TCM has been showing this recently, and if you tune in just to have some laughs and marvel in its kitsch, you might be surprised.
Having never seen it before, I was expecting it to be kind of in the cheesy mold of POSEIDON ADVENTURE and TOWERING INFERNO. It certainly has elements of those movies in it.
But it also kind of tough-minded in a way that contemporary films are flaccid, and is more entertaining because of that.
(Note: Here come some spoilers)
The most surprising thing you'll come away with in this movie is how different it is from modern would-be blockbusters where everyone escapes without injury and the hero is "likable" at all costs. Not here. Jackie Bissett is caught in an explosion and suffers real injuries and might lose her eye. Burt Lancaster wants out of his marriage so he can be with Jean Seberg, and the filmmakers kind of take it easy on him by showing that his wife wants out of the marriage too. But that's not the case with the Dean Martin character. He's got, by all appearances, a great wife. But he cheats on her with Bissett, and his fellow pilot Barry Nelson gives him hell for it. If you're accustomed to modern movies, you keep thinking there's going to be some trumped-up development where the filmmakers try to make Martin totally likable. Instead, things stay realistic, and there's a fairly heart-wrenching shot where Martin's wife (played by Barbara Hale) sees his love for Bissett and realizes their marriage is over. You simply don't get that kind of drama from newer action-adventures very often, and maybe that's why audiences are starting to tune them out.
The Helen Hayes character is well-written too. It's a surprisingly worthwhile movie.
Having never seen it before, I was expecting it to be kind of in the cheesy mold of POSEIDON ADVENTURE and TOWERING INFERNO. It certainly has elements of those movies in it.
But it also kind of tough-minded in a way that contemporary films are flaccid, and is more entertaining because of that.
(Note: Here come some spoilers)
The most surprising thing you'll come away with in this movie is how different it is from modern would-be blockbusters where everyone escapes without injury and the hero is "likable" at all costs. Not here. Jackie Bissett is caught in an explosion and suffers real injuries and might lose her eye. Burt Lancaster wants out of his marriage so he can be with Jean Seberg, and the filmmakers kind of take it easy on him by showing that his wife wants out of the marriage too. But that's not the case with the Dean Martin character. He's got, by all appearances, a great wife. But he cheats on her with Bissett, and his fellow pilot Barry Nelson gives him hell for it. If you're accustomed to modern movies, you keep thinking there's going to be some trumped-up development where the filmmakers try to make Martin totally likable. Instead, things stay realistic, and there's a fairly heart-wrenching shot where Martin's wife (played by Barbara Hale) sees his love for Bissett and realizes their marriage is over. You simply don't get that kind of drama from newer action-adventures very often, and maybe that's why audiences are starting to tune them out.
The Helen Hayes character is well-written too. It's a surprisingly worthwhile movie.