|
|
The Bargain Nexus - When Time Ran Out
|
List Price: $14.98
Our Price: $49.94
Your Save: $ ( % )
Availability:
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Starring: Paul Newman, Jacqueline Bisset, William Holden, Edward Albert, Red Buttons
Directed By: James Goldstone
|
Average Customer Rating:   
|
|
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786300269002
Format: Color
ISBN: 6300269000
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Release Date: 1994-07-07
Running Time: 121
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1980-03-28
|
|
|
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating:
Summary: An insult to disaster movies
Comment: Trouble's brewing on a tropical isle: Oilman Paul Newman has just struck oil, but what's that funny smell? Turns out the island's long-dormant volcano is about to blow. When it does, half of the folks stay at the hotel (read: Lava Target Cental) while Newman takes a small band across the island to a safe spot. Will they make it?
This movie is just terrible in every respect. Clearly, producer Irwin Allen (The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno) had lost his creative spark by 1980 when this was made. The cast is full of top-notch actors (Newman and William Holden among them) but the script and the direction are abysmal. The sound is poor and background noises often overwhelm the voices which sound tinny. The actors spend all their time looking staring blankly at each other while the soundtrack booms away melodramatically. One scene of the principals crossing a burning bridge that just happens to be over the volcano seemed to last forever; it wasn't helped when Burgess Meredith, as an old circus performer, wire-walks across carrying a child. Disaster-flick vets Ernest Borgnine and Red Buttons share a small subplot but no chemistry whatever. For that matter, none of the players conveyed any sense of relationship; several requisite romances all fell flat.
Any movie that considers a cock fight to the death hosted by Pat Morita to be comic relief is just lame. This ill-conceived movie is a true disaster.
Customer Rating:
Summary: When Audiences Stayed Home
Comment: As the 70s came to an end, the disaster movie limped its last with the likes of the cheesily enjoyable Meteor, the not-so-enjoyable City On Fire (no, not that one) and the truly WTF? Airport '79 before 1980's When Time Ran Out... aka The Day the World Ended aka Earth's Final Fury finally sounded the death knell for both the genre and Irwin Allen's career. The 'Master of Disaster's volcano movie is no Dante's Peak. It's not even a Devil At 4 O'Clock. Instead, it's everything you would possibly expect of a film whose credits boast 'Ernest Borgnine as Tom Conti' (no, not that one) 'and James Franciscus as Bob Spangler.' Somehow - presumably very large cheques and a promise not to direct - Allen was able to tempt Towering Inferno stars Paul Newman and William Holden back to play more or less the same roles, which is handy because the film is more or less a rehash, even shamelessly recycling a couple of setpieces to infinitely diminished effect. And not just the plot - the characters are for the most part exactly the same too. Franciscus gets the Richard Chamberlain role, Veronica Hamel the Susan Blakely neglected wife part, Jacqueline Bisset the Faye Dunaway girlfriend duties, and Red Buttons the Fred Astaire role as embezzler Francis Fendly (great character names abound here), though instead of a romance with Jennifer Jones he gets saddled with Borgnine's New York cop. Still, considering the 'original' characters include high-wire act Burgess Meredith and a horrendously cloying Valentine Cortese ("My darling, you have lived through the collapse of burlesque and vaudeville twice. Now you can't be confused by a little volcano with belly ache."), Sheila (as in Mrs) Allen playing the local madam and Pat Morita as her husband whose cockfight with Alex Karras gets postponed due to flooding, you can't entirely blame slumming screenwriters Carl Foreman and Stirling Silliphant for going with the tried-and-trusted route. Unfortunately they never make any of them remotely interesting.
The plot? OK, but stop me if you've heard this before. While moneyman William Holden plans a big ad campaign for his Hawaiian hotel ("I really like your slogan: 'Come watch Mananui toss in his sleep.' Very effective." "Subtle, right?"), his dodgy partner James Franciscus tries to play down the threat of the local volcano blowing up while Paul Newman's wildcat oilman insists "This thing's a goddamned powder keg" with what little enthusiasm he can muster between romancing Jacqueline Bisset's advertising designer with tales of how he earned the money to start drilling (and not just for oil, we're informed) by teaching women needlepoint. Once Mananui gets bored with the half-hearted soap operatics and blows its top, it's women, children and top-billed stars first (this being the kind of film where the characters die in reverse order of billing, and if your character doesn't even have a name, you're toast), with a small, economically viable group of hotel guests facing tidal waves, fireballs, narrow ledges, rickety bridges and a script so riddled with clichés that the only surprise is that no-one sacrifices a maiden to appease the volcano god or that Elvis doesn't turn up to sing the Volcano-a-hula.
All of which sounds like a lot more fun that it actually is, but unfortunately it's distinctly low on spectacle or special effects, as if once the cast and hotel accommodation were paid for nothing was left for the film itself. The climax is one of the longest scenes of people crossing a bridge ever filmed (nigh on two whole reels of it) before one brief badly matted-in explosion. Even the film's best (the term is strictly relative here) scene inside the crater itself suffers from terrible back-projection. Still, it does offer one truly wonderful piece of droopingly phallic imagery as a rather unfortunately designed volcano-monitoring center falls into the crater that's almost worth the price of admission on its own.
Like The Swarm and Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, this went through heavy pre-release trimming - this US TV version runs 141 minutes, a full 20 minutes longer than the theatrical release - but you can't help thinking that was an act of mercy. James Goldstone, who had turned out some pretty decent efforts in the past, directs like it was a 70s TV movie while Fred Koenekamp's cinematography doesn't hide the fact that the grand finale was shot on a soundstage. Indeed, the whole thing just feels like it was made by people paying off their mortgages or alimony. If this film were a cheese, it would be processed and definitely well past its sell-by date.
Customer Rating:
Summary: "when the magic ran out" ,or not that bad
Comment: OK, this did in the careers of the director and producer Irwin Allen(nether would bring another film to the big screen) it really is just another rerun of all the disaster movies of the 70's , they just went once to often to the well. Still if in the right frame of mind this silly movie is fun to watch as in the first 5 minutes you can figure out who lives and who dies. If disasters are your kind of movies then you might like this one.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A timeless classic!
Comment: When i saw this movie, i thought it was one of the best movies ever made by Irwin Allen. Once i had found it on video, it wasn't the original movie. They added footage for the video release. Which made it all more interesting to watch. If they ever release it to DVD it would be nice to see it in both formats. The original uncut version, and this extended edition.
It would indeed be a classic to enjoy!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Entertaining Irwin Allen Movie
Comment: This being Irwin Allen's last big screen movie, I think it was pretty good. No, it is not "The Poseidon Adventure" or "The Towering Inferno", but it is fairly entertaining. Paul Newman, Jacquelyn Bissett and Edward Albert look great! The special effects are pretty good and the action can be quite intense occasionally. If you love the "master of disaster", don't pass this one by. Hope it comes to DVD soon along with "Beyond The Poseidon Adventure".
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews:
|
When a volcano erupts on an island resort, an oilman (Newman) leads a small group of people to safety.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
