The drama is fairly compelling. On a couple of occasions it lapses into sensationalism – most notably when a lift plunges in its shaft and animated drops of blood superimposed on the screen indicate that everyone in it died. But the film is generally impressive in terms of the special effects of the time (a bursting dam, burning buildings, semi-collapsed structures) and it successfully conveys the huge scale of the disaster. It feels “real” in a way that The Poseidon Adventure never does.
Charlton Heston is the former sporting hero who has to save work colleagues and his father-in-law. Geneviève Bujold is the young mum who Heston has fallen for. Will he save her or his semi-estranged wife (an oddly unconvincing Ava Gardner)? George Kennedy plays a tough, cynical cop who proves decent enough to do the right thing. Richard Roundtree is a motorcycle stunt driver whose potential is never quite realised in the plot. (I kept expecting him to have to leap across a crack in the ground or cycle through a ring of fire, but his story just peters out.) There are also roles for Victoria Principal (of Dallas fame), who is nearly the victim of a machine-gunning predator, and Walther Matthau, who gets to be a comedy drunk. It’s not clear why they felt the need for comedy in a fairly serious film.
Gripping and suspenseful, this is well worth seeing.
