Destino final: Cassandra

This is not one of those soulless, uninteresting all-star packages of the '70s, like "The Towering Inferno" or one of those pseudo-artsy "entertainments" like "The French Connection"; it's a vigorously directed, tightly edited thriller that grabs you by the throat right from the opening sequence and keeps its grip throughout. Sure, it contains most of the expected disaster-movie cliches (peculiar love-hate relationships between characters played by big stars of the era, useless supporting roles - especially Ava Gardner's -, etc...), but the directing is so efficient, and Burt Lancaster is so convincingly hateful, that you find yourself completely absorbed. In my opinion, a first-rate movie, with a spectacular finish. (***)

Independently made outside of the big Hollywood studios at the height of the 1970s disaster film cycle, this is actually one of the better efforts in the genre concerning a trainful of passengers dealing with both an outbreak of pneumonic plague thanks to a terrorist stowaway and a political conspiracy to cover it up by sending them all to their deaths via a condemned railway bridge.

Whilst not quite hitting the heights of The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, both made a few years beforehand, a mixture of a good cast, good directing by George P Cosmatos (who made First Blood in the 1980s and Tombstone in the 1990s) and some really good editing helps to cover up most of the minor flaws in this film. Like the train that the film centres around, the film keeps its momentum going despite being fairly long.

Talky at times, yet it has enough well directed action in it to keep it interesting. Some decent performances by Ava Gardner, Richard Harris and Martin Sheen help too (although some of Burt Lancaster's lines seem a little convoluted) However these are all minor quibbles. Ok, the film may be showing its age now but it's still a good watch that people of most ages will enjoy.

An infected terrorist escapes from a Geneva chemical institute and carries a deadly plague to a European express train.

Coolly devised, fashionable, rather silly, but undeniably entertaining and spectacular disaster thriller with an abundance of topical pulp elements, handsome production, superficial writing, a curious lack of cinematic invention, and nothing much for its star cast to do. Watching it now, one can observe many components clearly influencing today's filmmakers.

The '70s cycle of disaster films provided widely acclaimed titles such as The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, and universally panned titles like When Time Ran Out and Hurricane. It's tricky to decide which side to place The Cassandra Crossing. This 1976 entry in the genre divides critics and the public like no other disaster movie - on the one hand you have Maltin giving it his nod of approval, while on the other you have Halliwell dismissing it as a totally undistinguished potboiler. Personally, I feel The Cassandra Crossing has been rather hard done by. It's a good, well-made, sporadically exciting film with a first-rate cast.

A terrorist on the run boards a continental train, unaware that when he recently infiltrated a top secret laboratory he was infected with a highly contagious killer plague. Pretty soon, people aboard the train are coming down with the horrendous virus. In the corridors of power, Colonel Stephen Mackenzie (Burt Lancaster) plots to divert the train to an abandoned concentration camp where the passengers can be quarantined, ignoring the fact that the train will have to traverse the famously fragile Cassandra Crossing (a dangerously rickety, long unused bridge) to get there. Meanwhile, the passengers - including Dr. Jonathan Chamberlain (Richard Harris) - realize that they're not as safe as the authorities would have them believe, and they try to regain control of the express.

Admittedly, The Cassandra Crossing is derivative and clichéd - as, indeed, so many disaster films are. But it doesn't waste its marvelous all-star cast. Each character is well-written and well-performed by a stellar cast. George Pan Cosmatos (later to helm Cobra and Rambo: First Blood, Part II) directs with an assured touch and generates some very effective tension, particularly in the film's memorable climax. At 123 minutes, the film is just long enough - there's time to get involved in the story and the characters, but not quite enough time to get bored. The Cassandra Crossing is an above-par disaster flick, which has been unfairly under-rated for far too long.

Wow! Now here's a value for money film. You get an outbreak of plague on a train, heading for a rickety bridge, whose passengers include sundry thieves, arms dealers, terrorists, pretty girls and cute kids. We've got helicopters, shoot-outs, explosions, songs, heroic sacrifices, Martin Sheen as Ava Gardner's kept boyfriend, Lee Strasberg emoting nobly and Burt Lancaster as an Army General who is Not To Be Trusted. George Pan Cosmatos directs at a fair lick, the setpieces are staged with relish, there's some neat bits of dialogue (courtesy of Tom Manciewiez, one suspects) and a spectacular climax. By most definitions, this is a pretty bad, crass, melodramatic, ludicrous film, but it's more fun than many a Good Movie I can think of.