Movie Life Lessons: Faith i& Courage in "The Poseidon Adventure"
Faith movies tend to get a bad rap. True, there have been the occasional big budget blockbuster exceptions such as The Passion of the Christ directed by Mel Gibson or the Noah directed by Darren Aronofsky. Then of course there is Cecil B DeMille’s famous “The Ten Commandments” with Charlton Heston…
Today, however, I am writing about the most religious movie you've ever seen — and probably didn't realize it.
Frankly, it’s one of the best movies of all time too.
I am talking about Irwin Allen’s disaster movie, The Poseidon Adventure.
Producer Irwin Allen became known as “The Master of Disaster” because of of two seminal movies he produced: 1972’s “The Poseidon Adventure" and 1974’s “The Towering Inferno.”
The Poseidon Adventure (1972)
The success of these movies, along with George Seaton’s “Airport” (1970) starring Burt Lancaster, spawned a new genre:
Because of the spectacles of these movies, both in their sizable and famous casts, plus the cinematic disasters they featured most of the focus and praise of these films goes to the disaster set pieces created through the magic of special fx which move the story along. This is true in nearly every single movie entry in the genre since then.
And because of this, the true meaning of “The Poseidon Adventure” is overlooked.
Take a closer look and you will see that The Poseidon Adventure is a movie about faith in God and faith in oneself. It’s about religion and prayer. It’s a flood story.
In the beginning of the movie, we are introduced to all of our characters as the ship’s voyage is underway and preparations are being made for a gala New Year’s Eve celebration to take place that night in the ship’s ballroom. The cast contains some many familiar faces to audiences in the 1970s (and today, among us cinephiles). Ernest Borgnine. Red Buttons. Stella Stevens. Roddy McDowell. And fo course, the great Shelley Winters.
The main character, however, is “Reverend Scott” played by the incomparable Gene Hackman. When people talk about roles that couldn't be played by anybody else, Hackman as Reverend Scott is one.
In his first scene, Hackman’s “Reverend Scott” is in conversation with the boat’s chaplain, played by Arthur O’Connell where we learn a little bit about Reverend Scott. We discover that he is being transferred to a parish deep in Africa, so far away he had to look it up on a map. We learns he is being sent there because of his radical ideas about God and faith and religion.
What's important is not the particular religion or the denomination, but rather that Reverend Scott is a character archetype: He is “A Man of Faith.” More specifically, he is at the moment we meet him, he is a shepherd without a flock.
We find Reverend Scott and Father John discussing God and faith in light of life-threatening circumstances. (A healthy bit of foreshadowing here). Reverend Scott is saying that if you're freezing to death you don't fall to your knees and pray to God. You get off your knees and you burn the furniture. You set fire to the building. His belief is that God wants you to take responsibility for your own life. He wants you to take action. Later, during his sermon, Reverend Scott tells the people, “Don’t pray to God to save you. Pray to that part of God within you. Have the guts to fight for yourself.” He then suggests that the New Years resolution they should all make is “to let God know they have the guts and the will to do it alone. To fight for those you love…Resolve to save your own life.” He tells them that if they do that, the part of God within them will be fighting with them all the way.
Father John responds that those are pretty radical ideas. Scott’s reply is that they are radical, but “realistic.”
The movie is an exploration of this idea.
It is a movie that attempts, I think, to answer the question why bad things happen to good people?
Father John jokingly questions whether Scott is still a reverend. As it happens, Reverend Scott has been stripped of most of his clerical powers (we realize he’s not wearing a frock and collar). However, he doesn’t view this as punishment but rather as “freedom…elbow room…freedom to find God in my own way.”
He’s mercurial and willful. But what we do know so far is that The movie continues, introducing us to the other characters. We are introduced to Ernest Borgnoine who plays “Mike Rogo,” a veteran New York City Detective, who we get the sense is on his first vacation ever. He seems out of place—a literal fish out of water if you will.
He is traveling with his wife “Linda,” who when we meet her is sea sick. The ship, Poseidon, has been sailing through a storm and rough seas (a harbinger of things to come). Rogo is very protective of his wife, at the same time as she seems a bit self-conscious about herself, despite both of their tough, take-no-shit, personalities. We come to find out this is because Linda, played by Stella Stevens, was a former hooker, and that she and Rogo met when he arrested her. Now, she’s his wife, and they are both finding their footing in this new phase of their relationship. It’s clear however, they are very much in love.
We also meet a young boy, “Robin” his sister, “Susan” as well as a quirky bachelor, “Mr. Martin,” played by Red Buttons who we first meet doing the funniest walk on film until Billy Crystal and Bruno Kirby went exercising in Central Park in “When Harry Met Sally.”
The other characters we meet or an older couple named “Manny” and “Belle Rosen” played by Jack Albertson and the incomprable Shelly Winters. They are an older Jewish couple who are on their way to Israel to see their two-year old grandson who they've never met before.
We are also introduced to the Captain played by the great Leslie Nielsen. A actor who reinvented himself as much s anyone who ever worked in Hollywood. As the Captain of Poseidon we get the sense that he is a man who loves the ocean, but has been out to sea for too long. We soon learn this is likely his last cruise before he gets dry docked. Which might explain why he is running three days behind schedule, (perhaps an attempt to prolong his final voyage?) Whatever the reason, there is pressure on him to go faster from the ship’s owners.
Eighteen minutes in, and the New Year's Eve party begins in the ballroom.
It's no accident that the movie is set on New Year's Eve. Of all the holidays that could be celebrated in this movie, one which marks a time of year when things are coming to an end and people are hoping for fresh starts and new beginnings. It serves as a perfect metaphorical holiday for the movies larger story. And all our secular celebrations, New Year's Eve is often tied in peoples minds to Christmas, which is of course a very holy day. In fact, there is a giant Christmas tree in the ballroom, which is going to be very crucial in a few moments.
We catch some snippets of conversation at the different tables, meeting some more characters. Some of Poseidon’s crew, among them the “Purser.” Referring to himself as the manager of a hotel that floats he says sounding only half-kidding that he is the real head of the ship, He is a figure of authority.
We again meet the boy, “Robin’s” (Eric Shea) as well as his older sister, “Susan” (Pamela Sue Martin), and Roddy McDowell’s kind-hearted, Irish bartender, “Acres.”
Meanwhile, at the Captain’s table, Leslie Neilsen is speaking to his guests about Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea, from whom the ship gets its name. The Captain makes an ominously prescient remark about Poseidon’s “ill-temper.” It is worth noting that Reverend Scott is at the table. So we have this Man of God sitting across from the Captain of a ship, who is worshipful of a different god. The Captain meanwhile gets a call that he is needed on the bridge and excuses himself.
The conversation and celebration continues with characters taking to the dance floor for a scene culminating countdown to the new year. (Which serves as a countdown to the disaster that is about to befall them all).
We cut back and forth between the ballroom and bridge, where the captain is given a report of an undersea earthquake triggered a tsunami. In other words, these are acts of God. As is the wave that will soon strike the ship.
In a great cinematic moment, the celebratory cheers of the characters in the ballroom are drowned out by ringing alarm of the ship’s klaxon signalling the “mayday” the captain has just ordered as the enormous rogue wave bears down on them.
The passenger’s world is literally about to be turned upside down.
This is usually how Acts of God tend to go.
In one of the classic scenes that made Irwin Allen the “Master of Disaster” the ship is struck by the rogue wave and capsizes!
The characters in the ballroom go flying every which way. Along with everything else. Furniture, plates, glasses, even the grand piano, all of it tumbling through the frame. This is where modern special fx better sell the realism, but the scene still plays and is shocking when it occurs.
The final shot is of a man dangling from a table on what is now the ceiling before he falls and crashes into the glass skylight (which now on the floor) smashing through it. The moment he lands landing (somewhat Christ-like) another explosion rocks the ship. Kaboom! The ship’s passengers, whomever is still alive, is plunged into darkness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kKCbDw7lR4
When we fade back up, our characters find themselves in a new world.
In darkness. Underwater. In a world of chaos. Where up is down and down is up, things are on fire, people are dead, and the seawater surrounding them threatens at any moment to burst into the ballroom drowning them all.
No surprise then that the first words Linda Rogo speaks are “Jesus Christ.” Right. This utterance by Linda is not merely used as an expression of shock. It is meant religiously. To invoke God, even is reflexively. How do I know. Because the next person we see is Shelly Winters who is silently saying The Shema prayer, which is if perhaps the holiest, if not probably the most well known of the Jewish prayers, written in the Torah.
In other words, characters are in their own ways, acknowledging God and thanking him that they aren’t dead. Not little “g” god, like say, Poseidon, but the One God, in all his names. And they don’t say it lightly either. These are people who now understand what it means to fear God (as in to be awed by his power.)
Reverend Scott meanwhile goes to help a dying man crushed under the debris. He watches helplessly as the man dies in his arms.
Next, we hear the voice of the ship’s Purser — an authority figure — as he tries to get control of the situation. He tells people to stay calm, that help is on the way (he actually says it twice, the second time sounding more desperate than the first.)
Reverend Scott sees the boy “Robin” wandering around looking for his sister. He goes to help the boy, at which point we hear his sister’s voice from above. They look up and there is “Susan” crouched under a table which is bolted to the floor which is now the ceiling. She needs help getting down.
There’s only one way. She has to jump.
Reverend Scott gathers some of the survivors and a tablecloth and tells Susan to jump. Scared, Susan can’t bring herself to do it. Reverend Scott tells her to trust him, that they will catch her, and to jump!
The faith is not in God (at this point) but in her fellow passengers. The moment of relief is cut short as the giant Christmas tree in the ballroom topples over almost killing some more passengers.
The ship’s Purser once again yells out for everyone to stay still and wait where they are.
Hackman’s Reverend Scott on the other hand, is taking action, helping people. Which is why Roddy McDowall’s “Acres”the bartender, who it turns out is also trapped on the ceiling calls out to Reverend Scott and not the ship’s Purser. (Fittingly, like any good movie bartender, even during a disaster, Acres remains behind the bar).
However, rather than get Acres down, Reverend Scott has a different idea. They're going to go up. Actually, it’s Red Bottom’s “Mr. Martin” who suggests going up, and the boy Robin who knows that the thinnest part of the hull where they are most likely to be rescued. Reverend Scott realizes they’re right and they need to go up.
They’re going to go higher.
Well, ostensibly because they need to get to the bottom of the ship’s hull to get rescued, but also because they need to outrun the water that is shortly going to burst into the ballroom and drown everyone.
Does that sound like anything familiar? Anything…biblical?
Many cultures have a flood story from the Old Testament Bible story of Noah, or the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh. Fittingly, so does The Poseidon Adventure, a movie about faith and God.
The Sea pours in. The Flood.
So, a small group (a flock) of passengers are joining Reverend Scott in attempting to go up through the ship to reach the bottom. They have to go down to go up. Like metaphorically having to go through hell to get to heaven.
The question becomes how to reach Acres? How to get to higher ground? They need a ladder of some kind.
They find it in the toppled over Christmas tree.
And who does Reverend Scott choose to be the first one up the ladder? The boy Robyn.
And a small child shall lead them (Isiah 11:18)
At this point the ships Purser (authority figure) speaks up and tells everyone on the ship not to listen to the Reverend. His choice of words is interesting here. The Purser says, “For God’s sake, what you're doing is suicide." It’s almost a religious invocation to get them to stop. But it lacks the conviction of faith and instead sounds desperate. The two authority figures, The Reverend and The Purser square off.
The Reverend’s choice of words is as revealing as the Pursers. He says, "if you have any sense you'll come with us." In other words, the purser makes a religious appeal and the Reverend makes a common sense appeal.
Do the passengers listen to the Purser and stay where they are and wait to be rescued? “Pray” as he suggests to the Reverend.
Or do they join Hackman’s Reverend, who believes that “maybe by climbing up they can save themselves?
The first chapter of the Abrahamic stories in the Torah (the Old Testament) is God telling Abraham to leave his father’s house, to get up and go. (Hebrew: Lech lacha).
Each of our characters must make their choice.
Mike Rogo, the cop, wants to listen to the authority figure here, who he views a the ship’s purser. Linda calls out husband Mike for being a person who always follows the rules. As a reformed hooker, Linda mistrusts the “official authority” the purser represents and isn’t so quick to believe his promises or to conform to his rules. Not surprisingly, she is the next one up the ladder after Robin, the young boy.
We find Manny and Belle Rosen, the old Jewish couple. Belle is giving Manny her necklace, which is a hai, the Jewish word for life. She tells Manny to take the necklace to their grandson in Israel. She's not going. She's going to stay and wait with the others. Why? Because, she thinks she is too fat to climb.
Enter Reverend Scott. He tells Belle that she's coming with them. That she can't stay here.
Why not? she asks. It's a good question too. It’s is a realistic one. She isn’t in good enough shape to climb. Yet, it is Reverend Scott, the proponent of being realistic—but also a believer that every person has to try to fight for their life—who encourages her to climb. Pointing up, he tells her, “that way is life.” It's hard not to think that his invocation of the word “life”—the meaning of the symbol on her necklace that just moments ago she was giving to her husband having resigned herself to die—that gets her to go with Reverend Scott.
This is a key moment. Reverend Scott's demonstrates his belief in salvation through personal action. He is encouraging people to fight to save their lives. It is the place from which he derives (past of) his faith — in the fight for life.
So Reverend Scott and his group climb the tree and join Acres up top. Before they leave, Reverend Scott finds his friend, Father John. Reverend Scott asks Father John to be strong and come with them. Father John says he can't. He has to stay with the people staying behind. This sacrifice is in an anathema to Reverend Scott. He asks Father John what his life will be for, if he stays? Which is the point of their brief discussion when Reverend Scott asks Father John what he thought of his sermon. Father John tells Reverend Scott that he spoke only for the strong. Father John, looking over the desperate faces of the surviving passengers, tells Reverend Scott that he doesn't have any other choice. Father John knows that, as a man of God, he is meant to stay to bring comfort to the people who are about to meet their maker.
Before he departs, Reverend Scott pleads with the survivors one last time to reconsider and come with him. He's answered by the Purser who shouts back they're staying and waiting to be rescued.
For the first time, Reverend Scott invokes God as he begs the people to join him. “For God’s sake,” he says to them.
Reverend Scott ascends the Christmas tree (of life) alone. He makes one final appeal from up top (almost like a pulpit). There's another explosion! This time the ballroom is breached and the seawater floods in drowning everybody who decided to stay and wait for a rescue…that will never come. Terrified passengers attempt to climb the tree-ladder, but in their panic they end up toppling the Christmas tree and falling backward into the water to their death (Reverend Scott is almost pulled off from his perch by the frantic passengers). There's an incredible music cue at this moment as Hackman offers a final remorseful look at the drowning passengers.
He returns to his flock, telling them the terrible news. Terrible news that at the same time signifies they made the right choice.
The rest of the movie will be a race against the rising waters of the sinking ship. In other words, they are literally trying to outrun the flood.
Paradoxically, in this flood story, if the people want to live, they need to get off of a boat, instead of on one.
The group arrive at a burning hot door behind which is an inferno. Literally, the doors to hell.
Reverend Scott opens the doors. He goes first to find the way through, leading his flock safely through the fires. As they make their way the passengers are horrified at the sight of the dead bodies and frightened by the fires burning all around them. Ominous signs.
They make it through, but just barely. Once again, the waters burst in and threaten to drown them.
To get to the next level they have to climb through an air duct. Once again, Shelly Winters is concerned she won’t fit. Linda, decides she’s done being polite and won’t be going after Belle Rosen because she doesn’t want to get stuck behind “old fat ass” as she calls Shelley Winters.
The group is having to face their fears in order to keep moving forward.
Nadia, the lounge singer, is claustrophobic and doesn’t want to go into the shaft. Mr Martin (Red Bottoms) has taken a protective shine to her, and is able to reassure her.
The climb is slowed down by Nadia’s claustrophobia. The waters, ever rising, stay close on their heels. Everyone climbs up the shaft.
Unfortunately, an explosion rocks the boat and poor Acres (Roddy McDowall) loses his grip and falls. Mike Rogo goes after him, but it’s too late. He’s gone.
Rogo climbs back up from the depths but gets stuck behind Mr. Martin and Nadia, who’s frozen with fear and won’t climb. Mr. Martin has to help her up…one rung at a time. He tells her not to think of anything but the next rung on the ladder. This is good advice in a crisis. You focus on the small steps. You take it one rung at a time. You try not to think about the whole journey. It can become too daunting.
Once the survivors make it out of the shaft Reverend Scott angrily confronts Rogo about Acre’s death. “I told you to keep everyone together,” he shouts!
Rogo, having had enough, shouts back, “Who do you think you are? God himself? There was an explosion, and he fell, and that’s it!”
Their fight nearly comes to blows but is broken up when the survivors see another group of passengers walking past. They are going down a corridor in the opposite direction than Reverend Scott’s flock. Reverend Scott asks one of the passengers where they're going and is told that they are following the doctor, (yet another authority figure).
Reverend Scott finds the doctor at the head of the pack and tells them they’re going the wrong way. The doctor insists the only way out is forward, and tells Reverend Scott the way he wants to go—through the engine room—is flooded. However, he hasn’t seen it for himself. A woman begs the Reverend to come with them. Instead, he again shouts at the group that they are going the wrong way!
At this, Mike Rogo wheels on Reverend Scott and ask him what makes him so sure that he's right and they're wrong?
Reverend Scott tells him that just because twenty people decide to drown themselves by going the wrong way isn't a good reason to follow them. This is one of the great maxims of life. Just because everyone is doing something doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. Furthermore, if you follow others blindly you may find yourself in a world of hurt. The idea is to think for yourself.
After some shouting, Reverend Scott makes a deal with Rogo. He tells Rogo that he will find the safe path to prove his way is passable.
Rogo gives him fifteen minutes. “Or we’re going the other way,” he warns Reverend Scott.
Reverend Scott finds himself traveling down another mangled corridor in darkness, which is an appropriate metaphor for this part of the journey they are on. Let's face it, very often in life we all feel like we're in the dark. Like we're not sure if we're going the right way. That maybe it's better to turn back. That maybe it's better to follow the herd. However, if we are confident of our knowledge, and have done the work to be ready, then we should trust ourselves to move forward on the path that looks like the right one to us. Even if others doubt, or don’t see the way forward when you do. Have faith in oneself, your choices, and hopefully have a belief that God is with you.
Which is what Reverend Scott seems to do in this scene.
Unsure of the way forward, surrounded by dead bodies, he has to sit down. There is a brief moment of self-contemplation here. We wonder, is he having doubts? He must be, considering the direness of his circumstances. We all have doubts whenever we attempt something very difficult in life.
The moment is interrupted when one of his flock, Nadia, shows up. She says she was scared and wanted to be with him. Sensing her worry, he reassures her that they’ll find another way.
The moment Nadia shows up we see a change in Reverend Scott's attitude and disposition. His worry and self-doubt is gone. Not entirely. Definitely not. But it is gone from the face he shows the world. Replaced instead with a confidence that he shares with Nadia, and which seems to reinvigorate him.
There are psychological studies that show that in a disaster people who survive are those who help others, and not themselves. The reason seems to be that, by doing so, they don't despair dwelling on their own predicament. Instead, they maintain a positive attitude for the sake of the people they're trying to help. The end result is that very often these people help themselves (to survive).
Meanwhile, back with the survivors they're beginning to have their doubts. It's been fifteen minutes and Reverend scott still isn't back yet. Rogo wants to move on. Manny argues that they should give him more time given all he's done for them. Then, Reverend Scott returns. He says he’s seen the engine room. He’s seen the way out.
As the group makes its way they encounter a new problem. The level is flooded. The way through that Reverend Scott found is now underwater.
Reverend Scott says that he will swim through and tie a rope to mark the path that they can all use to follow. This sets up one of the greatest sequences in any movie, and one of the great onscreen heroic deaths of all time.
As Reverend Scott prepares to make the swim, Shelly Winters’s “Belle Rosen” speaks up. She tells him to let her make the swim. That she was a high school swimming champion. That though she is a big fat lady on land, in the water she is light and fast. She wants to do this for the group. All along they’ve been pulling for her, and now she has a chance to be the difference-maker, to help those who’ve been helping her. It’s her chance to get in the fight.
Reverend Scott refuses. He can’t let her do that. Besides, he is certain he can make the swim in one breath. He dives in and begins the underwater swim. The others time him.
In a great underwater sequence, reverend Scott swims through the flooded compartment. As with all the other levels of hell they’ve had to travel this one is filled with just as much death. Dead bodies float listlessly past him as he swims by. Until he is startled by one, causing him to jostle a piece of debris which falls on top of him pinning him down. He can't move. He can’t lift the debris. He's going to drown.
Back with the other passengers, worry is starting to set in. They all have a bad feeling. He’s been gone too long. As the others fret about what to do, looking to Mike Rogo for answers, Belle Rosen provides the answer.
She dives into the water.
“What the hell is she doing?!” Mike Rogo shouts. Faithfully, her husband Manny responds, “She knows what she’s doing.”
Underwater, we follow Belle Rosen as she swims through the flooded corridors, eventually finding Reverend Scott. She sees he is trapped and despite already having swam under water for a couple of minutes, manages to free him. She then rescue-swims him to safety.
She has a great line. “See, Mr. Scott, in the water, I’m a very skinny lady.”
In an absolutely heartbreaking moment, her victory is cut short as she suffers a heart attack and falls backward into the water.
Reverend Scott pulls her out of the water. He tells her to hold on, but she knows she’s done. Before she dies, she hands Reverend Scott her necklace with the Jewish symbol “Hai” and tells him to give it to Manny to give to their grandson. Thus ensuring the covenant of life God grants to us all is continued to the next generation. And the next. Which is of course how you sustain life for all time.
In the final moments of the scene, Belle Rosen tells Reverend Scott the meaning of the symbol on her necklace. “This is the sign for life,” she tells him. “Life always matters very much.” With her final line — one of the greats in movie history — she confirms for him the correctness of his belief: life is indeed worth fighting for. It’s even worth dying for.
I literally cannot watch this scene without crying. I’ve seen this movie nine thousand times, and every single time the tears come, and I get choked up. I’m just a big softie. Or perhaps, it’s that I am affected by the sacrifice Belle Rosen makes. I’m not the only one.
In the most profound moment in the movie, Reverend Scott speaks to God for the first time.
In terms of screenplay structure, this is the part of third act sometimes referred to as “the long dark night of the soul.” Because this is when victory is very much in doubt, and the characters believe themselves to be furthest from their destination. In truth, they are closer then they’ve ever been.
This is how life works. Often, when things are darkest, you are close to success. Darkest before the dawn is the cliché because it’s true.
First though, Reverend Scott, a Man of God who all along has been questioning his faith in his God, needs to have a revelation.
Cradling Belle Rosen’s body he speaks to God for the first time in the movie. He begs Him. “Not this woman.” The Preacher’s revelation is that faith, like life, requires sacrifice. And he knows Belle Rosen has just made the ultimate sacrifice for all of them. The Talmud (the Jewish oral Torah containing analysis, stories, and sayings) teaches that the save a single life is to save the whole world. This idea is echoed in Christianity and in Islam.
What does this mean for Reverend Scott’s beliefs? Might he perhaps be thinking of Father John’s final words to him? That Reverend Scott spoke only for the strong. Belle Rosen’s death calls to mind the questions that we all should be mindful of in our own lives: What about those who can’t make the swim, or the climb? What about those of us who falter along the journey? What does it take to ensure survival, not just of ourselves, but more importantly of our children, our families, and through them, our ideals and beliefs.
Which is of course what religion and faith is all about. Which is what “The Poseidon Adventure” is really about.
Mike Rogo makes the swim and appears next to Reverend Scott. At first, he doesn’t realize she’s dead. When he realizes she is, Rogo’s words are “Oh Jesus.” Which could simply be a lament, with nothing particularly religious attached to it. But given the movie’s story thus far, we understand that Mike Rogo is also speaking to his God, signifying his dawning realization (like Reverend Scott) that if they are to make it out alive they are going to need God’s providence.
In the run up to the final act of the movie, we see Reverend Scott’s dwindling flock make their way through more levels on fire. They travel up ladders, and over uneven ground. Sometimes heading to go up. This final “ascension” up the catwalk is a visual metaphor for the path these characters have had to travel. It’s basically the movie we’ve been watching for 101 minutes and 12 seconds.
If there is any doubt about the meaning of their journey, this short sequence — filmed almost entirely in a wide shot — makes it clear. This level of the ship, all iron, pipes and valves, which is ablaze with columns of fire everywhere, is an underwater hell. Their final passage before they reach their salvation.
The last door lies just ahead of them.
“There’s just one more door and we’re home!” Preacher shouts.
Even Mike Rogo starts to believe. “The bastard was right,” he says as he gets to his feet.
Then, an explosion rocks the ship! Rogo loses his grip on his wife, Linda, who loses her footing, and tragically, falls to her death.
Rogo wheels on Reverend Scott, eyes raging, pointing an accusing finger, and screaming at him, “Preacher! You lying, murdering, son of a bitch! You almost suckered me in! I started to believe in your promises! I started to believe we had a chance! What chance!”
“You took from me the only thing I ever loved,” Rogo weeps. “My Linda. You killed her!”
He has lost all faith, all hope, his reason to live. He crumbles to the catwalk. As if that’s not despairing enough, another explosion rocks the ship, and a jet of scalding hot steam erupts from a valve, blocking the door that is their way out. The wheel to turn off the steam valve is on the far wall…but the catwalk has fallen away in the explosion and no longer reaches it. Separating them from it is a chasm, beneath which are the churning, burning, rising flood waters.
For only the second time Reverend Scott speaks to God. “What more do you want from us?” he shouts. “We’ve come all this way! We did it on our own, no help from you! We didn’t ask you to fight for us, but dammit, don’t fight against us! Leave us alone!”
Of course, that’s not how life works. It doesn’t leave us alone. We struggle with it. In the process, often our faith, in ourselves, in others, and in God, is shaken.
This is what Reverend Scott is doing in this final monologue. He is wrestling with God. Arguing with him. This is a very Old Testament idea. Jacob wrestles with God on his journey. In Hebrew, “Israel” (the name God gives to Jacob after they wrestle) means “to struggle.”
“How many more sacrifices?” Reverend Scott asks God as he leaps to the red wheel.
The second leap of faith in this movie.
His hands grab hold of the scalding hot wheel. Despite the enormous pain, he manages to hang on, and turn the wheel until the burning hot steam shuts off, clearing The Way forward for his flock.
Dangling from the wheel, he turns back to face them. He tells them they can make it. He calls out to Mike Rogo. He tells him to “Get them through!” turning over responsibility for the flock to Rogo. In his sacrifice, Reverend Scott is attempting to give Mike Rogo back his faith.
Borgnoine’s “Mike Rogo” is not ready yet. He sits crumpled on the catwalk, not moving. Now it is calm, even-tempered, Mr. Martin who, filled with the faith Reverend Scott imparted to them along with the burning desire to live, Mr. Martin screams at Rogo. “What kind of a policeman were you?” He accuses him of having done nothing but complain and be negative. In other words, Mike Rogo has been the character with no faith, no beliefs in anything higher than himself, except perhaps for his wife, Linda.
Now, however, with Mr. Martin calling him out, Rogo rises to the occassion.
“Alright, that’s enough,” he proclaims as the music swells.
We’re still not sure Rogo believes, as much as he’s just pissed-off, but he gets up and takes the lead.
They make it to the engine room with its three inches of steel. It appears they’ve reached the end.
Until the boy, Robin reminds him of the thing he’s told them all along: this is right where they want to be (a child shall lead them, right). This is “shaft alley” the thinnest part of the hull.
Suddenly, they think they hear voices.
They grab wrenches and start banging on the hull. They get no response. But Mr. Martin shouts at the group that Reverend Scott would never quit! They keep banging.
This time, someone bangs back.
Mike Rogo throws down his wrench and says, his faith fully restored, a smile on his face for the first time the entire movie, as he says, “The Preacher was right. That beautiful, son of a bitch, was right!” He ruffles Robin’s hair. The boy never lost faith.
As the rescuers burn through the hull to get the survivors out, we see close-ups of all their faces. They’ve all been changed. Not merely because of the disaster they’ve survived. But because of how the journey restored their faith.
To make this point, Ernest Borgnine’s “Rogo” looks back behind him at the way they came. Through a hatch, we can see the orange light of the fires of the hell from which they’ve just emerged, flickering on the wall. Rogo weeps. Then looks up as the rescuers appear in the hull.
In case there is any thought to the idea that perhaps they just got lucky and that’s why they were rescued, the movie spares time for one final dialogue exchange as the rescuers ask the survivors how many of them there are. Mr. Martin tells them six. Then asks the rescuers if they found anyone else? Anyone from the bow? (meaning the other group following the ship’s doctor).
The rescuers shake their head. The only survivors were Reverend Scott’s.
This is one Poseidon’s Movie Life Lessons. The reason bad things happen to good people is because if they didn’t, if life was only good, there would be no need for faith. Things would just always work out.
It’s that we live in a fallen world of free will which leads to bad choices, and sometimes just bad circumstances that are no fault of our own, but which we must overcome. Whatever the case, Poseidon’s central Movie Life Lesson seems to be that in life it is important to have faith in yourself, but it is also necessary to have faith in God, (or some Power higher than yourself), if you want to reach your goals.
By the same token, faith alone is not enough. God can’t do it for you. You have to work for what you want. The prayers that get answered are the ones that are backed up with real effort and force of will. Thus, if we can find that faith in ourselves and faith in God, we will be rewarded not necessarily with success, but with the courage to become the versions of ourselves that will ultimately lead to success.
That is what makes The Poseidon Adventure one of the great Move Life Lessons of all time.
May you, have faith, have courage, and have success in all your endeavors.
