MIDWAY Special Edition (with Andy's TV Version?) Plus GRAY LADY DOWN, MacARTHUR Coming from Powerhouse Indicator

[BobaMike]

Maybe the short clip from Earthquake made them pull it?

I agree , it makes no sense. I watched that clip, and other than Williams sounding a bit overexcited about the battles he remembered as a kid, I don't see what could be offensive.

[Paul MacLean]

I wonder if its something as simple as the stills showing Williams on a scoring stage are from a non-Universal production?

If they were stills from Williams recording a score for another studio's picture, that could be the "legal reason".

[AndyDursin]

I finally watched GRAY LADY DOWN all the way through for the first time in years.

I never noticed in the shot where Stacy Keach goes to call his wife, right next to him on the wall, is a map of Rhode Island Sound -- and the very specific detailing of the salt pond we live on is an inch away from him, clearly visible on the left hand side of the frame!

I liked this film, I don't really consider it a "disaster movie" as the booklet notes do, since there's really no soap opera tangents or even much character development. It's mostly a straight ahead "event thriller". Frankly it could have used a "little more" -- it's just a little too perfunctory in the end, there's not enough meat on it. The ending kind of felt abrupt and left me cold. I also confess I found Jerry Fielding's score lacking. It's not the worst score he ever wrote (at least it's better than BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE), but it's themeless and meandering, and really brings nothing to the table, especially at the end when the movie needed a little lift...more than what he gave it.

Still, Heston is good in the movie, and the cast of Stacy Keach, David Carradine, Ronny Cox, Ned Beatty, a young Christopher Reeve -- it's terrific. In fact I had forgotten Beatty and Reeve shared screen time in this movie -- Otis and the Man of Steel months before the release of SUPERMAN!

Indicator's supplements were excellent. The Alan Rode interview, which I assumed was just about submarine movies, proved to be enormously interesting since he's a Navy vet and spent time in these submersibles! His historical accounts of the history of "sub escapes" and how the Navy dealt with emergencies were fascinating on their own, but to add them to a discussion of this movie really provided great insight and I was fascinated by his 40-minute narrative.

The other interviews are short but worthwhile. It's also interesting Stacy Keach, for all the troubles he had, is still going and clear headed, recounting working with Heston, whom he disparages for his politics but praises for everything else. There's not much to the Stephen McHattie conversation, as he seems to have had a far less satisfying time on the movie -- and in Hollywood in general.

Overall, excellent disc with supplements that enrich the film, which is all you can ask for (I haven't listen to the commentary yet).

[Eric Paddon]

I was able to go through this by ripping the foreign region Blu-Ray to my computer and then reconverting it to a Blu-Ray that would play on my machine. Good supplements and the commentary as I recall was decent. It didn't touch on how the movie has almost zero resemblance to its credited source novel "Event 1000" (all they have in common is the element of a sub colliding with a ship and being trapped on the ocean floor though in that story things are sadistically dragged out over a period of weeks and people keep dying on the sub) but I think it may have touched on how earlier scripts that wanted to feature an element of a stalking Russian sub that might want to get to the downed sub first were eliminated because the Navy didn't want Cold War tension elements in any film they were cooperating on (this kind of control ended up wrecking the script of "Raise The Titanic").

There were extra scenes of Rosemary Forsyth as Heston's wife that got left on the cutting room floor. Her final screen presence amounts to 15 seconds and five words of dialogue total! (the trailer does reveal a flash of one unused scene showing her nervously listening to a radio news update on the rescue).

[AndyDursin]

I assumed from her prominent billing she must've had more scenes than the single one she ended up with. Curious they weren't tossed into the TV version like so many other Universal films of the era!

[Eric Paddon]

Universal didn't seem to have much faith in the film. It had been shot in late 76 and the beginning of 77 (it's the last film covered in Heston's "Actor's Life" journal) but because all the Navy scenes were shot simultaneous with "Airport '77" Universal decided to keep the film on the shelf for over a year as it turned out. I guess they also figured there was no point expanding it for a TV broadcast. I remember seeing it for the first time on NBC around 81-82 I think and then it went into the local station realm where I know WPIX removed a couple scenes (the first one where Carradine is introduced jogging on the beach and also the one where Stephen McHattie is shown playing the flute).

[AndyDursin]

I can understand the lack of enthusiasm a little, the movie just kind of peters out at the end. The last scene is utterly perfunctory and the credits just roll up. And the fact the score is so uninspired doesn't help.

It's an OK movie because of the cast but the film doesn't give them enough to work with, especially in the second half.