Goliath Awaits

Last updated
Goliath Awaits
Genre Action
Adventure
Drama
Romance
Sci-Fi
Thriller
Written byRichard Bluel
Pat Fielder
Directed by Kevin Connor
Starring Mark Harmon
Christopher Lee
Eddie Albert
John Carradine
Alex Cord
Robert Forster
Frank Gorshin
Jean Marsh
John McIntire
Emma Samms
Music by George Duning
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
Production
Executive producerLarry White
ProducersHugh Benson
Richard M. Bluel
Pat Fielder
Production locationsRMS Queen Mary - 1126 Queens Highway, Long Beach, California
Edinburgh, Scotland
North Sea
Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California
CinematographyAl Francis
Editors J. Terry Williams
Donald Douglas
Running time~200 min (original)
110 min (VHS/laserdisc)
Production companiesLarry White Productions
Gay-Jay Production
Columbia Pictures Television
Operation Prime Time
Release
Original network Syndication
Original releaseNovember 16 (1981-11-16) 
November 17, 1981 (1981-11-17)

Goliath Awaits is a 1981 American made-for-television action adventure science fiction thriller film originally broadcast in two parts in November 1981 on various stations as a part of Operation Prime Time's syndicated programming. [1] [2] It is about an ocean liner sunk by a German U-boat in 1939 whose wreck is discovered in 1981, with over 300 survivors and their descendants living in an air bubble inside the ship.

Contents

Plot

On September 4, 1939, the British ocean liner RMS Goliath, carrying 1,860 passengers, is torpedoed by a German U-boat and sinks within minutes while on a transatlantic crossing to the United States three days after the outbreak of war. [1] [2]

Scientists aboard a research ship in 1981 discover the wreck of the Goliath lying upright in 1,000 feet (305 m) of water, [2] and divers are sent down to investigate the wreck. Oceanographer Peter Cabot (Mark Harmon) hears systematic banging and music coming from the ship [3] and is shocked to see the face of a beautiful young woman (Emma Samms) inside a porthole. Cabot and his colleagues discover 337 people, survivors and their descendants, living in an air bubble in the wreck caused by the vessel's having slowly sunk in relatively shallow water. The residents of Goliath, who have invented some technologies to help them survive, some not even known to the outside modern world, live in a superficially utopian society under the autocratic leadership of John McKenzie (Christopher Lee), a junior officer at the time of the sinking credited with saving a sizable number of passengers and crew. [1] The scientists are surprised to discover that McKenzie and some of the ship's residents are not at all interested in being "rescued", and that there are outcasts and rebels opposed to McKenzie's seemingly beneficent leadership, which also includes brutal discipline, mandatory contraception, euthanasia, and outright murder disguised as a mysterious disease.

Complicating things, the Goliath had been carrying some sensitive documents to President Roosevelt. A joint American/British military team is sent by Admiral Wiley Sloan (Eddie Albert) to retrieve and destroy the documents. [1] [3]

Principal cast

Filming

The interiors of Goliath were principally filmed on location aboard the RMS Queen Mary in California. [1] [4]

Related Research Articles

USS <i>Indianapolis</i> (CA-35) Portland-class heavy cruiser of the United States Navy

USS Indianapolis (CL/CA-35) was a Portland-class heavy cruiser of the United States Navy, named for the city of Indianapolis, Indiana. Launched in 1931, it was the flagship for the commander of Scouting Force 1 for eight years, then flagship for Admiral Raymond Spruance from 1943 to 1945 while he commanded the Fifth Fleet in battles across the Central Pacific during World War II.

HMHS <i>Britannic</i> Olympic-class ocean liner

HMHSBritannic was the third and final vessel of the White Star Line's Olympic class of steamships and the second White Star ship to bear the name Britannic. She was the youngest sister of the RMS Olympic and the RMS Titanic and was intended to enter service as a transatlantic passenger liner. She was operated as a hospital ship from 1915 until her sinking near the Greek island of Kea, in the Aegean Sea, in November 1916. At the time she was the largest hospital ship in the world.

SS <i>Andrea Doria</i> Ocean liner sunk after a collision off Massachusetts in 1956

SS Andrea Doriapronounced [anˈdrɛːa ˈdɔːrja], was a luxury transatlantic ocean liner of the Italian Line, put into service in 1953. She is widely known from the extensive media coverage of her sinking in 1956, which included the remarkably successful rescue of 1,660 of her 1,706 passengers and crew.

RMS <i>Lusitania</i> British ocean liner that sank in 1915

RMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner that was launched by the Cunard Line in 1906 and held the Blue Riband appellation for the fastest Atlantic crossing in 1908. It was briefly the world's largest passenger ship until the completion of the Mauretania three months later. She was sunk on her 202nd trans-Atlantic crossing, on 7 May 1915, by a German U-boat 11 miles (18 km) off the western coast of Ireland, killing 1,199 passengers and crew.

RMS <i>Lancastria</i> 20th-century British liner

RMS Lancastria was a British ocean liner requisitioned by the UK Government during the Second World War. She was sunk on 17 June 1940 during Operation Aerial. Having received an emergency order to evacuate British nationals and troops from France the ship was loaded well in excess of its capacity of 1,300 passengers. Modern estimates suggest that between 4,000 and 7,000 people died during the sinking — the largest single-ship loss of life in British maritime history.

Six ships of the British Royal Navy have been named HMS Goliath after the Biblical giant, Goliath.

RMS <i>Laconia</i> (1921) Ocean liner

The second RMS Laconia was a Cunard ocean liner, built by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson as a successor of the 1911–1917 Laconia. The new ship was launched on 9 April 1921, and made her maiden voyage on 25 May 1922 from Southampton to New York City. At the outbreak of the Second World War she was converted into an armed merchant cruiser, and later a troopship. She was sunk in the South Atlantic Ocean on 12 September 1942 by torpedoes. Like her predecessor, sunk during the First World War, this Laconia was also destroyed by a German submarine. Some estimates of the death toll have suggested that over 1,658 people were killed when the Laconia sank. The U-boat commander Werner Hartenstein then staged a dramatic effort to rescue the passengers and the crew of Laconia, which involved additional German U-boats and became known as the Laconia incident.

<i>S.O.S. Titanic</i> 1979 American TV series or program

S.O.S. Titanic is a British-American 1979 drama disaster television movie that depicts the doomed 1912 maiden voyage from the perspective of three distinct groups of passengers in First, Second, and Third Class. The script was written by James Costigan and directed by William Hale. It is the first Titanic film to be filmed and released in colour.

RMS <i>Leinster</i> Torpedoed mailboat (1918)

RMS Leinster was an Irish ship operated by the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company. She served as the Kingstown-Holyhead mailboat until she was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine UB-123, which was under the command of Oberleutnant zur See Robert Ramm, on 10 October 1918, while bound for Holyhead. She sank just outside Dublin Bay at a point 4 nautical miles (7.4 km) east of the Kish light.

<i>Poseidon</i> (fictional ship) Ship that sunk by Tsunami at 31 December 1969

The SS Poseidon is a fictional transatlantic ocean liner that first appeared in the 1969 novel The Poseidon Adventure by Paul Gallico and later in four films based on the novel. The ship is named after the god of the seas in Greek mythology.

RMS <i>Carpathia</i> Ocean liner known for rescuing survivors of RMS Titanic

RMS Carpathia was a Cunard Line transatlantic passenger steamship built by Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson in their shipyard in Wallsend, England.

RMS <i>Quetta</i>

RMS Quetta was a Royal Mail Ship that was wrecked on the Far North Queensland coast of Australia on 28 February 1890. Quetta's sinking killed 134 of the 292 people on board, making it one of Queensland's biggest maritime catastrophes. It was caused by collision with an uncharted rock in the Adolphus Channel.

RMS <i>Empress of Canada</i> (1920)

RMS Empress of Canada was an ocean liner built in 1920 for the Canadian Pacific Steamships (CP) by Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company at Govan on the Clyde in Scotland. This ship—the first of three CP vessels to be named Empress of Canada—regularly traversed the trans-Pacific route between the west coast of Canada and the Asian waters until 1939.

United States lightship <i>LV-117</i> Lightvessel, sunk 1934

<i>Titanic</i> British passenger liner that sank in 1912

RMS Titanic was a British passenger liner, operated by the White Star Line, that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York City, United States. Of the estimated 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, more than 1,500 died, making it the deadliest sinking of a single ship up to that time. It remains the deadliest peacetime sinking of an ocean liner or cruise ship. The disaster drew public attention, provided foundational material for the disaster film genre, and has inspired many artistic works.

SS <i>Armenian</i>

SS Armenian was an 1895-built British cargo liner built for the Leyland Line, but managed by the White Star Line from 20 March 1903. She was employed on the cargo service between Liverpool and New York City, with the passenger service between the two ports having been previously withdrawn. In 1910 she was repainted in the Leyland livery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The captain goes down with the ship</span> Maritime tradition

"The captain goes down with the ship" is a maritime tradition that a sea captain holds the ultimate responsibility for both the ship and everyone embarked on it, and in an emergency they will devote their time to save those on board or die trying. Although often connected to the sinking of RMS Titanic in 1912 and its captain, Edward Smith, the tradition precedes Titanic by several years. In most instances, captains forgo their own rapid departure of a ship in distress, and concentrate instead on saving other people. It often results in either the death or belated rescue of the captain as the last person on board.

Sinking of the RMS <i>Lusitania</i> World War I maritime disaster

The RMS Lusitania was a British-registered ocean liner that was torpedoed by an Imperial German Navy U-boat during the First World War on 7 May 1915, about 11 nautical miles off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland. The attack took place in the declared maritime war-zone around the UK, shortly after unrestricted submarine warfare against the ships of the United Kingdom had been announced by Germany following the Allied powers' implementation of a naval blockade against it and the other Central Powers. The passengers had been warned before departing New York of the danger of voyaging into the area in a British ship.

SS <i>Admiral Sampson</i> American-flagged cargo and passenger steamship

The SS Admiral Sampson was a U.S.-flagged cargo and passenger steamship that served three owners between 1898 and 1914, when it was rammed by a Canadian passenger liner and sank in Puget Sound. Following its sinking off Point No Point, the Admiral Sampson has become a notable scuba diving destination for advanced recreational divers certified to use rebreathing equipment.

RMS Hesperian was a British ocean liner that was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20 85 nautical miles south west by south of the Fastnet Rock in the Atlantic Ocean on 4 September 1915 with the loss of 32 lives, while she was travelling from Liverpool, United Kingdom to Montreal, Canada.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Goliath Awaits". jimusnr.com. Archived from the original on 2008-05-12. Retrieved 2008-04-08.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  2. 1 2 3 McLean, Robert A (1981-11-05). "High Adventure at the Bottom of the Sea". The Boston Globe. p. 1.
  3. 1 2 Maslin, Janet (1981-11-16). "TV: 'Goliath Awaits,' Undersea Yarn". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-04-08.
  4. Gore, Robert J (1981-05-30). "Queen Mary Is Setting for Sci-Fi Film". Los Angeles Times . Archived from the original on 2011-05-24. Retrieved 2008-04-14.