DOOMED TO A WATERY GRAVE!

THE TIRED and creaky S.S. Poseidon was headed to the scrapyard on her final voyage when calamity struck — she was flipped over by a tidal wave! The fictional liner’s demise — and the gutsy journey through the bowels of the ship by 10 passengers in a desperate search for escape — is the story of The Poseidon Adventure, which was the biggest-grossing movie of 1972. With a cast led by GENE

HACKMAN, ERNEST BORGNINE, SHELLEY WINTERS and RED BUTTONS, the production was one of several disaster movies popular in the ’70s, such as Airport, Earthquake and The Towering Inferno. In this scene, Hackman, with a dying Winters, braves fire and flood as he battles through the wreckage. The plucky passenger is doomed, though his heroics enable six of his companions to survive.