The Poseidon Adventure (PG, 1972)

After a luxury cruise ship capsizes en route from New York to Athens, a handful of desperate survivors work against time for a slim chance at rescue. An all-star cast led by Gene Hackman and Ernest Borgnine fires up this occasionally stilted 1972 Irwin Allen classic. If you thought James Cameron's Titanic was too smarmy, hop aboard. Shortly after midnight on New Year's Day, with confetti still raining down over the ballroom, the topheavy luxury cruiser S.S. Titanic encounters a 90-foot tidal wave and goes belly-up. The survivors divide into two groups: those who will remain where they are and await help, and those who follow impassioned Reverend Scott (Hackman) as he forges upward toward what is now the bottom of the ship, and their best chance for rescue. The dwindling group meets its share of catastrophic obstacles -- from explosions and flooding passages to their own crippling fear and uncertainty -- as the water rises higher in the sinking ship, cutting off all but one route of escape, and cutting their time short.

There are more familiar faces in THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE than you'd find on a Love Boat reunion cruise: Roddy McDowall, Oscar nominee Shelley Winters, and Leslie Nielsen as the stony-faced captain. The characters themselves are a bit silly, but they all react realistically under duress. They sweat and yell at each other, and their clothes get messy. Gene Hackman binds the cast together as the fiery reverend who preaches that strength comes not from God, but from within. He proves his point.

Part of what makes the movie so effective is the novelty of seeing people trapped in a world literally turned upside-down, where barber chairs and toilets dangle eerily from the ceiling, where a giant artificial Christmas tree becomes a ladder to a higher deck that was once underneath. Adults who saw it in 1972 will find it still gripping, but not too intense for young teens. The blood is modest, and the cameras don't linger unduly on the dead.