah: I will say it’s also really funny to me because you are the history guy. You literally majored in history. You care about history. Yep. It’s important to you, which is fine, but I do think it’s funny that the first half of the description of what happens is just the setup that has almost nothing to do with the whole story, but I like it.

[00:12:40] Rebekah: It’s like you have to give the backstory. It’s important. 

[00:12:43] Josiah: That’s true. The first chapter matters as much as chapters two through five. 

[00:12:47] Rebekah: Yep. I think I would say usually it matters more, to be fair than chapters two through five in most books. 

[00:12:54] Josiah: You know, the movie, big sets, big stunts. I thought it was [00:13:00] an amazing set, especially for the time.

[00:13:04] Josiah: A lot of stunts happening. Mm-hmm. I, uh, think I was reading that, uh, he’s a famous stunt man, stunt coordinator, Ernie or Sadie. He initially refused his infamous 30 foot fall from the floor to the huge light during the capsizing scene. It was only after coordinator Paul Stater had his dog, then his wife do the fall.

[00:13:32] Josiah: That, or my, somebody was convinced that man was a coward. That one stunt changed. Of course, you a woman go do that 

[00:13:37] Rebekah: for you. The whole many. Oh my gosh. Isn’t this when women were con, like, wasn’t this filmed when women were still very much considered like. More delicate. 

[00:13:46] Josiah: Well, this was the same year that Roe v Wade came out, so I, I don’t think, I think we’re a little past delicate.

[00:13:53] Rebekah: I mean, it’s not written that way, but I know what you mean. That is insane 

[00:13:58] Josiah: that one stunt [00:14:00] changed the course of where Saudi’s career. But other than that, the, uh, you know, the most dangerous stunts like, or fall, the actors did most, if not all of their stunts, Ernest Borgnine was reported to say it was the most physically challenging role of his career.

[00:14:20] Tim: And Shelley Winters, uh, commented on the Johnny Carson show. We watched, uh, we watched the episode. Oh, gosh. And talking about the fact that they did most of their, their own stunts, like the underwater stuff. Mm-hmm. That was, those were not stunt doubles. 

[00:14:33] Rebekah: Yeah. I think one of the things that gets me about this film is that, like, I’m, I was reminded, I actually mentioned this in the Discord the other day as like something I wanted to talk about, but like.

[00:14:46] Rebekah: Well, a couple of things, but realism in film has changed a lot since this movie. So if you watch this on a 4K TV like I did and it’s been remastered, like you can see the [00:15:00] Overdramatized everything and there’s certain things where you’re like, oh, they clearly were like pushing themselves off of, it’s very interesting ’cause I think the two factors are realism and film has become something we’re more used to.

[00:15:11] Rebekah: And there were a lot of little elements in the movie that I was like, that doesn’t seem realistic or that doesn’t, but at the time, part of how you could get away with that is the way that it looked on a screen meant that you weren’t seeing every pixel, like you weren’t seeing every like little thing.

[00:15:27] Rebekah: And so you could get away with like some of that over dramatization almost made it more effective for the way that things were filmed. I don’t know, the whole thing was just. Really fascinating to see the differences. 

[00:15:38] Josiah: There’s a growing push in the video game world to not consume games from the eighties and nineties on Big HGTVs and try to recreate the CR TV feel where all of those very hard pixels were blended in a very smooth and exact CRTV manner.[00:16:00] 

[00:16:00] Tim: Yeah. Nice. I wonder, I wonder too if the overacting might have been the same kind of thing that you get from a magician. Uh, it’s the distraction. I want you to see this hand so you don’t see what I’m doing with this one. Um, so you overact so you don’t see the things that we had the ropes over there or the, you know, the place that we were supposed to not step on, but we did step on it.

[00:16:28] Tim: Yeah, yeah, 

[00:16:29] Rebekah: yeah. Um, I also would note here. That this was the second, uh, disaster film in that genre. And the first one was just a year or so before when, uh, airport came out and it, which I’ve never seen. Yeah, it was such a, I mean, kind of like, uh, covering Jaws, uh, being the big summer movie Blockbuster. I think it’s interesting when we go back [00:17:00] and look at these movies that we’ve heard about forever, and then they go, oh, it was the first of its kind.

[00:17:06] Rebekah: Um, but yeah, airport and then Poseidon Adventure and, and they were, we might see them now as kind of almost campy or kind of, I don’t wanna say silly, because they weren’t, but then they were, they were huge successes in, in film. Um. This movie, uh, this came out, I’ll cover it more in trivia, but it came out in December of 72.

[00:17:33] Rebekah: It was the biggest money maker in 1973. So, you know, it, it held its own out there. Um, and it, it’s, this genre really resonated with the audience, so, love it. 

[00:17:47] Tim: The 1970s were filled with disaster films. Uh, there were three, uh, four, I think of the airport films, the earthquake, all [00:18:00] quite a few, uh, in the 1970s on into the early eighties.

[00:18:05] Rebekah: I think it, it speaks to how filmmaking works. It’s like we’re in the midst of when like superhero movies are kind of like, uh, is this a thing that we want to keep doing? But there are things that become big deals, like mm-hmm. Not trope wise Exactly. But um. I think it’s just an interesting part of the film ministry.

[00:18:24] Josiah: And do you know what largely killed the disaster film genre? No. 2012 airplane. Ah, the spoof. Oh, the comedy. Yes. In a way that Blazing saddles. Oh, after Blazing Saddles made fun of westerns. You didn’t really have many westerns. Yeah, 

[00:18:43] Tim: that is interesting because there is a spoof of every type of film genre at some point or another.

[00:18:52] Tim: And if, if those are the ones that’s like, this kind of closes down that, that’s interesting. 

[00:18:58] Rebekah: Yeah. All right. Well [00:19:00] let’s get into differences. Uh, in this film, we’re actually gonna do these, uh, slightly outta order from our norm. We’re gonna start with setting, then we’re gonna talk about the characters and then we’ll get into the plot.

[00:19:12] Rebekah: Um. As we get into characters, we’ll also tell you about several people that were like added or removed from, uh, the book. So Josiah wanna kick us off with setting changes. 

[00:19:25] Josiah: Yeah. Not many setting changes, but there were some minor changes to the journey, uh, through the ship that the main characters take.

[00:19:33] Josiah: This is possibly one of the closest setting book to film we’ve covered. It’s on the Poseidon, it’s upside down. They are trying to get to the part of the ship where the hull is the thinnest at one inch instead of two inch steel. Uh, there, there’s the Broadway is still there. A uh, the Christmas tree in the dining room.

[00:19:55] Josiah: There’s a lot of setting from the book [00:20:00] that were translated to the movie. It’s probably the most faithful part of the book to movie adaptation is the setting. Yeah. 

[00:20:07] Rebekah: Nice. One of the fa one of my favorite parts in that, the one to two inch steel. I thought it was real, I thought it was pretty cool through the, out most, the beginning as, as the movie went on, Robin, the little boy became more, they believed him a little more, but he had to prove himself.

[00:20:26] Rebekah: And I thought, I really thought it was kind of, you know, crude, oh, Ernest Bodine’s, like little kid, what do you know? And Robin would be like, no, I do, I’ve studied this, da da da da. So I thought that was an interesting little addition to the plot that flesh out the characters. Well, anyways, you know, minor thing.

[00:20:44] Rebekah: But was waiting still, I was waiting for that. I was waiting for that in the book. Like, I kept thinking, ’cause I wa I like watched the movie while I was partway through the book. And so I do think that that was one good change. I know it’s like more of a character change. Yeah. But it really had to do a lot with the setting [00:21:00] where he, I feel like he was Josiah, you would know the terms, but he was like one of those.

[00:21:04] Rebekah: The person in the book that’s like, kind of using the plot to explain the setting to like explain the actual functions of the physical items and all that. So I dunno. Interesting living 

[00:21:15] Josiah: ex living exposition. 

[00:21:17] Rebekah: Yeah. Oh, uh, one other small setting change. That was weird for me. The book notes that the Christmas tree in the big ballroom dining room was a real tree.

[00:21:31] Rebekah: Why would you put a real, I guess you do, you can, it’s not that it’s against fall, it’s more 20 feet tall. Yeah. But in the film, the tree was artificial made of, uh, it was a metal, composed of metal and, you know, um, so I just thought it was, I don’t know why I even noted it, but just the fact that why is it, why would you put a real tree on a cruise ship?

[00:21:56] Rebekah: I guess I need to look the next time we get on a cruise and see. Yeah. [00:22:00] 

[00:22:00] Tim: Okay. I have a tiny little piece to add to that. Do you? You’ve seen the silver Christmas treats. Those have kind of come back into vogue at times. This. Era. Just the, the last, uh, or the first couple of years of the seventies was the introduction of those artificial metallic trees.

[00:22:24] Tim: And that’s the kind of tree, it’s, you know, obviously a little different. That’s the type of tree they use, onboard the ship instead of what would’ve been a real tree or something that was supposed to look like a real tree, 

[00:22:37] Rebekah: which is kind of fun pop culture wise, because the book was released in 69, but the film was released just, it was only like three, four years later after he would’ve been like writing it.

[00:22:48] Rebekah: You know what I mean? And so it’s interesting that just in that amount of time. Something changed in culture, the way that we enjoyed our trees or whatever. So I 

[00:22:56] Tim: like that. Yeah. Alright. Characterization is probably where we get the [00:23:00] most changes. Um, in the novel. The main character is Reverend Frank Buzz Scott.

[00:23:07] Tim: Uh, in the film he’s simply Reverend Frank Scott. Uh, the novel emphasizes Scott’s inner turmoil and explicit rejection of traditional faith. While the film presents him as a more heroic action oriented leader, uh, with less overt religious critique to a point, um, he’s still very humanistic in his God helps those who help themselves kind of attitude.

[00:23:36] Rebekah: Um, am I mistaken? The book also emphasizes his like. He used to be like a football player, right? Or something. He was a football player. That’s like, it’s a big part of his character. And so then in the film I was watching and I was like, he seems a little older than the one in the book. Like, you know, at, even at that point.

[00:23:55] Rebekah: And so they kind of take out that background where they, they talk, there’s like [00:24:00] some kind of murmurings about the fact that he tried to apply his like, sports knowledge to the way that he would like preach. And so I thought that was a really kind of interesting little thing 

[00:24:11] Tim: and to his leadership as they’re traveling to, to get to the end, you know, they’re looking for the goal, looking for a way to get through and, and some of the characters make comments about the fact, oh, that’s because he was the football player.

[00:24:24] Tim: He’s doing this and he’s doing that. So 

[00:24:27] Rebekah: is this a decent place to say, um, I’ve seen this movie before, but to watch the movie again and see his tirade at the end. Where he like screams and curses at God. I was just sitting there going, this is real. I don’t remember the last time I watched this thinking how hard core this is.

[00:24:52] Rebekah: Yeah, I think we mentioned it later in the plot stuff, but I, I do think that Josh looked at me and was like, [00:25:00] your dad likes this movie. And I was like, I think so. He goes, he just, he what? He was a little confused. So 

[00:25:07] Tim: he’s, he’s worse in the book. I had never read the book. Oh yeah. Until recently. So yeah. He’s worse in the book.

[00:25:15] Josiah: He was an odd character for me. I guess I’ll wait ’cause it has to do with the end of the film. My gripe with this character. But, uh, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll save that for later when we talk about other stuff. But, uh, gene Hackman portrays Reverend Frank Scott, fresh off the success, the Oscar winning success of his role in the French connection, which I’ve never seen.

[00:25:40] Josiah: I think it’s about time that I watch it in honor of his recent death. Gene Hackman died earlier this year in 2025, at the age of 98, and I have some Oscars trivia for you. He was the, um, longest to go living [00:26:00] Oscar winner for best actor. 

[00:26:03] Tim: Oh, wow. He was the, the oldest. He lived the longest, 

[00:26:07] Josiah: you know, I think he was the oldest, but, but specifically what I’m thinking of is that.

[00:26:13] Josiah: His Oscar win was longest to go, and he’s still Oh, oh, he’s the longest to go. Still living one. Mm-hmm. Gotcha. So who is the new record holder for Longest to Go? Best actor winner. That’s still alive. 

[00:26:28] Tim: Oh, wow. Um, 

[00:26:29] Josiah: he is famous still to this day. 

[00:26:35] Tim: Would it be, would it be the Gladiator actor? 

[00:26:39] Josiah: It is older than that.

[00:26:40] Josiah: Oh, okay. 

[00:26:41] Rebekah: Tom Hanks. Ronald Reagan. Is Ronald Reagan still alive? He was an actor, right? Well, he died 

[00:26:45] Josiah: 21 years ago. Okay. Well, I, his will that 

[00:26:50] Rebekah: I, that’s the only reason I remembered his name. Not, not Tom Hanks. Tom’s still not that old. Old, no. Older 

[00:26:57] Josiah: than that. So, so Gene Hackman’s [00:27:00] French Connection was 71. So.

[00:27:03] Josiah: I’ll, I’ll say in the sixties, it was like, these older actors keep getting the best actor and then as soon as the seventies hit, we start getting, uh, younger actors who, yeah, yeah. After I think, um, now the newest one is Jack Nicholson for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Oh, gotcha. And he’s, I should’ve thought of that old, but he’s not, not, I don’t think he’s 98.

[00:27:26] Josiah: I think he might not even be 90 yet. I think there’s a lot of actors from the seventies who were winning, best actor who are still alive and might have another 10 or 20 years left in him. 

[00:27:37] Donna: Wow. Yeah. 

[00:27:40] Rebekah: Well, speaking of someone, I don’t know how to segue ’cause I don’t like this guy. Uh, speaking of Mike Rogo, who I dislike this thing, um, the film.

[00:27:53] Rebekah: This is the nicest possible way that anyone could word this, so I’m just gonna try. The film adds depth Toro’s relationship [00:28:00] with Linda emphasizing their love despite bickering and makes him less of a follower in the novel where he’s more of a reluctant participant. Um, they give him some more agency after Scott’s death.

[00:28:12] Rebekah: Rogo is the leader for the remaining five minutes of the film, and I will mention more about the relationship between him and Linda later in our notes. 

[00:28:23] Tim: Well, while the Union of Mike and Linda Rogo may seem odd. There was an inspector in the San Francisco PD who married a prostitute that he had arrested some eight months earlier.

[00:28:36] Tim: The Associated Press reported in an article dated November 17th, 1954 titled Elopes With Witnesses, but they said no vial regulations were violated and the inspector was legally permitted to live his own life as he chose. So the Rogo character actually has a real counterpart [00:29:00] in real life. 

[00:29:01] Rebekah: Out of curiosity, was his character based on this, or did we just find this out out of nowhere?

[00:29:07] Rebekah: And it seems this vaguely related to, 

[00:29:10] Tim: I kinda wonder if he, this was 10 years before the movie was written or before the novel was written. 

[00:29:16] Rebekah: Yeah. How much did Gallagher research? Who knows? I mean, the, there’s some other pieces and parts of the trivia that. Suggest. I mean, he did look in it to several historical things, but who knows?

[00:29:27] Rebekah: I mean, you know, it’s San Francisco, whatever. 

[00:29:31] Josiah: But isn’t this more in the movie than in the book or did I just miss it in the book? 

[00:29:36] Tim: What part of it? Their relationship. 

[00:29:38] Josiah: Relationship. 

[00:29:40] Tim: Well, it’s uh, there’s a little bit more about, about Linda, but their relationship is a very troubled relationship. But yeah, he was a detective and she was a less than savory person in both the film and the movie.

[00:29:58] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:29:59] Rebekah: I don’t think they [00:30:00] said she was a prostitute. Right. We that hers, she’s a little different. Right. Um, I will just say. Dad, I want, I believe that it is an era that is a lost, like a, a a, a lost thing of times past that you can so diplomatically describe them in these ways without making them sound like horrible monsters.

[00:30:24] Rebekah: And I’m just really impressed ’cause people my age are like, that guy sucked. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you’re just so able to be like, well, and like it sounds professional and I’m just, I miss that in some culture, you know, modern culture. Anyway, continue. I lived through these years, so. Yeah. But Rebecca, you said that you, you didn’t like Mike’s character.

[00:30:46] Rebekah: I thought Mike was who he was because he married a horrible witchy woman. And so I talking, talking about in the book, 

[00:30:54] Donna: but I wanna get that to that thing in the plot timeline. Gotcha. 

[00:30:58] Rebekah: Well we, moving on. Moving [00:31:00] on to Mike’s. Lovely. Even somewhat questionably background wife, Linda Rogo. The film takes Linda’s flirtation with Scott.

[00:31:13] Rebekah: It, it kind of removes her flirtation in the book. That was so, uh, it was a lot more pronounced in the book. They spent a lot more time on it and gives they, then they also give her a less gruesome death in the film. So I, I will give Linda a a little bit of a break here because there’s a great description where Mike goes into this.

[00:31:40] Rebekah: I mean, he’s justifying her and trying to defend her. I, I know that is, and it, and it is a very har, a very kind of gallant thing he does, but he does tell them, look. She grew up in a horrible home. Her dad, uh, uh, her, her mother was also had, was a prostitute. Her dad [00:32:00] ended up using her at a young age, and she was like tortured and went through all these horrible, uh, went through a horrible traumatic childhood.

[00:32:10] Rebekah: And when he found her, he just, he knew this and was aware of it, and it kind of just increased his love for her and he wanted to rescue her, so try to look over her saltiness, that kind of thing. And I, I mean, I, I get that and I thought it was a cool part to, to, I thought it was a, a, a good character development to be able to see there.

[00:32:35] Rebekah: It’s kinda like you get all the way to the very end of Harry Potter and you see who Snape was. It’s that kind of thing that you’ve, that conflicted character and Oh, oh yeah, there’s, there was a life. There was a past, so. 

[00:32:50] Josiah: Well, there was also Bell Rosen talking about if you need a compassionate character, I would say, here’s the [00:33:00] heart of the film, the heart of the book as well.

[00:33:03] Josiah: But I think that her role is much improved in the film. She is a Jewish woman who, uh, has a background, a backstory as a swimmer, I believe in the book, she has a background. Am I wrong in like Olympic swimming? Is that insane? It’s somehow sound, right? Somehow, but somehow, but in the book, it’s more like she’s a local swimming hero.

[00:33:34] Josiah: I, I 

[00:33:34] Tim: think in the book she was, she was part of a local swim club, but in the film it’s, she won awards, but I, I don’t think it was an Olympic type thing, but she did win awards. Uh, in the film. I thought in the book, I, 

[00:33:49] Josiah: I remember her having even more swim credentials, but I, I don’t know. Uh, so she has swim credentials, but she’s an overweight lady with her husband, [00:34:00] uh, Manny on this cruise, the film gives Bell an even more heroic moment before her more dramatic death.

[00:34:14] Josiah: The, the novel Bell does swim to help the survivors do something to con commence towards their rescue. And then later, right before the final rescue actually happens, she dies of a heart attack. And I think the main character at that point is Mr. Martin. I wanna say, uh, maybe it’s Rogo, but I think it’s Martin who comments that he’ll never forget her eyes were open after she died, and that those eyes open eyes will haunt her.

[00:34:49] Josiah: Whereas in the film, just to finish saying that she specifically swims to save Reverend Scott’s life, which then [00:35:00] saves everyone’s life and right after pushing herself to swim to save the lives, that’s when she has a heart attack and dies. 

[00:35:10] Rebekah: This is where some of the realism maybe comes in, or maybe just some things that are not as like, I don’t connect with as much or like have trouble suspending my disbelief.

[00:35:19] Rebekah: Um, I’m sorry. Mrs. Rosen in the film does not die of a heart attack. She dies of something else because she grabs. Her stomach. Josh was like, what’s happening to her? I, I said, I think she’s having a heart attack. He goes, she’s not having a heart attack. She’s not grabbing anything near her heart. She doesn’t look like her heart’s in pain at all.

[00:35:39] Rebekah: Like, and he was like, did her appendix burst? And you can’t actually die that fast from an appendix bursting. But it was just funny because I think, again, when you’re not looking at it in like 4K, like it probably looks like she’s grabbing her heart. And in the book, obviously she does die of a heart attack.

[00:35:57] Rebekah: But I do think it was really [00:36:00] interesting like that it was, it looked like she was dying of, of something else. I, I wouldn’t agree, disagree with that. Yeah, 

[00:36:08] Tim: I would have said that. What I think I noticed was when she, when she started feeling the heart attack, she was still pushing herself up out of the water.

[00:36:20] Tim: So she was holding onto the girder, so her hands were near her, near her abdomen when she started having a heart attack. But, um, I don’t remember her grabbing anything other than trying to push herself up ’cause she fell back into the water and he had to pull her back out. So, yeah, 

[00:36:36] Rebekah: I mean, she does, once she’s like laying there, she goes, oh.

[00:36:39] Rebekah: And like, grabs like down on her belly. Like, it was actually kind of odd. But the, uh, I also, I understand probably why the movie did it this way. ’cause I think that they, in the film, like Scott was with her alone and it was like, it kind of played into his like humanistic, like he was angry with [00:37:00] God or whatever.

[00:37:00] Rebekah: Like, because he wanted to save her and he felt like it was his fault that she died because he got trapped and all of this other stuff was going on. I think that the, the books thing makes Mrs. Rosen more heroic, if that makes or not more heroic. I thought it was more emotionally charged in the book where she dies right at the last second.

[00:37:23] Rebekah: Like she makes it through all this stuff. They think they like the rescuers. Are there. And then she’s dead by the time that they get into her. And the the medic is like, I’m sorry. Like, she’s already gone. By the time they can open things up, like open the hole up. I think in the film it was, let’s give Scott like more of motivation for like what he’s angry about.

[00:37:44] Rebekah: So I felt like it kind of took a little bit away, in my opinion, from the emotional charge of her death. But maybe that’s just me. 

[00:37:52] Tim: I thought that her death in the novel was a very ignoble death. She, she did this great thing and [00:38:00] then they kept going and she kept getting weaker and then they’re at the end and her death is almost, oh, I looked at, oh, she’s dead now.

[00:38:09] Tim: I thought it was a less dramatic death. So I guess we did see that a little differently. 

[00:38:14] Josiah: Yeah, I can see what you’re talking about, Rebecca, that it’s just in the nick of time, it’s, it’s almost sadder that she almost made it. But for me, the sacrifice she made that Reverend Scott and therefore everyone would’ve died without her movie counterpart doing the swim and it costing her everything.

[00:38:36] Josiah: I mean, it’s hard, it’s hard to beat my experience. I was weeping for 30 minutes, uh, when that happened and thereafter. 

[00:38:45] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:38:46] Josiah: And I thought that with Josh not understanding why dad likes the film, I’m like, he doesn’t like it ’cause of the pastor. He likes it. ’cause of Bell Rosen. I bet. Yeah. That’s, 

[00:38:59] Tim: yeah. She’s, [00:39:00] she is my favorite character.

[00:39:01] Tim: She’s, 

[00:39:01] Josiah: she’s the Smeal. Yeah. She is the 

[00:39:04] Rebekah: character. I think we’re all supposed to love. Mm-hmm. 

[00:39:07] Josiah: So got a, she got a Golden Globe for this performance. Yeah. 

[00:39:10] Rebekah: So to kinda tie into Josiah’s earlier comment about them doing their own stunts, both Hackman and Winters worked with professional scuba divers to like hold their learn to hold their breaths for extended times.

[00:39:27] Rebekah: And you know, we thought Tom Cruise was the first to do that in one of the Mission Impossible movies, but apparently it was happening in, there were scuba divers in 1972. Go figure. Um, she could hold her breath for almost five minutes at a time. Her swim time on film was only like a minute, 13 seconds. And Hackman was under for like three minutes and, and eight seconds.

[00:39:53] Rebekah: Um, but they learned to even go beyond that. And when, uh, [00:40:00] during filming they had like a little fight because. She, part of this was her, uh, they, they’ve talked about this in interviews where they would go back and forth with each other and pick at each other, but they had a little fight because she kept removing these items, floating and trying to get stuff outta the way before she freed Hackman.

[00:40:21] Rebekah: And he teased, he joked with her afterwards, was like, were you trying to drown me? And if, if you’re a YouTube watcher, if you go out and just look for things like this, there are some, a couple of great interviews. One is with the Shelly Winters on the Johnny Carson Show and Gene Hackman on the Carson Show.

[00:40:40] Rebekah: And then there’s one with, uh, Shelly Winters on, uh, Conan O’Brien. And he was young. It was, it was when he was first getting started, I think. But uh, in the one with Conan O’Brien, she actually holds her breath. She’s like, Tommy, she goes, no, he’s, he’s like, try it. Just show us what you can do. [00:41:00] She was like, I, I haven’t prepared, I haven’t done this for a long time.

[00:41:04] Rebekah: And she sat there and held her breath. They set a timer on her for like a minute and 30 seconds and she had had no preparation time. So that in itself was pretty significant. ’cause it, it was a number of years after the film, but I just thought this was a wild piece of trivia to note because not only did they train to do this, she had to, she picked up 35 pounds to do this role.

[00:41:30] Rebekah: She was not a heavy woman before this. And so to do that and then do this training and learn all that, I thought was really a pretty cool thing. And as we’ll note later, uh, she said she never was able to get the rest of the weight off. Like she couldn’t lose all of it. Um, I was gonna, okay, lightning round trivia or not trivia.

[00:41:50] Rebekah: Lightning round survey. Raise your hand if when characters go underwater holding their breath in movies, you also hold your breath. Immediately. Okay, good. A hundred [00:42:00] percent. Okay. Mm-hmm. Great. We can move on now tunnels too, if, if people go through tunnels or whatever. Yeah. 

[00:42:06] Tim: Yep. Um, it, they made comments, quite a few comments in their interviews about the fact that, uh, producers and things were getting less and less, uh, okay.

[00:42:18] Tim: With them doing their own stunts. So their era was the ending of that until, uh, later years. Well, Manny Rosen is also in the novel in the film. The film expands his emotional role. Uh, especially after his wife Bell’s death. So that’s, uh, that’s a little change from the novel. He’s kind of, because she doesn’t die until the very last moment, uh, in the novel, he doesn’t have as much time for that.

[00:42:50] Rebekah: Yeah. Uh, two characters, uh, from the book, James Martin and Hubert Mueller, uh, were combined in the film. Uh, [00:43:00] red Buttons. Is that what they call ’em in the film? That’s his, no, that’s name. Oh, 

[00:43:05] Josiah: that’s the name. That’s a 

[00:43:05] Rebekah: name. 

[00:43:06] Josiah: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I was, I was watching videos talking about, oh, yeah, red, like, uh, funny actors, like Red Buttons.

[00:43:14] Josiah: I’m like, it was character. Who are you talking about? Mm-hmm. 

[00:43:18] Rebekah: Um, so Red Buttons adds a moral compass to the main group, and his book version is the new leader after Scott’s death. And I think they combined him into Mueller in the movie, right? Yeah. His name was Mueller in the movie. I think it’s, it was Martin.

[00:43:33] Rebekah: It was Martin. It was the movie. 

[00:43:33] Tim: Mueller was only in the novel. Oh, brain. But both of them were in the novel. 

[00:43:39] Rebekah: Right? They combine them to create one character for the film, which I think overall, and we’ve, you know, we’re kind of in the midst of talking about this. I think overall it’s interesting how I finished, like when you finished the book.

[00:43:53] Rebekah: It’s like they, the rescuers are like, how many of you are left? Right? And some of them have obviously died and they’re like 11. And when you finish the [00:44:00] film they’re like, how many of you’re left? They’re like six. Like it’s so much. So few people are remaining. And so I do think from a film perspective, obviously I like that, but it makes it a lot simpler and easier to follow.

[00:44:14] Rebekah: It was very confusing reading the book and watching them film like kind of simultaneously, because I kept getting confused about like who in the film, in the book was this and the like. Honestly in the book there, I think there were too many characters. Like I had trouble keeping them straight, even in the book, forgetting the movie at all.

[00:44:33] Rebekah: But anyway. 

[00:44:34] Tim: Well, Mueller Miller, you know, that didn’t help either. Mueller 

[00:44:39] Rebekah: Miller, Martin. Yeah. 

[00:44:41] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:44:42] Rebekah: So. The character that goes along with the Martin character or the character that goes along with Martin’s part is Nani. He kind of, uh. His compassion draws her, him to her. Because in the film, uh, [00:45:00] in the film, you know, she’s distraught because her brother’s killed in the, in the crash, in the capsizing, and he reaches out to her and Nani like, she just drove me insane every time.

[00:45:14] Rebekah: I’m like, this is why women fought for different kinds of roles for women in movies because Nani is like the absolute utter definition of a helpless damsel in distress. But like, it felt like it was just to an extreme. I 

[00:45:27] Josiah: would’ve liked Nani better if she had sung at the end to come or somewhere near the end to comfort everyone.

[00:45:35] Josiah: And she would’ve had a purpose. It would’ve made sense. Oh, that I love that idea. That would’ve been nice. Yeah, I didn’t do that. Yeah, 

[00:45:41] Rebekah: she didn’t have a purpose. I think that was my problem with her. She was just a burden for them to keep going, but she was an adult, like the children were less of a burden than this adult woman.

[00:45:53] Josiah: Because Martin could have been a parent, uh, sort of encourager towards the children, and it would’ve made you [00:46:00] endeared toward him without the annoying Nani. 

[00:46:04] Donna: Yeah. 

[00:46:04] Tim: Yeah. I would say she’s, she’s always been an annoying character to me, unlike the okay. Really overweight woman that they have to help, or the children that they have to help, or for a while, acres who’s injured, they have to help.

[00:46:20] Tim: Nani is fully capable. She’s just emotionally damaged. So yeah, it was, it was a strange one. 

[00:46:29] Rebekah: Okay. So let’s talk about the Shelby family. We will get into the parents in a minute, but in the film, she doesn’t have parents there. Uh, with her. Um, also in the film, she just, she loves Reverend Scott. She sees him as like a father figure, clings to him, but there’s not a whole lot else that she kind of contributes other than being another damns in distress.

[00:46:52] Rebekah: In the book, there is, and this is a content warning for you, um, there’s a sexual assault like [00:47:00] subplot where as they’re attempting their escape after the emergency lights go off, they’re plunged into total darkness. Uh, she is assaulted by one of the members of the crew that is like supposedly helping them get out because the crew member believes that to be a stewardess, which to him, like another member of the crew, which to him he would.

[00:47:21] Rebekah: Fine, fine. Um, and it’s very just alarming. It’s, it’s abrupt comes out of kind of nowhere and then as they are like leaving and have been rescued, Susan of the book kind of reflects that. She hopes the assailant’s baby is growing inside of her to give him a legacy after his death because he died before the rescue occurred.

[00:47:41] Rebekah: So the movie doesn’t include any of that. Yeah. Honestly, thank God. 

[00:47:45] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:47:46] Josiah: Yeah. 

[00:47:47] Tim: Great thing to drop. 

[00:47:50] Josiah: Well in the book and film, Robin is a boy and the brother to Susan. Robin [00:48:00] has a navigational role in the film because he’s kind of a boat nerd and he has hung out with different people on the crew, including the captain at the beginning of the novel.

[00:48:13] Josiah: Plus he actually survives to the end of the film. 

[00:48:15] Rebekah: Woo-hoo. Robin is two boats as Sheldon is two trains. And flags. Yes. And flags, 

[00:48:23] Josiah: uh, in the novel. Robin is lost when the ship’s emergency lighting goes out and a bunch of people freak out stampeding and trampling and scattering about, uh, the group spends time looking for Robin as well as a few other people who are missing.

[00:48:39] Josiah: I think they end up finding the other people who are missing. Uh, one, one of them I think they find immediately and two more they find when they’re being rescued that they also were rescued through a different route. Um, 

[00:48:51] Tim: the drunk man in his companion, 

[00:48:54] Josiah: yeah. To Tony maybe, maybe. But, uh, [00:49:00] his mom, who is not in the film even asks the rescuers at the very end if they found a boy, if they found her son, and they check and they’re like, no, there is not a single young boy that survived this wreck.

[00:49:15] Josiah: And Robin is lost forever. 

[00:49:18] Rebekah: They do recreate a small part of this in the film where Robin has gone to the restroom as all of the crew members are kind of waiting for Reverend Scott to come back from the next area where he has to dive underwater. But, uh, Susan just kind of gets on Robin’s case ’cause when they find him, he’s like, I, I had to go.

[00:49:35] Rebekah: You know? And so it’s just a potty break. So about Robin, another kind of a societal thing that changes over years. It is an odd for in today, I would say. I don’t know any males named Robin today, but then we do have Robin Hood, who’s a famous movie and book character that was a guy. So [00:50:00] it’s one of those interesting things where names kind of ebb and flow to just like some of the other stuff we’ve talked about, terms and words that we use, descriptive words or whatever.

[00:50:10] Rebekah: But you’re right, every time I think Robin, I’m like, oh yeah, he’s a, he is a little boy. He’s a little boy. And in the television, uh, made for movie, made for tv movie that dad and I are watching. Robin has a video camera with him and he’s filming everything and it’s a, it gets into all kinds of parts of the plot, but that’s kind of a little addition that you can do because they move the time forward when he could carry a little handhold and, and it is kind of interesting because.

[00:50:43] Rebekah: Uh, they, they used him in several different ways filming for the thing. So I thought that was interesting that they switched that around 

[00:50:52] Josiah: Batman 

[00:50:52] Tim: and, 

[00:50:54] Rebekah: mm-hmm. 

[00:50:54] Tim: Oh yeah. 

[00:50:55] Rebekah: It’s, yeah. 

[00:50:55] Tim: Robin, has anybody ever heard of Robin Williams? No. [00:51:00] 

[00:51:01] Rebekah: Yeah, but he, he’s dead, honey. It doesn’t count now. 

[00:51:04] Tim: Yes. But he was an adult male actor.

[00:51:07] Tim: Mm-hmm. 

[00:51:08] Donna: Moving ride along. No, 

[00:51:10] Josiah: I, I do wanna say that Robin, as a child character in a disaster film, there’s a, a lost art to children in disaster films where they’re so, they’re all in distress. They need rescuing, they’re useless. And Robin’s like the one who confirms where they need to go. You know, he confirms that Broadway, uh, has access to the engine room.

[00:51:36] Josiah: He has those two very important navigational. Plot points instead of just being a useless thing to protect. 

[00:51:43] Tim: For sure. There are some, 

[00:51:44] Rebekah: yes, they put Nani in as that. 

[00:51:47] Tim: There are some characters that, that don’t make it into the film. Um, and Robin actually takes the place of some of those because some of the crew members that [00:52:00] join the party in the novel, um, provide that, you know, this hallway gets to this place and all that.

[00:52:07] Tim: Mm-hmm. But because Robin is precocious and all of those kinds of things, they use him for that. And so they can drop some of those other characters. Another couple of characters that are dropped are his parents, uh, Dick and Jane Seriously. Dick and Jane Shelby. Yeah, that was when I was growing up. Dick and Jane were some of the first books that you read, Dick and Jane.

[00:52:35] Tim: Their dog spot. Okay. So this was, you know, Dick and Jane, Shelby, Susan and Robin’s parents in the novel, they survive, but they’re grieving the loss of their son. Uh, they’re omitted from the film and the kids are by themselves on the Poseidon, although they do receive, uh, uh, an email or something [00:53:00] from their parents, I guess.

[00:53:01] Tim: Definitely not an email, but what was it? It was Wire. A Wire. Okay. That’s what it was. Um, sorry, you grew up during this 

[00:53:08] Rebekah: time, Tim? Yeah. Maybe Mors code. I’ve watched, 

[00:53:10] Tim: I’ve watched all three versions of this film, you know, and so 

[00:53:15] Rebekah: you’re committed. I appreciate it. Yeah.

[00:53:19] Josiah: Well, you know, who is in both film and novel and he has a very similar role. Okay. Captain Harrison. Mm-hmm. 

[00:53:31] Donna: Yep. 

[00:53:31] Josiah: Could not believe that Leslie Nelson was in this me 

[00:53:34] Donna: so much. Oh yeah. 

[00:53:36] Josiah: Yeah. He dies in both initial waves that mm-hmm. Assaults the Poseidon. 

[00:53:41] Tim: Mm-hmm. 

[00:53:41] Josiah: Film Harrison has a touching moment with the kid Robin, welcoming him to the helm at the protests of other crew men.

[00:53:49] Josiah: And it’s a very sweet, it’s, it’s contributes to Robin knowing about the navigation of the ship, but also it humanizes Captain [00:54:00] Harrison. So you’re sad, uh, at some of the people who are dying in the disaster, cannot believe that Leslie Nielsen is in the mother of all disaster films and then he helmed airplane.

[00:54:14] Josiah: I can only imagine if you were alive at the time, how great that would’ve been 

[00:54:18] Tim: and the Naked gun films, which were also parodies of, of another genre. 

[00:54:24] Rebekah: Yeah. Uh, I mean, he made, he’s such a pivotal part of it. In Naked Gun 33 and a half with Leanne Neeson. He even gets a photo cred. 

[00:54:34] Tim: Yep. Does anyone know the name of the captain in the mini series?

[00:54:42] Rebekah: I’ve heard it. That means that he was renamed, 

[00:54:45] Tim: he was renamed. Captain Nielsen 

[00:54:50] Rebekah: Underpants, 

[00:54:50] Tim: captain Gallico, he was named, yeah, the comedy after the author of the, of the novel. Oh, that’s cool. Yeah. Pretty 

[00:54:56] Rebekah: sweet. Uh, yeah. This confused me because I [00:55:00] saw Harrison and I was like, this isn’t a comedy, but I had airplane in my head and I saw him and I was like, wait.

[00:55:07] Rebekah: Anyway, for those of you who don’t know who are maybe a little younger, airplane is a comedy disaster movie. It’s kind of like the scary movie of disaster movies in the seventies ish. Uh, another character we see that’s different is Acres. The steward who is condensed with Peter, the steward in the film.

[00:55:28] Rebekah: Think that’s right, Peter in the film, right? Sorry? 

[00:55:30] Josiah: Acres in the film. 

[00:55:32] Rebekah: Oh, it’s Acres in the film. And Peter’s in the book. Are they both Peter and Acres? Both. Both of them are there. And is this the guy that in the book can’t speak English? 

[00:55:42] Tim: No, that’s the term. No, that’s the other guy. 

[00:55:44] Rebekah: The, yeah. Okay. I got you.

[00:55:46] Rebekah: Sorry. I never like, I felt like once we got to some of those side characters, I started to get really lost in all of that in the book. So, so Akers was portrayed by the famous Roddy McDowell. Well, [00:56:00] famous to me anyway. What have we covered on this? What is, so what else have we covered on the podcast that starred Roddy McDowell and I will give you a clue.

[00:56:11] Rebekah: He did not look like himself. He was in makeup, heavy hours long to put on Makeup 

[00:56:18] Donna: Planet of the Apes. 

[00:56:20] Josiah: Planet of the Apes, I bet Planted the apes. She 

[00:56:22] Donna: got it. 

[00:56:23] Rebekah: Yep. He was the, 

[00:56:24] Donna: yeah, I just, it was the make comment. 

[00:56:25] Rebekah: I cheated. I only knew because of your hint. Yeah. She 

[00:56:29] Tim: overed you. What is he implanted? 

[00:56:30] Rebekah: The apes. He is the per, he is he and zero.

[00:56:35] Rebekah: Are engaged and they’re the ones that take on Charlton Heston. And he’s Cornelius. He’s Cornelius, yeah. But I’m really proud of myself. This is why I am the coolest, I 

[00:56:47] Tim: guess, Uhhuh, he actually has a role in all of the films. He, his character mm-hmm. Technically technical in a Dies in the, uh, the third film.[00:57:00] 

[00:57:00] Tim: Uh, but he also plays his son in the next film. Yeah. So he’s crazy. He’s he’s in the first four Yeah. Movies. And he has a bit part in, uh, the television series, the Plan of The Apes. 

[00:57:14] Rebekah: It’s crazy. He’s a great guy. Or was, I think he’s gone, I think he’s passed away 

[00:57:19] Josiah: probably. 

[00:57:20] Tim: Mm-hmm. 

[00:57:20] Josiah: Uh, you can say that he was Cornelius, Rebecca has memorized all the Planet of the Apes characters, 

[00:57:26] Rebekah: right?

[00:57:26] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. I vaguely knew what you meant. She thought this was fantasy sci-fi, a vampire movie. And a spoof on the genre as well. So I think she’s gonna making it going for a record here. I think it’s great. 

[00:57:43] Josiah: You know what else needs to be discussed? 

[00:57:46] Rebekah: Hmm. How about some folks that Mary Zale we didn’t see on film?

[00:57:51] Josiah: No. Only in the book, Mary Za is an English librarian who, as far as I can tell, [00:58:00] only is revealed to love Reverend Scott After Reverend Scott dies. 

[00:58:06] Tim: Yes. 

[00:58:08] Josiah: Okay. That’s what I thought. Can’t stop crying. So after the reverend, after the Reverend dies, she announces they were gonna get married when the Poseidon, uh, embarked disembarked when the, it’s dropped anchor there and, and some of the other characters literally think, I don’t know it.

[00:58:30] Josiah: Is she insane? Is that true? I dunno that. I believe that. 

[00:58:35] Tim: Mm-hmm. 

[00:58:36] Josiah: Yeah. She doesn’t matter. Her traits are partially absorbed by Susan. Um, yeah. In the film, the kid, Susan is very attached to Reverend Scott. Mm-hmm. In like, oh, very. In a, in a fatherly way. Not in a romantic way. It’s okay. 

[00:58:50] Rebekah: I’m sorry. It’s awkward.

[00:58:52] Rebekah: And I, maybe this is just part of the over dramatization, but in the film, I kept looking at Josh and I was like, I know it’s not supposed to be romantic, [00:59:00] but the way Susan is like, I don’t, she was like a little too old to seem just like a little girl. He was comforting. It felt like, ugh. It just like, it, it was just like a tweaking, just a little icky for me.

[00:59:14] Rebekah: I know it wasn’t intentional. Had crush on. 

[00:59:16] Tim: She was crushing on him. 

[00:59:18] Rebekah: I’m more talking about the way he kind of reacted to her. You know what I mean? Yeah. That’s interesting because what I got was, I’m glad they didn’t make Hackman inappropriate with her. Like I thought he was trying to, okay, I’m comforting you and I know you’re traumatized, but you could be my daughter or farther, you know?

[00:59:38] Rebekah: So that’s interesting. We got a, it was just, I think it was the way they kept like hugging and like get Yeah, it was, it was the physical contact that just got me as like, just a little weird. Anyway, it’s not important. I just wanted to, I was blaming the girl. It’s okay. Who’s the, uh, who’s our last, who’s our last non film, but in book person?

[00:59:57] Josiah: Uh, it’s the Turk. He’s [01:00:00] a Turkish crew member who doesn’t really speak English, uh, or very much English at all. He survives the book and returns to Turkey, 

[01:00:09] Rebekah: but there’s not a lot. Right. The book just. He’s just kind of, no, it’s just randomly the book. We’ll talk about this character who doesn’t speak English and it’s really confusing and he’ll point and shout.

[01:00:19] Rebekah: Right. But he, and that’s his whole role provides 

[01:00:21] Tim: directions. 

[01:00:23] Rebekah: Yeah. In another language that nobody knows. 

[01:00:27] Josiah: Yeah. So his navigational role is kind of taken on by Robin, which I think is a, a good addition. Although I will say that taking out a sort of Middle Eastern type character who doesn’t have a name that kind of does serve an important part of the plot is not uncommon in early and mid 20th century literature.

[01:00:48] Josiah: The Phantom of the Opera, one of the main characters of the novel is simply called the Persian, and he is entirely taken out of the [01:01:00] musical, the movie adaptations, everything like that. 

[01:01:02] Tim: You played one of those roles. 

[01:01:04] Josiah: I was the Persian Pedler. Mm-hmm. 

[01:01:06] Rebekah: Yeah. In Oklahoma. 

[01:01:07] Josiah: Mm-hmm. 

[01:01:08] Rebekah: Okay. So let’s talk about some of the plot and timeline changes, of which there are not that many.

[01:01:13] Rebekah: I think this is one of the least for us, where the, the things don’t diverge so far. You know, I think that’s pretty cool. I will begin. In the novel, the story begins with most people on the ship suffering from seasickness during a terrible storm. Everybody’s, they’re not handling the, you know, handling the nausea well, whatever.

[01:01:36] Rebekah: Uh, the first meal at which most of the passengers can finally eat again is in the dining hall at, uh, the Christmas meal. And it’s also the meal during which this rogue wave hits the ship and capsizes. So in the film, this is stretched out a little farther. Uh, the passengers recover from [01:02:00] seasickness. The sky’s clear.

[01:02:02] Rebekah: They’re enjoying the ship once again. And we begin to learn more about the passengers as they interact with each other during this time. And also, uh, the, the accident happens on New Year’s Eve, and so they move the date a week, uh, uh, out a week. So 

[01:02:24] Josiah: I think that the novel takes place December 26th. Um, maybe I wasn’t paying close enough attention, but I wonder if it’s like the Christmas dinner that they, uh, pushed back a day because no one could eat and it wasn’t safe to go to the dining room or something.

[01:02:41] Josiah: But I, uh, kind of felt in the book more of the kind of impending danger than I did in the film. Surprisingly, the, the book took a little too much time, I think, before the wave actually hit, but everyone was just like. Whoa, this is, this is more of [01:03:00] a wave than we would expect. Oh, this is an older vessel than we probably think.

[01:03:04] Josiah: Oh, the we’re all having to be sideways a lot of the time. Oh, it doesn’t feel safe. Everyone was keeping on mentioning it and there was constant talk of, oh, this crew member is putting on a brave face, but they don’t really think that they’re safe. They don’t really think this is gonna be okay. 

[01:03:21] Rebekah: Okay. I missed something though.

[01:03:23] Rebekah: I, because I thought, and I was confused watching the film, if this is super close in my head. They had described all these characters that were still like in their room because of the, the boat moving so much, and I was under the impression that a, all this stuff happened in the morning, like after a big meal, the night before that they were there in the am.

[01:03:45] Rebekah: Like, I really thought that that was it, like that, that was what was happening. And I thought that there were like almost no passengers in the dining hall except for the ones that were like the strong stomach crew or whatever they called them. The ones that [01:04:00] didn’t get seasick. I, and I don’t know if I, I don’t know how I missed that or what I was confused about, but I didn’t think that it was a full dining hall, and I thought that it was in the morning after a large meal where they’d finally been able to gather.

[01:04:13] Rebekah: Did I, am I just completely confused? That 

[01:04:16] Josiah: sounds familiar. 

[01:04:17] Rebekah: Yeah, 

[01:04:18] Tim: I think, I think it’s, they did have the strong stomach crew that one of the tables. Yeah. Excuse me. Uh, but they had been there all through the, the problems, but most of the people were coming back. But I think it was. Wow. I would, I would have to look at the physical book to, to make sure.

[01:04:42] Tim: Um, well, moving right along. There is a scene in which Reverend Scott interacts with the ship’s chaplain, who has asked him to deliver the Sunday message to the passengers during the, uh, quelling of the storm when everybody’s out and about again. [01:05:00] During the message, we learn of Reverend Scott’s humanistic attitude toward life and his philosophy that God expects us to help ourselves.

[01:05:08] Tim: Instead of relying on him later during the New Year’s Eve celebration, the ship is hit with the rogue wave and capsized and their adventure begins, and Reverend Scott takes his position as the leader of those who are going to. Take care of themselves and not wait for somebody else to help them. 

[01:05:27] Josiah: Yeah, I would’ve been more fine with this character trait if it actually didn’t end like the book did.

[01:05:36] Josiah: The book and movie, I assume will talk a little bit about it, but the book and movie both end with the reverend kind of sacrificing himself, not in a, to save people’s lives, but kind of in a ritualistic way to say, especially the novel. I sacrificed myself, God, so that you save these people. 

[01:05:59] Tim: Yeah. He makes some [01:06:00] pretty rotten comparisons too, 

[01:06:02] Rebekah: and newsflash, that’s not how things are supposed to work with God and all that.

[01:06:06] Rebekah: So just throw that out there. 

[01:06:08] Josiah: But I, I liked the setup of him thinking in Benjamin Franklin terms that people need to help themselves and then realizing in disaster. That human life is precious, that you need to help those who can’t help themselves in certain situations, uh, you know, make up for each other’s weaknesses or just fellowship together as humankind and love one another.

[01:06:34] Josiah: I feel like the opportunity was there for him to learn that, but in book and movie, I feel like the reverend did not learn that even with Bell Rosen’s sacrifice for him in the movie. Like swapping the timeline. 

[01:06:51] Donna: Yeah. 

[01:06:51] Josiah: Yeah. That should have been the time for him to have a change of heart. That he had been wrong leading up to now, 

[01:06:59] Tim: but [01:07:00] his response to it was, you know, God, you took another person.

[01:07:03] Tim: You’re fighting against us. Stop fighting against us. Um mm-hmm. And so it’s a very, it’s very strange that he’s supposed to be a reverend. Uh, that’s an interesting view that Calico had of, of NCE back then. 

[01:07:19] Josiah: So in the novel, the explanation of the wave exists, and I was kind of surprised and disappointed in the movie that the wave just kinda happened.

[01:07:29] Josiah: They just go, 

[01:07:29] Tim: Hey, there’s a wave out there. In the newer movie, they, they do a lot more about talking about rogue waves. Um, and scientifically that’s a, that is an actual thing. 

[01:07:41] Josiah: The book talks about how two continental shelves do this, you know, once in a century type thing. That creates a huge sea quake that suddenly, yeah.

[01:07:54] Josiah: Can create mountainous waves. 

[01:07:56] Rebekah: It’s wild. 

[01:07:57] Josiah: And it was an interesting piece of science that I [01:08:00] was, that I missed. Mm-hmm. From the movie. 

[01:08:02] Rebekah: I still think that the book did not describe, well what was happening, because they did make it sound like there was something under the water, like an iceberg, but that wouldn’t have made sense for where they were sailing.

[01:08:14] Rebekah: Like it wasn’t cold like, 

[01:08:16] Tim: but if it would’ve been a quake. 

[01:08:17] Rebekah: Yeah, I, yeah, it was confusing to me when they described it initially. So maybe I just, you know, maybe it was just the initial part. 

[01:08:24] Tim: We have so much more technology though to help us know about tsunamis and earthquakes under the ocean and things like that than we did back then, so we know so much more.

[01:08:34] Tim: If the book had been written today. Uh, it would be much different. 

[01:08:39] Rebekah: Uh, another, um, wild thing, we, as we get into the capsizing, uh, in the movie, the dining room floods immediately after Reverend Scott and company, the people that choose to go with him, uh, climb the Christmas tree. This is, you know, it’s a great action [01:09:00] scene.

[01:09:00] Rebekah: It’s a great, uh,

[01:09:06] Rebekah: a, a great human a, a great human experience thing to, to see all this take place. But the novel just has the main group, which is bigger than what you see in the film, but the novel just has the main group of people that follow him. They, they leave. Uh, so I thought that was, you know, it’s, it’s an okay, it’s fine.

[01:09:27] Rebekah: The change is not, uh, uh, bad in any way. It’s just, um, the choice of making the film bigger and more. Uh, more emotional, more, more urgent. That’s a great, that’s a great term. Yeah. 

[01:09:43] Josiah: I liked, I liked the change and I also liked that in the book, the survivors are almost solely focused on getting to the bottom of the ship.

[01:09:53] Josiah: But in contrast, the film, I think does a better job of focusing on some of the [01:10:00] humanity. There’s survivor’s distress. Um, the passengers who refuse to follow and how that impacts our main character group of survivors. Uh, they’re frightened at the thought of the people left behind perishing, wondering why they don’t follow, they’re yelling at one another.

[01:10:20] Josiah: It’s high drama. It’s a little soap opery sometimes, but I thought it really pumped up the energy and the stakes compared to the book 

[01:10:28] Rebekah: this, this time watching it, I saw a bigger picture of. The people who want to survive, they’re willing to help each other, but they, they wanna do it. Let’s follow him. Let’s take the chance versus the purser that’s like, no, we have to stay.

[01:10:46] Rebekah: We’re gonna follow the rules. What are you doing? You’re, you’re gonna die out there. And having them look back and they get to the top of the tree, they look down and it’s like, they’re not coming. They’re not. And then [01:11:00] to see the water start to flood in and go and then realize up top, we can’t help them.

[01:11:06] Rebekah: We want to, and we have to separate ourselves emotionally and mentally from this. And we have to move on if we wanna live. I just really loved the picture of that. I, I loved the portrayal of all that. So I think the thing for me that I noticed in that section in particular, like as you’re noticing the people that are fighting against going and all that stuff, and the way that it wraps up where no one else in the movie gets saved at all.

[01:11:32] Rebekah: Um, I thought it was a bigger emphasis on some spiritual themes, which is funny because of the way it portrays like Christianity, but spiritual themes wise, like it was such a wild thing to watch a bunch of people just refuse to like do the hard thing in order to reach, like in order to preserve their own lives.

[01:11:54] Rebekah: Like they were convinced that somehow people would get to them. Like there’s no logical reason that you would think [01:12:00] that anyone rescuing is ever gonna be able to make it down here on a boat that has turned over and is obviously going to sink at some point. It just blew my mind because I think that it’s such a true thing about like humanity in a lot of ways that like how often will people avoid like pursuing.

[01:12:17] Rebekah: Holiness or whatever, kind of whatever context you wanna put it in, because they’re just convinced that the bad thing won’t happen to them, and then in the end you just watch them die. It was very like a Noah in the flood thing. It did take me out of it a little bit, like the 4K version of it, because you could see that it probably, they probably didn’t need to drown quite then, like as Scott like closes the door and walks away from the dining room.

[01:12:41] Rebekah: But I did think it was rather, IM, IM impressive, 

[01:12:45] Tim: but I, I think, um, it is part of the disaster genre, the disaster film genre, that there’s always a group of people that are waiting for somebody else to come and save them. [01:13:00] They’re not going to do any of the things that would help save themselves. Uh, and that is, that is part of the genre that, and, and I think that’s, um, that’s one of the things that I’ve always looked at and noticed in it.

[01:13:16] Rebekah: So kudos to Alan for capturing, to me, for capturing the disaster part that, you know, the, the truth of what’s happening, the danger, but also taking the time to capture the humanity and the juxtaposition of the person who’s like, yeah, I do wanna live. Versus the person that’s like, I don’t know, maybe if we just stay here, it seems like it’s safe, but I, I don’t wanna risk that.

[01:13:43] Rebekah: I, I like that a lot. So, another plot change. Um, we kind of alluded to this earlier, but Mike and Linda Rogo have a tense relationship. We’ve already like, accomplished discussing that. However, I, and this is another content warning thing that I [01:14:00] will be adding, like if I review the book on my book Bookstagram thing, um.

[01:14:04] Rebekah: Yes, she sucks. Okay. Like I don’t like her as like a person. However, Mike, before they even leave the dining room, he slaps Linda so hard in the face that like, I think her nosebleeds or he like bruises her face. Like it’s a significant thing. And then it happens multiple times. And the book does comment on the fact that like basically that this is like the rest of the passengers are like, wait, what’s happening?

[01:14:30] Rebekah: Not that they’re all okay with it, but also like. I, I think that in 2025, at least, you’d have a really hard time portraying anyone who abuses his wife on camera as somehow redemption redemptive at all. But I think even in 1972, that was probably the case. And so I’m glad that filmmakers took it out. I didn’t love Mike Rogo, but I thought I, you know, in the book I hated him ’cause he was like a bad guy.

[01:14:57] Rebekah: And so I, that was [01:15:00] such a, it was such an alarming thing too for me. And I’m not, like, I’m not super triggered by like spousal abuse stuff, but I know a lot of people are so, like, this is something that would make me go, depending on someone’s background, like, maybe don’t read this. ’cause it’s like, it feels very like gaslight because he’s like, oh honey, why’d you make me do that to you?

[01:15:18] Rebekah: And it’s like, oh, like it’s gross in the book. Like, I really, really hated the way that that was done. So I don’t know if that was just me, if it. I don’t know. It was real weird. 

[01:15:30] Tim: It’s, it is real weird, but it’s also, unfortunately, it’s, it’s a thing. Yeah. It’s, it’s a real thing. Abuse has been something that over the last, uh, probably three decades has been really heavily, uh, worked on and challenged, but before that, I’m afraid it was, it was a lot more common than it should have been, for sure, ever.

[01:15:56] Tim: But, okay. So, uh, the death of Linda Rogo [01:16:00] is a little less violent in the film than the book. A little, uh, in the book, the characters see her fall and become impaled upon a sharp corner or an object. Uh, the film shows her falling into the fiery depths and shows her body, um, with fire around her. Uh, but it leaves the impaling for the readers only.

[01:16:23] Tim: Thankfully, I was glad that they took that part out. 

[01:16:27] Rebekah: I will say it’s very clear, like in high def, that when they show her body down in the fire, it is so obviously a dummy, it doesn’t even look close to being like a normal human body. And I was like, that’s, that’s, they didn’t try very hard. That’s my opinions.

[01:16:44] Rebekah: Like Sonny beating up, uh, Carlo and the Godfather, and he does this and he’s about this far from his face. When he hits him, it’s like, wait. And Carlo jumps back, you know? 

[01:16:55] Josiah: Yeah. Can we just confirm that Reverend Scott’s death was [01:17:00] unnecessary? 

[01:17:01] Rebekah: Oh, 

[01:17:02] Josiah: he did not have to in the 

[01:17:03] Rebekah: film, I understand how they made it seem necessary in the book.

[01:17:09] Rebekah: It was dumb, right? Like in the film they made it look like the only way he could turn the steam off so that the other characters could get through to the door was like he had to hang on this thing to close it and there was nothing under it and he couldn’t swing off of it and get back to a landing.

[01:17:26] Rebekah: Like I think that they tried to make it meaningful in the movie way more than in the book. Yeah, 

[01:17:31] Tim: because the steam was, was spraying on the handle to open that last door and they couldn’t open it because the steam would’ve burned anybody that would’ve tried to open it. So he had to, to do that in the book, he just kind of.

[01:17:49] Tim: Sacrifices himself, you know? Yeah, yeah. 

[01:17:53] Josiah: Not to save anyone, literally. Yeah. 

[01:17:55] Rebekah: So here we are at the end of the book and toward the film, um, [01:18:00] the surviving characters in the book are, they still cut a, a hole in the hole and pull them out? Um, similar, you know, that’s similar book to film, but then in the, in the book, the surviving characters are taken off to different ships, depending on their citizenship or where they’re headed from, you know, from their expected port or whatever.

[01:18:24] Rebekah: Um, most notably one big, you know, character arc change. Mr. Martin and Nani, who in the book have gotten much closer and he’s committed, they’ve kinda committed themselves or whatever, they’re taken to different ships, and then he has this. Crisis of conscience, I guess, for lack of a better word. Should I do this?

[01:18:45] Rebekah: Should I go with her? Should I not go with her? Did I want to be saddled with someone else? Is this what I, you know, he goes through all this and he has a conversation with somebody to say, yeah, whatever, you know, and so [01:19:00] then they, they all watch the ship sink beneath the water and, and that’s kind of where it goes off.

[01:19:06] Rebekah: Then they go off. But in the film it’s, it’s like hard stop. They’re cut out of the holes, cut out, they pull them out, put them in a helicopter, the helicopter flies off and there come the credits. And so a little change there, but, um, wrapped up a character arc in the book that wasn’t so much in the film, but 

[01:19:28] Tim: yeah.

[01:19:28] Tim: Yeah. One of the things that I noticed. The difference between the book and film is in the book, there are other people saved from the other end of the ship, from the bow, including some of the people that they thought they left behind. Mm-hmm. That would probably be dead. Yeah. Um, I think the book almost seems to lower the stakes, um, of being in this group because for the film, the only survivors [01:20:00] completely, the only survivors are the ones, those few that followed Reverend Scott.

[01:20:05] Tim: So I, I think, uh, for the film it ramps up the emotional, uh, temperature. I, I’m not sure exactly how to say that. 

[01:20:15] Rebekah: I agree a hundred percent. I think the film did a better job at making the stakes higher. Also, I think the film, um. Did a good job at ending it abruptly. I like that there wasn’t wrap up. However, I do like that the book had more, that’s one of the things I like about the book Medium that I know doesn’t translate to the screen, which is fine, is that I like kind of getting a little bit of like more of that like resolution in my mind.

[01:20:42] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. Add the details. Yeah. Yep. So for some, uh, by the numbers trivia, I’ll run through these for you. Some, some interesting things I think we’ll find about the, the film especially. But, uh, the book release was in 1969. [01:21:00] Movie release was three years later in on December 12th, 1972. Um, book rating on Good on Good Reads was 3.91 out of five.

[01:21:12] Rebekah: So a pretty, a fair amount of ratings there that, that made up that number. Um, for the film, the Rotten Tomatoes critics rating was 81%. The IMDB rating was 7.1, just a little under that. And then Flicker audience gave this a 76%. So it was a blockbuster, it was famous, um, not just in the horribleness of it, that was good, but it, it seemed like a solid, has a solid following.

[01:21:42] Rebekah: The production cost of the film was $4.7 million. Wow. Which I thought was interesting. It sounds a lot in 72, but still $4 million, um, opening weekends. So let’s calculate that. I just [01:22:00] wanna say that Yes, I like that. 4.7 million, I 

[01:22:04] Josiah: guess is like 13 to 15 million. 1972 in today’s name. Today’s money, 

[01:22:10] Rebekah: how much did you say Josiah?

[01:22:12] Josiah: 13 to 15 million. 

[01:22:15] Rebekah: $36 million. Wow, wow, wow. Inflation probably being really bad. So that, what is 

[01:22:21] Tim: contemporary film? Huh? What contemporary film does that, that kind of match that number? Oh, 

[01:22:27] Rebekah: probably things like rom-coms, like things without a lot of special effects where you don’t have to do a lot of on location shooting.

[01:22:34] Rebekah: You don’t really make films this cheap at this point. But stuff where you don’t have a lot of sets and things is doable opening weekend. So production costs 4.7 million 1972 opening weekend, a big old 265,000. And to me you would, you think it’d go, oh no. However, the USA Canada gross and I couldn’t find an international numbers.

[01:22:57] Rebekah: So the USA Canada gross ended up at [01:23:00] 125,000,070 5 million of that was in rentals. So they still wildly. Cleared over their, yeah. They made a lot of money over their cost. Right. Um, question, this won awards, do you think it’s because people started renting it or going to see it later than opening weekend?

[01:23:18] Rebekah: Because it did really well in award season. Like people hadn’t really maybe seen it opening weekend possibly, but then they were like, oh my gosh. 

[01:23:26] Tim: You have to, you have to know the time though. Uh, 1972, there was no way to rent it so the rentals would’ve come later. Um, laser discs were a thing when we were in college between 79 and 84, uh, videotape the VCR.

[01:23:43] Tim: Mm-hmm. And the blockbuster thing would’ve been the beginning of the eighties, so we were already, you know, years past that. So, um, they, they wouldn’t have been able to see it until a decade later, basically. Interesting. 

[01:23:59] Josiah: And yeah, [01:24:00] box Office mojo says like 84.5 million USA Canada. And it’s pulling other numbers that are slightly larger for worldwide, but I can’t find a source on ’em.

[01:24:10] Rebekah: This mo movie was rated pg. That’s, that’s fair. I can, I think that’s fair. I did. Um, uh, it was filmed, um, the parts of the ship where the parts of the film where the people were out on the ship, where they were out on the decks, uh, the outer shots of ship that was filmed on the Queen Mary and the, he did base a lot of this out.

[01:24:38] Rebekah: Uh, I’ve got a little bit of details later about this, but he did date base a lot of this on the Queen Mary ship. Looking at the size and the breadth of it and, and what it did and all that. Um, I did pull in some awards because this was the beginning, you know, just after airplanes, like the beginning of a new genre.

[01:24:57] Rebekah: Airport, it was, uh, airport, um, [01:25:00] did I say airplane? Yeah. Yeah. Airplane’s. The funny one Port is the first, the first serious disaster movie. Uh, so Poseidon Adventure was nominated for Oscars in best supporting actress, which is Shelly Winter’s Best Art Direction. Best cinematography. Best costume design. Best film editing.

[01:25:25] Rebekah: Best original dramatic score. And I totally forgot John Williams wrote the score for the thing. Until this and Best Sound, it won, uh, two. Awards it won. Best song for the morning after, which, if you’re not familiar with it, is what I sing at the beginning of our episode with my own lyrics. Melody, uh, of course the melody of the song.

[01:25:48] Rebekah: Yes, sorry. And then it won Best Visual Effects, which was a special effects award. Then Golden Globes. It, uh, was nominated for best motion [01:26:00] picture drama, best original score for a motion picture, best original score for the morning after, or best original song for the morning after. And it had one win.

[01:26:12] Rebekah: Shelly Winters did get the best supporting actress nod, and we talked about the possibility of Shelly Actress, of Shelly Winters being classed as a supporting actress instead of a main character. Uh, because poss maybe it was a better. Opportunity for her to win for that category were maybe the best actress nominations for that year.

[01:26:39] Rebekah: Dad and I were talking about this a little bit. Wondered if they classed her as supporting or was it just because this was an ensemble class cast kind of has nothing to do with anything. We don’t have to answer it even. I just thought that was an interesting thing. ’cause I did not think she was supporting, I thought she was like, [01:27:00] yeah, the meat of of this for the female characters or whatever.

[01:27:05] Rebekah: Yeah. So, uh, so that we can, uh, keep this episode a listenable length of time. Uh, if you are interested in a lot more of the fun little trivia things that we found, of which there are a lot, you need to join our discord because we will release us talking just about that, uh, on the discord itself. So if you’re not in our free discord, you don’t even have to be a Patreon sub.

[01:27:28] Rebekah: Uh, that may change in the future, but you can join it at the link in the episode description. Now, mom, you had an idea for a Fun Parents Challenging Children Edition. It looks like there’s a couple of questions for us, so yeah, let’s 

[01:27:41] Tim: go. So, name two or more films in your lifetime inspired by disaster movies like this one.

[01:27:52] Tim: This was the second in the genre. 

[01:27:53] Rebekah: Okay. I don’t know, but I know that the day after tomorrow is my [01:28:00] favorite disaster film. 

[01:28:01] Tim: Okay. 

[01:28:02] Rebekah: Uh, I don’t think it’s you, Armageddon, it’s inspired by this. I do love Armageddon. Mm-hmm. I love disaster movies, although I don’t, I love Titanic to be totally honest. Like the Titanic was a real story, obviously, but maybe the retelling in some ways was inspired by what they set up in this movie.

[01:28:17] Rebekah: So that’s, I guess, one that could count. Sure. And you mentioned 

[01:28:21] Josiah: 2012 earlier in the episode 2012 being a disaster movie released in oh nine, I think. 

[01:28:30] Tim: Yep. That’s good. 

[01:28:31] Josiah: Trying to think of any other disaster movies in our lifetime. And, um, 

[01:28:37] Tim: actually, um, the former wrestler, um, rock. Yeah, the Rock Johnson was in one.

[01:28:46] Tim: Dwayne 

[01:28:46] Donna: the Rock Johnson. Mm-hmm. 

[01:28:50] Tim: It, he flew out helicopter a lot. It was an earthquake. 

[01:28:54] Rebekah: Mom or are there any others on your list? Twister. Twister. Oh, I know. Interesting. We’re on video. [01:29:00] How can I prompt you, right?

[01:29:04] Rebekah: That’s funny. Yeah. So, oh, and another one. 

[01:29:06] Tim: Good job. Good job. 

[01:29:07] Rebekah: Another one dad and I like is Dante’s Inferno. I’ve never seen that one. Yeah, you guys were so, I forget your babies. Okay, so we also had a listener question, uh, from Deborah in our Discord. Again, why aren’t you in our discord? If you’re not in our discord folks?

[01:29:25] Rebekah: Uh, she has never heard, she’s never seen the beside adventure or Reddit. So she said, do you follow the instructions on the back of a box of mac and cheese or do you go rogue? That was her big question. I go rogue. I, it’s one of the only things I go rogue with. So when I was growing up, macaroni and cheese and, and like we were poor.

[01:29:44] Rebekah: I’ve said that before. We were incredibly poor. But this is one thing dad would splurge on. He bought elbow macaroni in the box. He boiled the macaroni, prepared it, and he bought jars of cheese whiz and did a little bit of butter in the cheese whiz. I didn’t [01:30:00] even know when we got box macaroni out. I was like, what is this evil witchcraft that’s come into my life when I was an adult?

[01:30:07] Rebekah: Um, now I love it, but yeah, so I guess rogue. Yeah. 

[01:30:12] Josiah: Yeah. The only mac and cheese that I eat is the fancy Kroger kind, which is boil this pasta. And then we have already made a liquid sauce for you to put in it. So there’s not really instructions at this point. I just boil pasta, which I can kind of do. Yeah, you can kind of get rogue Anyway, tease out instructions.

[01:30:34] Tim: It used to be a powder, I guess sometimes still is, and you had to add the milk to it. The right amount of milk and yeah, the butter. 

[01:30:42] Rebekah: And you could mess up if you didn’t follow those directions, it could be gross. So, you know. Okay, well we’re kind of at the end here. Let’s go with our final verdicts, ratings out of 10 for book and film.

[01:30:55] Rebekah: And which did you consider better and why? 

[01:30:57] Josiah: I guess that I would have to [01:31:00] say the movie is better than the book. The book wasn’t super bad other than some of the weird, uh, assault things and there was a lot of racism. Some of the racism was like by the end, oh, you know, I shouldn’t be so racist. ’cause Jews are people too.

[01:31:23] Josiah: So it’s like, I guess they learned their lesson, but it’s all sort of contributing to a feeling of, oh, well, there’s a reason that people are racist and they just need to meet nice people of other races, and then there’ll be less racist. And that’s, you know, not really what, what racism is. Uh, so the book had some weird.

[01:31:46] Josiah: Time, time coded things in there that haven’t lasted well, but it’s just fun to have a ship turn upside down and then you have to go to the top of it. That is simply a fun [01:32:00] premise and the, the book has that. I think the movie does a better job with the action set pieces, with tightening the main characters, with giving, especially Robin and Bell, uh, better character arch and storylines.

[01:32:21] Josiah: I think that the reverend, his story, the movie is slightly better than in the book. Uh, and I think that most things are improved in the movie. It’s, there’s a reason that the Poseidon Adventure is like the mother of all. Disaster movies. It was the second one after airport. An airport was obviously a success, but I think that beside an adventure, I think it’s safe to say that it established the genre of disaster of as not only a one off.

[01:32:59] Josiah: It’s not [01:33:00] just we make one and that’s the only good one. It’s like, oh, we can make other good ones. And I think that the reason it’s a good movie is not just because of the amazingly huge sets that were on a huge turntable or whatever you call it, that could rotate the set a full 180 degrees upside down in real time.

[01:33:24] Josiah: But you have to have the heart of the story. Bell Rosen. Yep. And I think to a lesser extent, you have the Reverend, you have Robin and Susan, you have Nonie and Martin. Uh, you have the Ros. But Bell Rosen, uh, she, I, she, you know, being a, a little older and a little overweight, she seemed like she was a bit of a drain on the survivors.

[01:33:55] Josiah: And then, you know, when she is finally able to help in some [01:34:00] way, you’re like, oh my goodness, if I were Bell Rosen and I was like, I can swim. I’ve sw I, I’m a good swimmer. I can help in this one way. You can imagine how you’re like, yeah, I would absolutely drive myself to a heart attack in order to help these people after they’ve helped me and gone outta their way so much.

[01:34:19] Tim: Mm-hmm. 

[01:34:20] Josiah: And like, you can completely understand her, her character and her motivation and, uh, touched my heart. And that was the heart of the film. But there was still so much, uh, visual fun. There was, there was so much to consume in this film. So I give the book maybe a, uh. I think we give a lot of six outta tens for these books.

[01:34:44] Josiah: But, you know, with the good and bad combined, maybe around a, a soft six outta 10 for the book. And, um, I mean, all the things considered, I, I’m not gonna rewatch it that often, but for what it is, like maybe a nine [01:35:00] outta 10. Yeah. It’s 

[01:35:01] Rebekah: a good film. Yeah. Maybe for its position in film history too. 

[01:35:05] Josiah: Yeah. It’s iconic.

[01:35:06] Josiah: Mm-hmm. 

[01:35:08] Rebekah: So as for my, for my taste, uh, I do like disaster movies. I liked them even before I met Dad. Like, I thought they were interesting and, you know, I, I, I did enjoy them, but we definitely, he has a love of them and so we’ve seen a lot of them. And, um, I will say I think this was done well. I think it has, I’m discovering more and more and more and more, more that anything that we cover.

[01:35:41] Rebekah: In, in earlier decades, like mid, mid 20th century, you can see such a difference. And as Josiah alluded to it with, with things that were in the book, uh, like the, the assault scene and some of the ways that the ROS were, and the [01:36:00] random rape scene that just really did, had so little to do with what was, with what was going on in the book.

[01:36:09] Rebekah: But I liken that too, to, when we covered like the Godfather, there was, there were a lot of racial, there was a lot of racial commentary in there about how people viewed other races and other, other, uh, uh, parts of society and things like that. And so it, it definitely is a stark contrast to where we are now and how I, I, I’m always amazed by it because there are some things.

[01:36:38] Rebekah: We almost, we try to be careful on how we cover in the podcast even, because we don’t want it to be, come across, be offensive or off-putting to people. But, uh, so I think that’s very interesting to see just how in my lifetime the conversation has changed and the, the, the, uh, agendas, you know, [01:37:00] has changed.

[01:37:00] Rebekah: Whether that’s good, bad, ugly, whatever. Do take it from that, what you will. But I did enjoy the movie more than the book. I probably won’t read the book again. I did feel like some of the superfluous parts of it, like we, I just mentioned, took away from what happened. And I also thought that the scene with, you know, bell saving Scott and getting the rest of them.

[01:37:28] Rebekah: An opportunity for safety and then that dramatic death and the way it affected Manny, those things I felt like kind of vaulted the movie for me too. So, um, I might say the book, I might go down to five for the book. It was maybe not because it was bad, but because it just didn’t grip me like I wanted to be gripped.

[01:37:52] Rebekah: Uh, but the movie, I would definitely say eight and a half, nine, uh, for what it was, for, how it, uh, [01:38:00] affected me, how it showed hu his portrayal of humanity. I loved, I just thought it was great thinking about these different people and how they respond to tragedy and how they respond to a stressful, traumatic, unexpected situation.

[01:38:20] Rebekah: So, um, I, I’d say that’s my verdict. And I, I, uh. I’m glad we covered it. I learned I’d write the film an eight, eight and a half to nine for sure. I personally really, I don’t know, I struggled with this ’cause I think the realism took me out of it. It, there was just a lot that did not help me suspend my disbelief with the movie.

[01:38:47] Rebekah: However, I think the film was definitely better than the book. So my rating, enjoyment wise, I would say the book is like a four. I really had to like push through. I also don’t really read a lot of contemporary. Um, [01:39:00] I do tend, but the contemporary stuff I read is like, I enjoy thrillers and disaster stuff and all that.

[01:39:06] Rebekah: It just, the, like, we’ve kind of mentioned this, but the character stuff really was hard for me. The kind of. Really wild, like last second mentions of, or like out of nowhere mentions of assault and like the, just really dark backstory. But I do think it’s interesting like that, you know, a lot of that is just kind of offputting.

[01:39:28] Rebekah: So for me the book was like a four outta 10. The film’s like a six and a half outta 10. I think it was great. I think its significance is high, but my personal, I’m doing these ratings on like how much I personally enjoyed it. It’s like a movie that I don’t mind if you guys put it on in the background when you are when I’m with you, but I’m never gonna just like, turn it on.

[01:39:48] Rebekah: It’s never a movie that’s gonna be like, oh, we should watch the Poseidon Adventure. Um, it just, it seems a little, I hate to say cringey, it’s, it’s very hokey, like because of [01:40:00] the time period it was in, it’s, it’s very appropriate for its time. But. Um, it’s not like something I will go back and watch again, but I think that it’s actually more interesting to me to discuss the significance of the film itself and the actors and the, the award-winning nature of it and, and kind of what it spurned in filmmaking later.

[01:40:17] Rebekah: I think that’s more interesting than the amount that I actually enjoyed the film. Um, I would say the other two things that really stuck out to me were the role of women in film has changed so much and like not all for the better. I think that sometimes we’ve gone so far into making female main characters have to be strong and powerful, that a lot of times they come off as really annoying in a way that male characters.

[01:40:42] Rebekah: Don’t as often, but at the same time, this movie had so much of that like, oh, I’m a damsel. Save me. I’m having a panic attack. Like, but like when, I don’t know, it just, it was overdone. But I really liked that Mrs. Rosen kind of redeemed the female [01:41:00] portrayal in this film. So I, I did like that. The other thing was.

[01:41:05] Rebekah: I hate how this movie and book portrayed Christianity, like there are spiritual themes you can pull from it and that’s great, but I like generally make it a habit not to watch or read things that are like super poo on Christianity. This wasn’t like that. This was just a terribly inaccurate portrayal of what it is to be a follower of Jesus.

[01:41:27] Rebekah: And so for someone who actually is, it just came off as like so like offensive, like not again, it’s not like somebody was like, Christianity’s stupid, I hate Christians. It wasn’t offensive in that way. It was like, not offensive, that’s not the right word. I think it was a problematic portrayal of Christians because if you re, if you watch or read this work, not knowing how Christians actually are and it informs the way you see them, it’s a bad thing.

[01:41:56] Rebekah: Like that is a bad thing. And so I think it just [01:42:00] like that was difficult for me. So. When I note, when I saw, like I mentioned before, that diatribe with Scott at the end, I was going, did I not see this before? I’ve seen the movie, but now, and I think I’m in a different place in my life since we haven’t seen it for a while.

[01:42:21] Rebekah: I guess different things change over the course of our existence, you know, um, and the things we go through in life. But it was, it was like startling and I thought, dude, get real. What? So I, I, I totally agree with you on that. 

[01:42:38] Tim: All righty. Well, I am the one who recommended this because it is, it’s, um, the disaster genre is a, a favorite of mine has been since I was a kid.

[01:42:51] Tim: Um, I would probably, uh, land, uh, very close to, to Josiah’s numbers. Um, I would say the, the book was a six [01:43:00] for me. There were a lot of things in the books that I book that I didn’t care for. Um, if I’d read the longer version of the book, the Unabridged book, um, I might have appreciated the things in the book more, but there were too many characters.

[01:43:13] Tim: It was too much to follow. Um, it was too much to care about each of those characters ’cause there’s so many of them. Uh, that’s one of the things about the, uh, disaster genre. There is a small group of people that are focused on, uh, and you can care about each of those. And some of those don’t survive in all those kinds of things.

[01:43:35] Tim: But, um. For me, I would say the movie is a nine. I’m trying to judge it based on, uh, the time in which it was created, uh, to allow it to be what it was in the time that it was created. Uh, should there be other things that are out of it? Should it have changed some things? Probably so. And could it have been done better?

[01:43:59] Tim: [01:44:00] Well, we saw in the 2006 film that they can be done better visually, uh, but they can also be done worse in other ways, more poorly acting and whatever. And if you struggled through the miniseries, you realize what this story would be like with a lower budget and mediocre at best acting. Um, yeah, it’s. I would say six.

[01:44:31] Tim: Six for the film, I’d say, or I’d say six for the book, nine for the film. I, I am the one who recommended it. I, I’m a junkie for the disaster genre and I’ve seen all of those from Twister to Earthquake, uh, to every airport movie. Um, 

[01:44:50] Rebekah: Dantes Inferno, Dante. I love that. Yeah. 

[01:44:52] Tim: There was a Dantes Inferno as well as another volcano.

[01:44:55] Tim: Maybe that one was called Volcano with, um, uh, oh, [01:45:00] can’t remember actors’ names and things like that. But there, there’s been a lot of wonderful films. Part of the reason I like this genre, and I guess it’s an answer to my son-in-law, part of the reason I like the genre is not because, um. Reverend Scott was so anti-Christian because I actually thought that the best representation of the Christian was the chaplain who stayed behind.

[01:45:30] Tim: Not because he did not want to live, but because the people there needed him and his comfort, and so he was willing to die to help them in their last moments. And I, that’s admirable, very admirable to me. Um, yeah, Scott was worse in the book, I think. So that’s what makes it, makes the book worse for me for that and other reasons.

[01:45:56] Tim: Um, but there’s always a, a very flawed [01:46:00] character who takes the lead mm-hmm. And usually sacrifices themselves somehow so that others can live. And there is something to that sacrifice so that others can live. That resonates with me as a Christian. ’cause that’s what Christ did for us. So, um, he was not a flawed character.

[01:46:22] Tim: Um, you know, he was the perfect man. But, uh, I enjoy the genre, but I appreciate my family being willing to suffer through this. Hopefully it wasn’t, I don’t think it was to a suffer, 

[01:46:34] Rebekah: I don’t call it a sufferer. I think, well, I mean, Lord Josiah made us watch Gone Girl. Okay. Like, come on. I, we suffer sometimes.

[01:46:42] Rebekah: I think that part of the fun of doing this is that we don’t always have the same favorite kinds of things. Yeah. And so I don’t love contemporary stuff, but I do actually love disaster movies. I think there’s just a big shift for me when you get into, honestly, into the mid nineties when you get into that twister [01:47:00] thing.

[01:47:00] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. When I would’ve watched stuff when it first came out, those movies start to feel like they emphasize realism more. Mm-hmm. And it’s not that overdramatized, I honestly, I think that it’s just, for me, it’s harder to get past the, the dramatization, but I think that the genre is fun and I, again, I like doing things that kind of stretch us mm-hmm.

[01:47:20] Rebekah: A little bit more. 

[01:47:21] Tim: There’s a Oh yeah. Also, you probably have to pay attention to the time, uh, that it was in. Mm-hmm. Think just a few years before that, the award-winning musical, um, was, uh, what’s, what’s the one where the, the gangs are dance fighting, um, can, uh, 

[01:47:41] Rebekah: west Side Story. 

[01:47:43] Tim: West Side Story. West Side Story.

[01:47:44] Tim: And that was so wonderful. Well, it’s so extremely unrealistic. But that was part of the time. So by the time you get to the Poseidon Adventure, you’ve got a lot more realism than you had before. [01:48:00] Although now we look at it and say, oh, that looks so fake. Or, that’s so fake. That doesn’t make sense. Yeah, you know, it was kind of moving in the realistic mm-hmm.

[01:48:08] Tim: Direction. So. 

[01:48:10] Rebekah: Well, I think that that does it for today. If you had fun listening to this episode, it would be great if you would rate us five stars or even review us on the platforms where that’s allowed. Uh, we’re live on Patreon and have some bonuses for those of you who want to join as paid tier members.

[01:48:28] Rebekah: But also you can join as a free subscriber just to get updates on new episodes. You can find us on social media at book is Better Pod. We’ve been doing a lot of fun stuff there. If you’re not there, you are missing out. Uh, and like I’ve said a couple of times, join our Discord. We would love to chat with you there.

[01:48:43] Rebekah: Ask uh, you reader questions and all that. There is a link in the episode description. Uh, you don’t have to be a member of anything else in order to join us there. So I guess until next time, um, a hoy, I don’t know, what are, what are ocean terms? [01:49:00] 

[01:49:00] Tim: A hoy would be one land ho, land ho land iceberg ahead, or you know, all that.

[01:49:06] Tim: This isn’t Titanic, port 

[01:49:07] Rebekah: to starboard. That might be a space ship. Sorry.

[01:49:26] Tim: There has to be a morning after.