****SPOILERS****One of the least known Irvin Allen disaster flicks of the 1970's with the usual all star cast but, with an only 2.5 million budget, below par-for Allen-special effects makes its point that you can't mess around with Mother Nature and end up getting away with it. That's the cold or wet hard truth that Brownsville mayor John Cutler, Richard Basehart, finds out when he thinks he can keep the truth about an engineers report about the town dam being defected and about to burst! It's Brownsville top dam mechanic Paul Burke, Martin Milner, who smells a rat in all this and tries to get the people of Brownsville and its surroundings to get the hell out before the dam bursts and they end up under water!
The dam's supervisor Sam Adams, Cameron Mitchell, at first goes along with Mayor Cutler's idiotic demands, like the little Dutch boy holding off the Atlantic Ocean with his finger in the dike, to keep the water from overflowing but later realizing that he's both mad and delusional tries to relieve the water pressure only to get swept up with the action or rushing waters. As for Sam's very pregnant wife Abbie played by a previous survivor of an Irvin Allen disaster movie "The Poseidan Adventure" the lovely Carol Lynley is stuck in her house and about to give birth at any moment!
***SPOILERS*** With Mayor Cutler now a total mental case, in how bad he screwed things up, it's up to Burke and helicopter pilot Steve Brannigan, Robert Culp, to save the day and the town of Brownsville from going under. With time running out and the water levels from the burst dam rising they not only have to work against the clock to detonate the remaining dam structure to alleviate the water pressure by draining it out but also save Mayor Cutler's son Andy, Eric Olsen,from it engulfing him and everyone still left alive in town! The rest of the cast has Barbara Hershey as Mayor Cutler's daughter and Paul Burke's girlfriend. It's Mary who's also a nurse in the local hospital. There's also Mary's mom and Cutler's wife Alice, Teresa Wright, who tragically doesn't survive the flood by her trying to rescue her son Andy who in fact, in all the confusion, she mistook for someone else.And last but not least in a cameo role Roddy McDowall as, what I think, naturalist Mr. Franklin who after less then three minutes of screen time completely disappears, like a puff of smoke, from off the face of the earth!
The dam's supervisor Sam Adams, Cameron Mitchell, at first goes along with Mayor Cutler's idiotic demands, like the little Dutch boy holding off the Atlantic Ocean with his finger in the dike, to keep the water from overflowing but later realizing that he's both mad and delusional tries to relieve the water pressure only to get swept up with the action or rushing waters. As for Sam's very pregnant wife Abbie played by a previous survivor of an Irvin Allen disaster movie "The Poseidan Adventure" the lovely Carol Lynley is stuck in her house and about to give birth at any moment!
***SPOILERS*** With Mayor Cutler now a total mental case, in how bad he screwed things up, it's up to Burke and helicopter pilot Steve Brannigan, Robert Culp, to save the day and the town of Brownsville from going under. With time running out and the water levels from the burst dam rising they not only have to work against the clock to detonate the remaining dam structure to alleviate the water pressure by draining it out but also save Mayor Cutler's son Andy, Eric Olsen,from it engulfing him and everyone still left alive in town! The rest of the cast has Barbara Hershey as Mayor Cutler's daughter and Paul Burke's girlfriend. It's Mary who's also a nurse in the local hospital. There's also Mary's mom and Cutler's wife Alice, Teresa Wright, who tragically doesn't survive the flood by her trying to rescue her son Andy who in fact, in all the confusion, she mistook for someone else.And last but not least in a cameo role Roddy McDowall as, what I think, naturalist Mr. Franklin who after less then three minutes of screen time completely disappears, like a puff of smoke, from off the face of the earth!