The Poseidon Adventure

For better or worse and for the sake of James Cameron, who would eventually turn Titantic into a box-office phenomenon, Irwin Allen re-invented the disaster movie.

The year was 1972, although it had taken three years of preparation, false starts and financial finagling to get that far. The risky $5-million movie was The Poseidon Adventure, the story of a cruise ship capsized by a rogue tidal wave.

During its development, the project was referred to as "Irwin's Folly" because conventional wisdom said the irrepressible Hollywood producer-director was doomed. After it became a mega-hit, The Poseidon Adventure became the prototype of a new wave of disaster movies that inevitably led to Titanic in 1997.

Three of these "classics" of the genre, led by The Poseidon Adventure, are fresh on handsome widescreen DVD to coincide with Wolfgang Petersen's Poseidon.

The Poseidon Adventure, produced by Allen and directed by courtly Englishman Ronald Neame, arrives in a two-disc Special Edition. There are significant extras, both vintage and new, including a loving look back at the project by many of the surviving actors, as well as the late Roddy McDowell (from the mid-1990s.)

Ditto for the Special Edition of The Towering Inferno, Allen's 1974 follow-up flick, which he produced and co-directed with John Guillermin, another Englishman (in this case, a hack with Tarzan flicks on his resume).

The third movie is Mark Robson's Earthquake (1974), arriving in a one-disc effort with a remastered picture and 5.1 surround sound enhanced by "Sensurround" (the bass feed shook plaster loose from the ceiling of Grauman's Chinese during the premiere). There are no extras.

It is fashionable to sneer at these creaky old pictures. Indeed, none is a true classic. But in their day, they had impact and each maintains a certain charm, even though the age of digital special effects leaves them looking primitive now.

Don't forget, however, they all were nominated for Oscars: The Poseidon Adventure got eight nominations, winning once plus a special tech Oscar for visual effects; The Towering Inferno also got eight noms, winning three times; Earthquake was nominated four times, winning once and getting the special visual effects Oscar.

One of the intriguing aspects of the disaster genre in the '70s was inspired by Allen. He loved to populate the screen with stars, including many whose glow had diminished to a flicker. Allen just loved familiar faces.

So his Poseidon featured Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, Carol Lynley, Roddy McDowall, Shelley Winters, Jack Albertson, Stella Stevens and Sheila Mathews Allen (his wife) as the ship nurse.

The Towering Inferno featured Steve McQueen (sneaky about his billing), Paul Newman, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Susan Blakely, Richard Chamberlain, Robert Vaughn and Robert Wagner. Earthquake starred Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, George Kennedy, Lorne Greene and Genevieve Bujold.

It was a different era, but Allen & company influenced a generation of filmmakers who still try to shock audiences with scenes of impending doom.