The Cassandra Crossing
Directed byGeorge Pan Cosmatos
Screenplay byTom Mankiewicz
Robert Katz
George Pan Cosmatos
Story byRobert Katz
George Pan Cosmatos
Produced byCarlo Ponti
Sir Lew Grade (executive)
StarringSophia Loren
Richard Harris
Burt Lancaster
Martin Sheen
O.J. Simpson
Lee Strasberg
Ava Gardner
CinematographyEnnio Guarnieri
Edited byRoberto Silvi
Françoise Bonnot
Music byJerry Goldsmith
Production
company
Distributed byAVCO Embassy Pictures
Release date
8 October 1976
Running time
129 Minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget$3 million[1]

The Cassandra Crossing is a 1976 British disaster/thriller film directed by George Pan Cosmatos and starring Richard Harris, Sophia Loren, Martin Sheen, Burt Lancaster, Lee Strasberg, Ava Gardner and O. J. Simpson. With the backing of European media tycoon Sir Lew Grade (the head of the British broadcast network ATV) and Italian film producer Carlo Ponti, the international all-star cast was expected to attract a widespread audience, with rights sold prior to filming, to both British and American distributors.[2] Ponti also saw the production as a showcase for his wife, Sophia Loren.[3]

Plot

When the existence of a strain of plague (vaguely identified as pneumonic) is revealed at the U.S. mission at the International Health Organization, three terrorists seek to blow up the U.S. mission. Two of them are shot, one mortally, by security personnel but one escapes. The surviving terrorist is hospitalized and quarantined and identified as Swedish. Dr. Elena Stradner (Ingrid Thulin) and U.S. Colonel Stephen Mackenzie (Burt Lancaster) (Military Intelligence assigned to the IHO) argue over the nature of the strain, which Stradner suspects is a biological weapon but which Colonel Mackenzie claims was in the process of being destroyed.

The third terrorist escapes and stows away on a train bound from Geneva to Stockholm. Dr. Stradner believes that the train should be stopped so that the terrorist can be removed and quarantined, but Col. Mackenzie is concerned that all of the passengers on the train may have been infected. Mackenzie insists on rerouting the train to an abandoned ex-Nazi railroad line to a quarantine camp in Janov, Poland. However the line crosses a dangerously unsound steel arch bridge known as the Kaslindrliv Bridge or Cassandra Crossing, out of use since 1948. Mackenzie understands that the bridge might collapse as the train passes over it.

The presence of the infected terrorist, and the rerouting of the train, precipitates the second conflict, among passengers on the train; they include Dr. Jonathan Chamberlain (Richard Harris), a famous neurologist, his ex-wife Jennifer Rispoli Chamberlain (Sophia Loren), and Nicole Dressler (Ava Gardner), the wife of a German arms dealer. She is embroiled in an affair with her young companion Robby Navarro (Martin Sheen). Navarro is a heroin trafficker being pursued by FBI agent Haley, who is traveling undercover as a priest.

Mackenzie informs Dr. Chamberlain of the presence of the stowaway, who is found, but attempts to remove the stowaway via a helicopter are unsuccessful because the train enters a tunnel. Chamberlain is also told that the plague has a 60% mortality rate. Mackenzie, however, informs passengers that police have received reports of anarchist bombs placed along the rail line, and that the train will be rerouted to Nuremberg. There the train is sealed with an enclosed oxygen system and a U.S. Army medical team is placed aboard, with the now-deceased stowaway being placed in a hermetically-sealed coffin. Dr. Chamberlain learns of the risk of the Cassandra Crossing. He also begins to suspect the disease is not as serious as originally thought: few of the passengers have become infected and few of those have actually died. He radios MacKenzie suggesting the infected portion of the train be uncoupled and isolated, but MacKenzie has no intention of stopping the train: if the expected Cassandra Crossing collapse occurs, it will neatly cover the fact that the U.S has been harboring germ warfare agents in a neutral country. Passengers on the train work alone to stop the train before it reaches the Cassandra Crossing.

The passengers manage to seize the back half of the train roughly one km before the bridge and detach it, hoping that with less weight, the front half will cross safely. But the bridge collapses, killing everyone aboard the front half. The back end applies the brakes and stops just before reaching the downed bridge. In Geneva, both Stradner and MacKenzie depart: she keeps hope of survivors while he thinks the elimination of the train means no investigations. A guard on duty orders both of them be watched.

The Garabit Viaduct arch bridge was used to represent the condemned "Cassandra Crossing".

Cast

As appearing in The Cassandra Crossing, (main roles and screen credits identified):[4]

Production

Peter O'Toole was offered the lead role but he turned it down and Richard Harris played the part instead.[5]

The Cinecitta studios in Rome were chosen for interiors with French and Swiss locales providing most of the location footage.[2] The steel arch bridge depicted in the film is actually the Garabit Viaduct in southern France, built from 1880 to 1884 by Gustave Eiffel, who later constructed the Eiffel tower.[6]

At the beginning of the film, passengers arrive at Geneva railway station to embark on the train. The scenes were shot at Basel central train station. Where Dr. Chamberlain enters the station, the green coloured trams (belonging to the Basel public transport company BVB), and Basel's Central Station Square can be seen in the background.[7][8] Many scenes were shot on the railway line Basel – Delémont – Porrentruy; the railway viaduct at St. Ursanne can be recognized most easily.

Much of the film's special effects involved models and rear screen work that was largely effective, although the studio artwork shows a typical US diesel locomotive that doesn't resemble anything seen in the film, along with a pantograph for overhead electric wires.[2]

Reception

The Cassandra Crossing did not fare well with critics or audiences as disaster films were no longer a guaranteed box office success. Planned as a star vehicle for Sophia Loren, the large international cast involved a great number of illogical casting decisions that were noted by Richard Eder, The New York Times reviewer.[9] Most contemporary reviews also singled out the implausible plotline although praising the cinematography and Jerry Goldsmith's musical score as noteworthy elements. Variety dismissed the film as, "... a tired, hokey and sometimes unintentionally funny disaster film in which a trainload of disease-exposed passengers lurch to their fate."[10]

The graphic scenes of the passengers being killed at the end of the film had ensured an "R" rating in theatres and led to two "censored" and "uncensored" versions being released for broadcast and home media.[2]

However the movie still made money: the producers claimed that they recouped the production costs of the film out of Japan alone.[1]

References

Notes
  1. ^ a b Walker 1985, p. 197.
  2. ^ a b c d Thompson, Nathaniel. "The Cassandra Crossing (1976)." Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved: 3 February 2012.
  3. ^ Verlhac and Dherbier 2008, p. 12.
  4. ^ "Credits: The Cassandra Crossing (1976)." Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved: 3 February 2012.
  5. ^ Tom Mankiewicz and Robert Crane, My Life as a Mankiewicz, University Press of Kentucky 2012 p 178
  6. ^ Billington 1983, p. 92.
  7. ^ "Travelling in Switzerland." myswissalps.com. Retrieved: 3 February 2012.
  8. ^ "The Cassandra Crossing." IMDb. Retrieved: 3 February 2012.
  9. ^ Eder, Richard. "The Cassandra Crossing (1976): 'Cassandra Crossing' Doomed By Silly Premise, Miscasting." The New York Times, 10 February 1977.
  10. ^ "The Cassandra Crossing." Variety, 31 December 1976.
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