Cass on The Poseidon Adventure

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Cass on The Poseidon Adventure

Postby jcg » Thu Jul 15, 2010 4:04 pm

Something occured to me while reading a post here. Cass covered Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn's "The Night Before" on the "Don't Call Me Mama" set. These two songwriters are best known for the Oscar-winning song "The Morning After" from the blockbuster 1972 film The Poseidon Adventure. For those who haven't seen it, it's the story of a huge ocean liner that gets hit by a tidal wave on New Year's Eve and turns upside-down. A motley group of survivors then fight their way up through the inverted ship in an attempt to reach salvation.

My question concerns one of the main protagonists in the movie. The character of Belle Rosen is an obese woman whose weight is a constant impediment to herself and to the other struggling survivors. At a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, Belle (played by Shelley Winters) sacrifices her life to save the others - swimming through an underwater corridor that connects to the crippled ship's engine room.

Being one of the highest-grossing films of 1973 (and still in the Top 200 of all-time grossers), and due to her connection with Kasha & Hirschhorn, I assume that Cass was aware of and probably saw it. Finally my question: does anyone know if Cass saw the film and if so, did she identify with the Shelley Winters/Belle Rosen character?

This is one of the few positive portrayals of "big" women in cinema at that time, not to mention a great film. I think it would be valuable to know the opinion of a woman who suffered negative attention about her weight her entire life.

Richard... anyone?

jcg
jcg
 
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