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. (***)

Disaster epics like "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno" from 20th Century Fox led almost everyone else to try their hand at it, since, for a time, disaster at the movies meant box office gold. This entry was Italy's answer to the genre and, though it is far-fetched and occasionally ridiculous, it is a thrilling and tense movie. Loren toplines as a divorcee and author who happens to be boarded on the same train as her ex-husband (twice!) Harris is the husband, a noted neurosurgeon. The two lob sarcastic and occasionally poignant barbs at each other and attempt a sort of 1970's, updated Nick & Nora Charles thing. (Ironically, their names are Jonathan and Jennifer, the monikers of the later Nick & Nora redux "Hart to Hart" and Stander, Max the conductor in this film, played their cohort---ALSO named Max!) Other passengers board in the typical genre fashion, each with their tics and traits and duties to the story. Gardner looks stunning. She ludicrously, but welcomely, appears in a new drop-dead Franka ensemble for almost every scene. Nothing about her character is realistic, but she adds great style and class to the film. Sheen plays her latest boy-toy and they share a rather kinky, Oedipal relationship. Simpson (in another subpar performance) is a mysterious priest. Strasberg is excruciating as a sort of male Estelle Getty from "The Golden Girls", omnipresently appearing everywhere trying to sell watches to the passengers. He gets better toward the end, but his appearance is mostly embarrassing. Turkel (doubtlessly on board due to her offscreen relationship with Harris) is a hippie singer who warbles a truly awful song which stops everything in its tracks (pun intended.) Also on board: an infected terrorist who is spreading a horrific plague everywhere he goes (which is hilariously punctuated by ominous sounds and scenes of him coughing in the train's food, etc...) Lancaster as a stern army colonel and Thulin (who exists as a verbal punching bag for Lancaster) as a doctor argue over the best course of action. She fights for the rights and lives of the passengers. He sees them as casualties of an unfortunate situation. Eventually, it is decided to direct the train to an old concentration camp in Poland, but first it must traverse the title bridge---The Cassandra Crossing! The film contains some really impressive aerial camera work (the film should be viewed in widescreen) and doesn't take long to begin it's feeling of dread and suspense. Though a lot of the drama is diffused by clumsy editing, inane dialogue, agonizing bit players, lax rear projection (but not often) and lazy acting, there is enough good in the film to overcome this. Immeasurably helpful is Goldsmith's Italian-flavored, chug-chug score which wrings every ounce of excitement it can out of the visuals. It's also fun to see Loren in a film of this type, pitching in and holding her own with Harris in the action scenes. There is a level of emotion in several instances that helps this rise above some other screen flops like "When Time Ran Out" and "Avalanche". A lot happens in this film. The plague would be enough, but then there's gunplay and the weakened bridge! The situation is the film is serious and threatening and isn't relieved until almost the fade out, so a few missteps along the way can be forgiven.

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.

Ah, the disaster films of the 1970s......every natural (and some man-made) disaster had its movie. Earthquakes, fires, tidal waves, floods (courtesy of a made-for-TV movie simply called Flood!), volcanoes, hurricanes, doomed airliners, ships, bombings, subway hijacks......the one hold out was tornadoes, but that was remedied two decades later in 1996. The disaster movies that remain somewhat relevant in the 21st century are actually the ones involving terrorists, hijacking, snipers, and bomb plots--movies like Rollercoaster, Black Sunday, Juggernaut, Two-Minute Warning, The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3, and The Cassandra Crossing. But as the case with other (more "escapist fare") disaster movies, the checklist applies. Ensemble, all-star (for the time) casts: Check. Generous running time, usually over two hours: Check. Multiple plot lines: Check. Impressive special effects (created the old-fashioned way, before CGI--models): Check. O. J. Simpson: Check. An actor from Hollywood's golden era (usually William Holden, Charlton Heston, or Burt Lancaster): Check.

In The Cassandra Crossing, the terrorists who kick off the plot are actually ecoterrorists, who attempt to to blow up a WHO-like organization in Geneva. They fail, but end up being exposed to a deadly virus, and one of them winds up on a trans-Europe train. The virus spreads and the military and other officials decide the best way to contain the outbreak is to re-route the train to a decrepit bridge in Poland, likely to collapse once the train passes over it, and the authorities can then blame the tragedy on the defective bridge. And this being a '70s disaster movie, expect multiple storylines based on the eccentrics on the train.

George P. Cosmatos, who would later direct Sly Stallone in two big hits (Rambo: First Blood Part II in 1985 and Cobra a year later), as well as the lesser-known underwater disaster film Leviathan, skillfully directs the proceedings and maintains tension throughout as we see the train hurtling toward its doom. Cosmatos also includes several effective images of the dangerous bridge taken from various angles - the audience realizes there is no way in hell the train could make it across this thing. The climax is graphic, slapping this movie with an R-rating; also somewhat unusual in that most '70s disaster movies got PGs (exceptions being the equally gritty Taking of Pelham 1,2,3, Two-Minute Warning, and Black Sunday).

You never turn to a disaster movie for heavy intellectualism, but this one is definitely one of the better and more timeless examples of the subgenre.

Cassandra Crossing, The (1977)

*** (out of 4)

Sophia Loren, Richard Harris, Martin Sheen, O.J. Simpson, Lee Strasberg, Ava Gardner and Burt Lancaster pick up paychecks in this 70's disaster film that seems to have been forgotten over the years. Three terrorists try to blow up a hospital in Geneva but things go even worse when one comes into contact with a Bubonic Plague and escapes capture. The sick man then jumps on board a train and soon a government man (Lancaster) isn't going to let anyone off. A doctor (Harris) and his ex-wife (Loren) try to help those on board but things take an even bigger turn when they learn they have to cross a bridge that won't hold the weight of the train. It seems this film hasn't the reputation of some of the more popular disaster films, which is a little surprising because this here is a pretty good movie in its own right. Perhaps the government propaganda gets in the way for some but this was only one minor issue in the film. For the most part it featured some pretty fun performances, a tense story and an ending that I didn't see coming. Simpson as a preacher was pretty funny before the twist as was Sheen playing the boy-toy to Gardner. Gardner seems to be having the time of her life playing the diva and barking orders to the younger man. Both Loren and Harris turn in fine performances and I thought their melodrama actually worked pretty well. Lancaster plays a guy you really love to hate and he too delivers a fine performance. The film certainly deserves its R-rating as we also get some pretty graphic violence along the way so be sure you're not watching the edited down PG version. In the end I'm really not sure why this film seems to have been forgotten but fans of the genre will certainly want to check it out. While it's certainly more political than some of the films that came before it, there's still plenty here to enjoy.