The Coronavirus Pandemic has changed everything. Schools are closed. Churches are open but much of the faithful is staying away because authorities are telling us not to leave our homes. People are losing jobs, their savings, and even though the government may send us some checks to hold us over, the panic– the real panic– hasn’t even started yet. That will start when the death toll starts to climb, and it seems inevitable that it will.
The current scene is grim enough. Right now, a visit to your local mall, if it is still open, will reveal a deserted ghost town. Most of the stores are shut down for the duration. Only larger department stores are open. I saw one kiosk open with a lonely, frightened looking woman, who obviously wished she were anywhere but there.
Late night television talk shows at first said they were going into reruns but have since started doing half of their shows from home, to some bizarre effects. The surprising thing I learned from watching The Late Show with Steven Colbert was that John Batiste needs to get a piano tuner over to his place. That grand piano he’s playing in his living room is surprisingly out of tune. I know, I’m nit picking. Actually I applaud what Colbert, Fallon, and Kimmel are doing. Things are tough enough without being able to tune in to see what Steven and the two Jimmy’s have to say about current events. We need that end-of-the-day ritual. I think they’re doing a real public service, something to keep the nation’s mental health intact.
It all really does seem dream-like, nightmarish. “It’s like the world is upside down,” I heard one woman tell a TV-reporter. “It’s all crazy. Like it can’t really be happening. Up is down, down is up.”
Yeah. That sort of describes it perfectly. The world is upside down. In a way it’s kind of like a real life version of that classic disaster movie, “The Poseidon Adventure.” Remember that one? A luxury liner is hit by a giant wave and is capsized. The ship is turned upside down. The captain is killed and the survivors find themselves in a big banquet hall turned upside down. The ship’s bursar takes over and tells the passengers to follow him, he’ll lead them to safety by going down to the top of the upside down ship. But one man, one Reverend Scott (Gene Hackman) ,a modernistic, forward-looking progressive kind of minister tells him he’s wrong. If they go to the top of the ship, they’ll all die. Because the top is now the bottom and it’s underwater.
We believe Rev. Scott, because earlier, he told a more conservative preacher on the ship basically that God only helps those who help themselves. You gotta roll up your sleeves and save the world on your own. Don’t expect God to do it for you. We believe him because we like his message. And so some of the passengers follow the bursar and some follow the reverend. It’s fortunate that all of the rev’s followers were big name actors at the time, so it was easy to see these guys made the right choice, even though surviving wouldn’t be easy.
The movie was based on a novel by Paul Gallico, and the story is really a metaphor for today’s world, where everything, morality, politics, social norms, even religion is pretty much in a state of confusion. The screenplay by Oscar and Golden Globe winner Stirling Silliphant does a good job of boiling down Gallico’s metaphoric story line into an intelligent film with characters that you could easily identify with. Who can forget Belle Rosen, the former high school swimming champion, played by Shelley Winters. She’s the only one capable of swimming a length of distance underwater to lead the others to safety. She’s hopelessly overweight, but sacrifices herself for the common good. And Ernest Borgnine as Rogo, the tough cop married to former hooker Linda (Stella Stevens), who opposes Rev. Scott every inch of the way to the bottom of the ship, which is now the top. And Eric Shea as Robin, the obnoxious little kid who has memorized facts about the ship from a brochure and seems to have an almost blueprint-perfect picture of the entire ship in his mind, which he doesn’t mind sharing with everyone at the top of his voice.
After much suffering, and harrowing adventure the little band of survivors make it to the bottom of the ship, where the steel plating is the thinnest, and they hear a rescue crew on the outside. They made it. But not all. For near the end, Rev. Scott had himself made the ultimate sacrifice by diving for a valve wheel to shut off some burning steam blocking the way out. He hangs, Christ-like, on the valve, turning it with the weight of his body, hand over hand. He shouts instructions for the other how to go, and then, his strength gone, he lets go and drops into a burning inferno. (Kind of a weird way for the good guy to buy it, now that I think of it.)
But anyway, here we are caught in a real life disaster movie. Mass confusion reigns. We have “leadership” that at first told us the whole thing was a hoax, and then that it wasn’t a serious problem. Probably be all gone in a few days. And now they’re telling us it’ll get worse before it gets better. Hospital ships are going to park off the docks of New York, and California. There still are not enough test kits or ventilators. I think we’re in trouble, folks. At least the passengers on the Poseidon had Rev. Scott to show them the way.
