Hi, Everyone,
I worked on this movie at The Queen Mary (ship) in Long Beach in May of 1981. The crew and cast were fun to be with. I was an extra who was supposed to be a passenger on the Goliath down at the bottom of the ocean. We were all still alive years after the ship sank.
A group of us were taught the dances of the 1920s (Lambeth Walk, Charleston). We worked in the cargo hold of the Queen Mary for some of our scenes. There were good guys and bad guys. Frank Gorshin and Christopher Lee were the villains. Christopher Lee was the Captain who kept the people alive and wanted to stay underwater when the rescuers arrived.
John Carradine was a very pleasant man to work with in his scenes. He had arthritis but he managed to negotiate the stairway that led down into the hold of the ship. Mark Harmon was the hero who arrives to rescue the passengers.
This movie was originally shown over a two night period on TV. It later was packaged as a VHS movie with some scenes edited out, but the short version seems the better and more fast paced of the two.
There is one scene where the music does not match the dancing in the background. Watch for dancers moving at the wrong tempo. The scene was rehearsed at one speed (No music actually is played. The dancers are given a tempo and they dance without music while the dialog is being recorded. The music is inserted later.)and different music was put in for some reason.
I liked the movie but it was not great. It was an interesting idea that will hold your attention for a couple of hours. If you like ship movies, try "Sea Chase" with John Wayne and Lana Turner or "Assault on a Queen" with Frank Sinatra.
Tom Willett
