Truly Dreadful Film

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

A dam bursts and floods the small Oregon town of Brownsville. Director Earl Bellamy, working from a tight script by Don Ingalls, keeps the engrossing story moving along at a steady pace, takes time to develop the characters, builds a good deal of tension, and pulls out the thrilling stops for the exciting and eventful last third. The sound acting by the capable cast keeps this picture humming: Robert Culp as cynical, yet heroic helicopter pilot Steve Brannigan, Martin Milner as the no-nonsense Paul Burke, Richard Basehart as the stubborn and unscrupulous mayor John Cutler, Barbara Hershey as perky nurse Mary Cutler, Cameron Mitchell as the harried Sam Adams, Francine York as the sweet Daisy Kempel, and Whit Bissell as the stalwart Dr. Ted Horne. Carol Lynley really makes a deliciously hammy meal out of her thankless pregnant woman in peril part. However, Roddy McDowall is wasted in a nothing bit role as whiny tourist Mr. Franklin. Rich LaSalle's robust score hits the rousing spot. Lamar Boren's slick cinematography provides a neat polished look. A fun flick.

Well, I recently got a hold of a used VHS tape, very cheap, with 2 disaster-of-nature flicks on it. I stumbled upon them on a flea-market and just took it home because of the cool cover-art (paintings of water/fire-disasters, not shown here on IMDb). So I sat down this afternoon and watched the first one on the tape, FLOOD! And I can say right away that the most exciting thing about this movie indeed was... the cover-art! And, yes, I know this is a 1976 made-for-TV movie, but still I expected quite a lot more from it and I feel like the film-makers could have done a lot better. The first 45 minutes of the movie are just too tedious. Sure, a lot of different characters are introduced, but they say or do nothing interesting at all. And what's even worse: Roddy Mcdowall's character gets introduced during the first scenes (apparantly he's a wealthy tourist on a fishing holiday), and after that, he never re-appears in the movie! The other main characters, basically just couples (husbands & wives and soon-to-be-married folks) have nothing else to do than to basically grab every opportunity to say "I love you" to one and other (over the phone, while meeting in a hospital,...). And naturally, there's this Brannigan-character (played by Robert Culp) running around warning everybody about the dam that's about to break, and of course nobody, especially the mayor (what did you expect?), believes him. I got somewhat excited when Barbara Hershey's name came up on the opening credits, but boy, did she portray one of the most disappointing female characters of the movie! And when the dam finally breaks, it's just pretty pathetic. All you see, is some sort of wall of mud crumbling down. It doesn't even look like a dam. The one thing I really hoped for, was seeing some well-crafted miniatures of town-buildings getting flooded with river water. But nope. Nothing like that at all. One or two shots have some water running through a street (with easy-to-figure-out not-so-special-effects), some living rooms with water in them and a kid floating in a river holding on to a tree. And on top of that, we get several stock footage of real floods (mostly air-shots) which poorly match the main look of the film.So, this really is a rather uneventful film, and the only thing you can say about it is that it's not particularly badly made and features OK acting. It's one of those movies you just might end up watching when it comes up on TV while you're 'zapping' channels and have absolutely nothing else to do. On the other hand, you might also keep on changing channels.I suppose there are fans of disaster-movies out there, and they just might dig FLOOD! on some levels. I just got nothing out of it. I sure hope the other movie (FIRE!) on the tape is better.

Irwin Allen was the king of disaster movies. It's not a surprise that he would base one around a flood. The film was OK, but the disaster wasn't the main thrust of the film.From the beginning, the story line revolves around Paul Blake (Martin Milner) trying to convince the mayor that the town dam was unsafe. Richard Basehart as the mayor did a good job in the mayor's role. Probably the best performance was given by Robert Culp as helicopter pilot Steve Branagan.My main criticism is that for a film built around the disaster, the disaster itself seemed underplayed. Stock footage of floods (it was a TV movie, so probably not big FX budget), and a brief time for its depiction.Watch for 70's teen idol Leif Garrett to have a small part in this.I'm a fan of the genre, so I gave it a 6. Your mileage may vary.

Irwin Allen did great on The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, Beyond The Poseidon Adventure, and The Swarm but this one was not one of his best. The special effects could have been much better. The acting was alright. I would recommend this movie to people who like disaster movies. Or people who have nothing else to do for the next 98 minutes