When Time Ran Out… (1980, Paul Newman, Jacqueline Bisset, William Holden) – Classic Movie Review 9800

Paul Newman, Jacqueline Bisset, William Holden and Ernest Borgnine head an extraordinary cast all at a loss in director James Goldstone’s rotten 1980 disaster movie When Time Ran Out… about a volcano erupting on a Polynesian island full of tourists with no way to get off.

It is almost unbelievable that this idiotic pile of clichés could be written by esteemed Carl Foreman (responsible for High Noon and The Guns of Navarone) and Stirling Silliphant (responsible for The Slender Thread and In the Heat of the Night).

The producer, king of the disaster movies Irwin Allen, previously brought us the best of the genre, Towering Inferno also with Newman and Holden, and scripted by Silliphant, but this is Allen’s nadir.

When Time Ran Out… was career damaging for everybody. In any case maybe there were too many ageing, elderly or beyond-their-prime stars, however venerable. It is creaky and needs an injection of fresh blood.

Also in the cast are Edward Albert, Burgess Meredith, Valentina Cortese [Valentina Cortesa], Red Buttons, James Franciscus, Veronica Hamel, Alex Karras, Barbara Carrera, Sheila Allen, John Considine, Pat Morita, Lonny Chapman, and Ted Gehring.

The screenplay is based on the novel The Day the World Ended by Max Morgan Witts and Gordon Thomas.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9800

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