Publisher: CinemaSerf August 16, 2025
When the venal “Spangler” (James Franciscus) teams up with millionaire “Shelby” (William Holden) to build a luxury resort on a island, he also sees an opportunity to engage oil prospector “Hank” (Paul Newman) to see if he can also guild their lily with a gusher or two. Believe it or not, they strike it lucky - but this experienced driller is concerned that the pressure readings are off the scale and that an adjacent volcano might soon be about to make it’s presence felt. To add the fourth wheel to the shopping trolley of a film, we have “Kay” (Jacqueline Bisset) who has previously had a relationship with “Hank” that is barely less smouldering that the would-be Mount Etna on their tropical island. Now Irwin Allen did produce some of the most memorable disaster movies, but here he seems to have decided to assemble an admittedly decent A-list cast and then just throw the story under the lava. Indeed, in many ways this just reminded me of “The Poseidon Adventure” (1972) with Burgess Meredith, Eddie Albert, a frankly dreadful effort from Red Buttons and Valentina Cortese doing her best impersonation of Shelley Winters from that maritime adventure - all looking for some sort of holiday in the sun with a payday at the end. Some of the volcanic visuals are quite impressive, and there is one scene where Meredith and Newman do manage to create just an hint of suspense, but otherwise despite it’s enormous heat it is all completely undercooked. This genre had served it’s purpose by now and this one just hastened it’s cremation.