Interesteg What makes it different from others?

Aedonerre I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

bkoganbing More stars get into harm's way once again in The Cassandra Crossing, another one of those Seventies disaster films. This time the stars have in their course a deadly plague released on a European train. If that's not enough the method of containment has been prescribed to send them across an old abandoned bridge that will more than likely collapse under the stress. At least that's one authorities are hoping.Authorities are represented in the form of Burt Lancaster a NATO general who when learning of the situation devises this murderous scheme which may kill more people than the terrorists who robbed a Swiss biological facility might ever do themselves. Debating him is scientist Ingrid Thulin. Lancaster and Thulin are like a 20th century version of Spock and McCoy.On the train are Dr. Richard Harris and Sophia Loren who think they have the virus contained and it might not be necessarily fatal if treated in time. In any event they're not willing to die for science or humanity or anything else. If I was Richard Harris and married to Sophia Loren, I'd have a lot to live for too.Some familiar names are on the list of engers and crew. At one point a crew of troops in white winter uniforms, armed whose faces you never see. Lancaster has it mind for them not to come back and they can't see it. Their presence flashes concentration camp survivor Lee Strasberg back to those really bad old days. An interesting couple are Ava Gardner playing pretty much a version of herself with a young gigolo in the person of Martin Sheen. He's a drug smuggler who does his thing with the cover of her celebrity. In the end though he's a hero.The Cassandra Crossing probably belongs at the top of the second tier of disaster films of the time. A rather incredulous plot leaves one puzzled. There had to be a better way to handle these events.

Lee Eisenberg The current H1N1 epidemic (swine flu is a misnomer) makes "The Cassandra Crossing" a little more interesting. Mostly, this story of a terrorist spreading a disease on a Swiss train is a common disaster flick, what with the giant cast. I'd say that the upside is that it shows how the military officer (Burt Lancaster) tries to cover up the problem. The 1970s of course saw a lot of movies about suspicion of the government (like "The Parallax View" and "Three Days of the Condor"). A really fine scene is Sophia Loren in her slip.So, this isn't any masterpiece, but certainly a fun one. Also starring Richard Harris, O.J. Simpson, Ava Gardner, Martin Sheen, Lee Strasberg, Lionel Stander, Ingrid Thulin, Alida Valli, John Phillip Law, Ann Turkel, Ray Lovelock and Lou Castel.

writers_reign As we all know there are only seven basic plots so every now and again you need to merge a couple to come up with something new. Alas, it's not as easy as blending two colours to make a third. In this case they took a look at Panic In The Streets in which a hood, infected with plague is loose on the streets of New Orleans and doctor Richard Widmark has to track him down and/or contain the disease and avoid widespread panic and fused it with one of those people in danger in a confined space entries a la The Towering Inferno and what they came up with was a hood infected with plague attempting to escape via a crowded train - okay, a snake on a train if you must. Actually it's not that bad, very watchable and any movie that features not one, not two, but THREE gorgeous gals, Ava Gardner, Sophia Loren and Alida Valli, albeit all homing in on their sell-by date, can't be all bad.

John T. Ryan THE DISASTER Movie is a sub-genre of the Action/Drama hybrid that seems to go on being popular down through the years. Decade after decade, we find stories of terrible impending occurrences and the number of diverse characters, perfect strangers, who find themselves caught up in the dangerous, deadly happenings; which ironically bring the varied and disparate personalities together and often in great dependence on each other's care and vigilance.AS FAR as ancestry of the film type, we can only guess; but it surely can trace at least a portion of its lineage back to the earliest days of the cinema. Even the movies of the by then well established filmmakers of the early 1920's realized the great potential in story telling that could be realized via the road to filmed disaster.EVEN the great Cecil B. DeMille applied the disaster element in his first version of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (Famous Players-Lasky/Paramount Pictures, 1923); where he made the story both Biblical & Historical as well as Contemporary by the use of flashback from modern contemporary times to the age of Moses.TRACING the family tree of the disaster movie brings to light such titles as THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY (????/Warner Brothers, 1954), AIRPORT ( ) and its clones, the "Sensurround" laden EARTHQUAKE (????/Universal,197?) And a minor matinée pot-boiler called ZERO HOUR (Paramount, 1957), which oddly enough gave birth to the low budgeted, big hit sensation, AIRPLANE (Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker/Paramount, 197?).THE DISASTER Movie can even trace its roots to John Ford's STAGECOACH (?????, 1939), which had all the elements; the only difference being that the tragedy isn't caused by either man-made malfunctioning of transport mode or natural causes, but by the impending attack by local hostiles.TODAY'S HONOREE, THE CASSANDRA CROSSING ( ), is one more obvious title to come out of those 1970's "new" and "more relevant" and "more realistic" school of film. The production is spectacularly mounted, with some of the truly most beautiful outdoor scenery to be captured for a non-nature film. One certainly cannot fault the Production Team as being too tight with the purse strings; for they put together a spectacularly talented and well known international cast.READING THE Cast listing one finds such notables at the top of the bill as: Sophia Loren, Richard Harris, Martin Sheehan, Orenthal James Simpson ( "O.J." to you, Schultz), Lionel Stander (off the Blacklist), Anne Turkel, Ingrid Thulin, Mr. Lee Strasberg (master of The Actors' Studio in rare film appearance), Ava Gardner (no Schultz, not the Ava from GREEN ACRES), Burt Lancaster, Lou Castel (where's Abbott?), John Phillip Law, Ray Lovelock, …etc., etc., etc.,………..ANOTHER positive element is the inclusion of Jerry Goldsmith as the Composer for the Original Score for the film. Mr. Goldsmith's composition of both the Overture (theme) and the Incidental Music is on Parr with his other work. The prolific Goldsmith was responsible for a veritable treasure trove of beautifully rendered scores. Perhaps some of the most notable original compositions would (arguably) be: PATTON (20th Century-Fox, 1970), PAPILLION (Corona-General/Solar/Allied Artists, 1973) and RUDY (Tri-Star Pictures, 1993).ATTENTION!! WARNING!! CUIDADO!! LOOKENZEE OUTENZEE!! Could be a SPOILER a comin' up!! OUR STORY……….A enger train which is carrying a real mixed bag of engers, which most any self-respecting disaster film would do, is making a crossing of the Alps from Switzerland into northern Italy. A terrorist purposely spreads some deadly strain of virus throughout the train and its engers, which would normally require a state of Quarantine. The train keeps on traveling and somehow or other comes under the jurisdiction of Lt. Colonel Stephen Mackenzie (Burt L.), U.S. Army, NATO Forces.BECAUSE OF THE Highly Contagious and deadly disease, the Lt. Colonel allows the train to continue on its way to the unsafe bridge works that lie ahead of it. There the train would surely crash; killing both all on board as well as ridding Mackenzie of the problem of dealing with a potential epidemic.OF COURSE, the battle hardened and cold-blooded military man couldn't have known that the presence of some Physicians on board miraculously provided the train crew and engers with a cure for the infectious malady by using pure oxygen inhalation. (There is another twist, but we'll not tell here!) AS FINE of a production as this picture is, and as interesting as certain of the scenes and sequences are, we cannot give it a full and unconditional endorsement; for we disdain the heavy and underhanded-handed method in which its highly one-sided, "subtle", little message is sprung on its unsuspecting audiences. It is clearly one of an Anti-Military and America Hating. It is crystal clear that this is the crux of the hidden persuaders contained within.WE FIND this sort of loading of the story with a highly charged, one-sided and distorted view of what is the responsibility of authorities in general and the Military of the United States of America to be deplorable, deceitful and deeply harmful to unsuspecting viewers.AT least a can of poison has the written warning, the antidote and the ever present skull & cross bones to give proper warning.AS for our Grade, both Schultz and hid good buddy (me) say * ½ or a D-on its Report Card.POODLE SCHNITZ!!