Jonathan Cohn 1970s Disasters: Irwin Allen, Twentieth Century-Fox’s Marineland of the Pacific, and Disaster Films
Abstract This paper focuses on the career of Irwin Allen, a Hollywood producer best known for his many popular 1960s television series like Lost in Space and his early 1970’s disaster filmsThe Poseidon Adventure(1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974). When Twentieth Century-Fox decided to open their own theme park, Allen was put in charge of turning his many science fiction and fantasy franchises into rides and attractions. What should have been the culmination of his career quickly became his downfall, as his ability to cut costs and maintain a sense of mystique on screen did not translate to the real world, where cotton balls are not so easily mistaken for snow. While the 1970s is often written by film historians as a period of unparalleled artistic and economic heights, Allen’s career and his long ignored theme park complicate such accounts by highlighting some of the more unseemly and at times hackish business practices that propped up the beginnings of new Hollywood.
In this article, I will focus on what could have I like to think of Allen as the anti-hero of New been the culmination of the career of Irwin Allen, Hollywood and in this spirit will narrativize this one of Hollywood’s most successful and prolific movement’s history as a tragedy, rather than its producers, whose career spanned from 1938 to the normal consideration as a high point of cinematic late 1980s. I hope to chart out Allen’s career and history. his mid-1970s decline in order to complicate some After nearly 45 years of working in show of the larger narratives of New Hollywood and business, Allen had became known as not bring to light the story of at least one of the many only “a writer, director, and producer, but also forgotten showmen who were left behind. a campaign creator, traveling salesman and Allen is a perfect person to discuss in a journal exploiter extraordinary, carrying his promotional issue dedicated to disastrous failures. Primarily efforts across-country and on a scale designed famous for being the auteur producer-director of to penetrate all the way down to the point of two of the most successful disaster films of the sale.”3 This style of huckster-auteurism became early 1970s, The Poseidon Adventure(1972) and The his calling card throughout his career as he even Towering Inferno (1974), as well as several hit sci-fi spent time during the marketing of The Poseidon series from the 1960s including Lost in Space (1965- Adventure and The Towering Inferno to discuss 1968) and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964- with exhibitors how to market and show off 1968), Allen gained several monikers, including the films in their lobbies. These efforts garnered “The Master of Disaster,” and “Hollywood’s caliph him several awards from various film exhibitor of crisis.”1 As the press release for The Towering organizations, including being named “the Inferno pointed out, he is the “profit of doom [sic]. Producer of the Year” by the National Association … His name is synonymous with calamity.” 2 During of Theater Owners,4 and “the Showman of the a period that created many cinematic heroes, Year” by the Publicist Guild.5 He even won the
“F” is for Failure 17 James Crawford and Mike Dillon, editors, Spectator 32:1 (Spring 2012): 17-23. 1970S DISASTERS
“Drive-In Producer of the Year” award from the Pacific Drive-Ins Association.6 It is important to remember that Allen was a producer whose ability to sell himself and his product knew no bounds. Even far earlier in his career, he single-handedly took credit for coming up with what he referred to in 1959 as “the portentous notion of ‘packaging,’”7 the process by which a talent agency would buy a script and attach a director and a cast to it and then sell the entirety to an interested studio for production. This is widely recognized as the most important business practice of the post-classical Hollywood era, though its creation is often credited to either the much more famous Lew Wasserman or, just as likely, a large group of people, all working toward the same end.8 Granted, Allen had by 1948 worked his way up from being the host of an early Hollywood-centric radio magazine, the “Hollywood Merry-Go-Round,” to starting what became one of the largest literary agencies in Los Angeles. He more than likely did play a role in the formation and proliferation of the agent-driven packaging system, but to take complete credit for this idea requires a personality that is dedicated toward the art of self-promotion.9 Because of Allen’s success with these special effects laden films and popular family television series in which children are constantly almost killed by aliens, giants, sea creatures, and communists, Twentieth Century-Fox put him in charge of their latest venture, a major theme park.10 What could go wrong? In 1973, Fox acquired Marineland of the Pacific, an oceanarium on the coast in Palos Verdes, just south of Los Angeles. Originally opened in 1974 20th Century Fox brochure cover. Courtesy of the Marineland 1954, a year before the opening of Disneyland, it of the Pacific Historical Society. was billed as the world’s largest oceanarium, filled with huge tanks of fish and aquatic mammals until 2009’s The Cove. These included The Silent including whales and dolphins. A 3000 seat “sea World (1956), by Jacques Cousteau and Louis arena” was built soon after to showcase the trained Malle, and The Sea Around Us (1952), produced sea lions and porpoises; a SkyTower, the park’s first and directed by Irwin Allen himself. ride, was erected to give visitors an expansive view Nearly twenty years after its opening, of the ocean. This site quickly became a popular Marineland of the Pacific was already something tourist destination, complete with a “Marineland of a failure. After a series of restructuring plans Restaurant,” Inn, and a 1,600-car parking lot. by its parent company, Oceanarium, Inc., Fox This period also saw a rise in films concerning became the management operator of the park. In marine life, including the only two oceanographic part due to his early experiences with producing documentaries to ever win an Academy Award oceanographic documentaries, many Swiss
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Family Robinson-esque television series, and time, and Poseidon Adventure, after all, does take the aquatic Poseidon Adventure, Allen was placed place on a cruise—a set piece that speaks to a in charge of transforming the park into a major more moneyed, older set of patrons. To add to Fox themed tourist attraction like Universal this, Irwin Allen, who had actually been working Studios or Disneyland that would instead center in Hollywood during the classical Hollywood era on many of the characters specifically from Allen’s in advertising, was constantly comparing himself productions. The only other person to ever have in the 1970s to Cecil B. DeMille, one of the most such an opportunity was Walt Disney himself. Yet well known directors of classical Hollywood.13 This with such an amazingly glowing comparison being comparison appears to be made both to tie Allen’s made, it is shocking that only twenty years after he films to a classical style and to label Allen himself assumed control over Marineland, as one Boxoffice as an auteur in the way that advertising in the era Magazine reporter put it, Allen had become only of New Hollywood seemed to demand. During “a half remembered name—a ‘whatever happened an era that heavily stressed the artistic role of the to…?’ trivia question redolent of the pre-disco 70s director above that of the producer, Allen, who did like ‘superfly’ or Rodney Allen Rippy.”11 not receive directorial credit for many of his most I would argue that part of the reason Allen famous films and television series, was a figure at has been forgotten while so many others have odds with his historical moment. been remembered is that his narrative is not the At the same time, it was exactly those qualities one preferred by those who study the 1970s New that made him an unlikely auteur for the period Hollywood period. Many, like Peter Biskind, that also made him desirable as the mastermind Robert Kolker, David Cook, and Geoff King, of a theme park. His decades of knowledge as celebrate this period as a Hollywood Renaissance a producer—rather than as a director of large and focus mainly on a notable but still small budget projects geared toward children—was an handful of aesthetically unconventional films made important business and accounting background for by auteur directors that still managed to be seen by anyone attempting a project on the scale of a theme a large mainstream audience. Others, like Justin park. Also, during a period celebrated for its Young Wyatt and Thomas Schatz, both, to some extent, Turks, Allen’s years of experience in commercial discuss this period in terms of High Concept production provided a necessary backlog of well industrial practices and the birth of the “corporate known, child-centric properties from which rides blockbuster.”12 Both of these camps focus on the and attractions could be generated. aspects of the 1970s that are in tune with younger, Yet, these years of producing could not more rebellious demographics, whether that shows prepare Allen for the changes that were occurring up in Hollywood’s depictions of drug cultures, in New Hollywood. Just months before Steven free love, hip new music, and/or European art Spielberg’s Jaws (1975) would firmly cement the house aesthetics. The changes in Hollywood’s blockbuster season’s movement from winter to aesthetic, industrial, and exhibition practices that summer, Allen decided to inaugurate his new park scholars tend to focus on are those that allowed with a heavily advertised “Winter Wonderland” for teenagers to go see movies on their own that extravaganza from December 21, 1974, to January their parents would not necessarily want to see; 5, 1975. Even at his December wedding to actress Allen’s films, by contrast, were widely advertised as Sheila Mathews, Allen managed to invite a Variety wholesome family fare and do not mesh with this reporter who ended up writing an article on both dominant trend. the wedding and Allen’s simultaneous work While his disaster films, with huge casts, big “overseeing the 212 craftsmen winding up Winter budgets, new songs, and exploding skyscrapers, Wonderland attractions.”14 Winter Wonderland certainly display some of the aesthetic and at Marineland was billed as an “all-new, old- industrial properties of High Concept filmmaking, fashioned holiday adventure for the whole they do so in a nostalgic rather than an avant- family,”15 which cost Fox well over $500,000.16 garde way. Most of the actors in these films had The main selling point of this “extravaganza” was been out of their teenage years for quite some a thousand tons of “real live snow,” along with two
“F” IS FOR FAILURE 19 1970S DISASTERS frozen ice lakes for skating and a “Giant Alpine snowballs to throw at cartoon cut-outs. Snow Slide.” Other exciting attractions included a “The Giant Alpine Snow Slide” was a train called the “Snow-Ball Express,” the world’s plastic slide, the kind that you find in largest Christmas tree, rising 403ft above sea level, supermarket parking lots, which kids and the possibility of seeing Santa ride a dolphin slide down on burlap sacks. Contrary to and hang out with Orky and Corky, the park’s two the commercials there was no snow on it. impressive killer whales. This grand opening was … “The Ride to the Top of the World’s meant to be the first of a number of huge changes to Tallest Christmas Tree” was simply the the park that would gradually incorporate more and regular Marineland elevated ride atop more Fox themed characters and rides along with which were strung some Christmas four seasonal festivals a year. Allen also planned, lights. The sight of hundreds of children during a moment of synergistic excess, to use the wandering around in their heavy coats, Fox record company to supply the park with regular mufflers and galoshes (the ads said “dress nightly live music entertainment. With such events warmly…”)—some had even brought and changes, the hope was to transform the park sleds—was very sad. I just hope Irwin from a one-time attraction, where a visitor would Allen keeps his disasters on the big screen come only once in his or her lifetime, to a park that in the future.19 demanded return visits. Allen commented that by the spring of 1975, a $2.5 million “Voyage to the This writer’s tone, while perhaps a bit hyperbolic, Bottom of the Sea” ride would be finished and does seem to accurately describe the gravity of the open to the public. The ultimate plan was to make situation. Allen had seemingly relied too heavily the new Marineland the “biggest entertainment on the idea that movie magic and special effects package of any park for one price.”17 The important are the same thing as actual magic and reality. It is allusion here is to Disneyland, which, while larger, important to remember that this event took place at this point in time charged people per ride rather during an era in which multiplexes began showing than one price at the door. individual films on more and more screens at a Alas, such dreams were not to be. Allen’s time; this was done largely in an effort to make nickname, “The Master of Disaster,” was perhaps it possible for more spectators to see a film on not as well received when the fate of Christmas lay opening night before negative reviews would in the balance. With temperatures in the 70s, the have a chance to dissuade the public. This mode prospect of playing in the snow seemed to not be of wide-release exhibition makes it possible for quite as appealing to the SoCal residents as Allen a film’s marketing to promise special effects that would have liked, and attendance, while twice that are better than they actually are in the feature, of a normal weekend, was clearly, according to at as by the time the spectator has discovered this, least one reporter, “not up to Allen’s expectations.”18 they have already paid to see the film. With the Given the intensity of his publicity campaign, only Winter Wonderland opening, Allen appears to a blockbuster would have sufficed. have treated Marineland in much the same way One patron summed up the general reaction by promising far more than he could deliver. to the park when he wrote in to the Los Angeles While he was known as a producer for his ability Times to complain that to call the park a “rip-off to create fantastic looking special effects on a is a gross understatement” and the reality of the relatively modest budget, it seems as though he Winter Wonderland in no way matched the hype simply used these same special effects. In a real that surrounded it: world scenario, cotton is not so easily disguised as snow and observation towers are in no way similar The only snow available anywhere in the to Christmas trees. This was a disastrous mistake park was at the “The Snow Bowl,” which for Allen, as his attempt to get more people into was little more than a long wooden table the park during its opening weekend made it less with snow piled on it. Kids stood behind likely that they, or anyone else, would return at a it and were allowed five minutes to make later date.
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For their failure to convince anyone that what they had provided was in fact a Winter Wonderland, Marineland was hit with a Los Angeles Superior Court Civil Suit. Deputy Attorney General Michael Botwin charged Marineland with “falsely promising children snow” and painstakingly described how “[t]he igloo was plastic, the ‘giant Alpine snowslide’ was fiberglass, the snow train ran through cotton on an asphalt walkway and youngsters were not allowed to break snow over each other’s heads as advertised.”20 These “snow-hungry children” went unfed. In a settlement, Marineland agreed to pay $15,000 in civil penalties and $5,000 in attorneys’ fees and “agreed to a judgment in which they will no longer tell children a snow-filled Winter Wonderland is available where it is not and will not claim their stationary observation tower is the world’s tallest Christmas tree.”21 After this anti-climax, Allen and Twentieth Century-Fox did continue to work on incorporating movie and television memorabilia and exhibits throughout the park, but none of Allen’s grand plans ever really came to fruition. By May of 1975, just months after the park opened, Allen left Fox for a two-year contract with Warner Bros. It is clear that Warner Bros. believed that this was anything but the end of his career. In fact, they gave him and his staff an entire three-story building on the lot in which to work and plan productions, along with what at the time was potentially one of the largest contracts in history, representing $100 million in production money. However, only a small percentage of this money was ever actually spent. Instead of the myriad huge productions that this contract promised, Allen ended up making only a few made-for-TV films and two largely forgotten disaster flicks, including The Swarm (1978), a film about Africanized killer bees, and When Time Ran Out…(1980), a restaging of The 1979 Hanna-Barbera brochure cover. Courtesy of the Marineland Towering Inferno on an island with volcanoes. He of the Pacific Historical Society. still kept a connection to Fox and eventually made Beyond the Poseidon Adventure with them in 1979, to Hanna-Barbera, whose parent company Taft but far before that, by 1976, he had basically cut all Broadcasting owned a handful of Hanna-Barbera other ties with the studio and had sold off his share theme parks throughout the country, though few 22 of Marineland. remained branded in this way for more than a year Two years later in 1978, Fox also abandoned or two.23 During this troubled time for Hanna- their dreams of having a theme park of their very Barbera, Marineland fell into a rather steady own and Marineland was again sold off, this time decline, and by 1987, it had again been sold to
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Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, the owners of the Sea film, Allen’s renaissance appears to be defined more World Franchise. These new owners immediately as a revival, a renewed interest in an earlier style and liquidated the park and shipped the animals to Sea mode of production that had fallen out of fashion. World San Diego, where many of them continue While film scholars continually highlight a handful to live. of filmmakers who focused on themes of rebellion By 1980, only a few years after being crowned and teenage angst, their hagiographic accounts the king of the disaster epic, with two films that largely discount the middlebrow, mainstream style grossed in excess of $420 million and with 31 and production experiences of the majority of the projects in the works, Allen gave up on calamity.24 industry. Like these tremendously popular films While he continued to make a few films for that are no longer remembered for their artistry but television, his name and presence all but vanished rather only for their impressive grosses, Irwin Allen in the proceeding years and his fame has not is not simply absent from the histories. Rather, managed to survive past his death in 1991. like these films, like Marineland, he is positioned Whereas New Hollywood has been periodized as a forgotten failure, an iconoclastic footnote to a as a renaissance in the sense that it was an emergence history that he was central to at the time but now of a new and contemporary aesthetic in American has been all but written out of.
Jonathan Cohn is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Cinema and Media Studies Program at UCLA. He is currently writing his dissertation on consumerism, community, and subjectivity in the digital sphere.
I would like to thank Jennifer Holt and Vivian Sobchack for their notes on previous versions of this paper. End Notes
1 Morton Moss, “Master of Disaster Strikes Again,” TV Weekly, 14 March, 1975. 2 “The Towering Inferno Press Kit,” ed. Twentieth Century-Fox (1974). 3 Don Carle Gilette, “Tradeview,” Variety (D), 22 August, 1962. 4 “Nato Sets Allen as Top Producer,” Hollywood Reporter, 29 August, 1975. 5 “Allen, Tinker to Receive Publicists Guild Awards,” Boxoffice, 10 March, 1975. 6 Ibid. 7 Sanford Abrahams, “Biography of Irwin Allen” (Los Angeles: Allied Artists, Irwin Allen Clipping File, Margaret Herrick Library, Los Angeles, California, 1959). 8 See also Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell, Film History: An Introduction, 2nd ed. (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2003), 336-7; Peter Lev, The Fifties: Transforming the Screen, 1950-1959, History of the American Cinema (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2003), 90-1. 9 “Irwin Allen Obituary,” The Times (London), 4 November, 1991. 10 While now referred to as 20th Century Fox, from 1935-1985 this corporation was known as Twentieth Century-Fox. 11 Ray Green, “The Big Picture,”Box Office, July, 1996. 12 See Peter Biskind, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock ‘N’ Roll Generation Save�d Hollywood (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998).; Robert Kolker, A Cinema of Loneliness: Penn, Stone, Kubrick, Scorsese, Spielberg, Altman (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); David A. Cook, Lost Illusions: American Cinema in the Shadow of Watergate and Vietnam, 1970- 1979, History of the American Cinema (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); and Thomas Schatz, Old Hollywood/New Hollywood: Ritual, Art, and Industry, Studies in Cinema (Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1983). 13 “The Towering Inferno Press Kit.” 14 Ibid. 15 “Winter Wonderland Advertisement,” Los Angeles Times, 12 December, 1974. 16 “Allen Turning 20th Marineland into Winter Extravaganza,” Hollywood Reporter, 15 May, 1974. 17 Todd Everett, “Marineland Today: A 20th Century Snow-Job?,” Coast (March, 1975). 18 Ibid.
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19 “A Marine Disaster,” Los Angeles Times, 19 January, 1975. 20 “Snow Ads Bring Marineland Fine,” Los Angeles Times, 4 April, 1975. 21 Ibid. 22 Bridget Byrne, “Allen Splits with Fox,” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, 22 April, 1976. 23 Lisa K. Berton, “Hanna-Barbera, the Missing Theme Park,” in The LisaKBerton Blog, 29 January, 2011, http://lisakberton. wordpress.com/2011/01/ (accessed 1 June, 2011). 24 Marilyn Beck, “Producer Shocked to Learn of Switch,” Evening Outlook, 28 April, 1980.
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