{"id":4623,"date":"2009-03-02T00:01:54","date_gmt":"2009-03-01T13:31:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/?p=4623"},"modified":"2018-03-15T22:15:53","modified_gmt":"2018-03-15T11:45:53","slug":"a-tale-of-two-titanics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/2009\/03\/02\/a-tale-of-two-titanics\/","title":{"rendered":"Movie Review &#8211; A Tale Of Two Titanic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33184\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/Tale-Of-Two-Titanic-Review-Logo-v5.1.jpg\" alt=\"Tale-Of-Two-Titanic-Review-Logo-v5.1\" width=\"984\" height=\"394\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/Tale-Of-Two-Titanic-Review-Logo-v5.1.jpg 984w, https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/Tale-Of-Two-Titanic-Review-Logo-v5.1-768x308.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/Tale-Of-Two-Titanic-Review-Logo-v5.1-508x203.jpg 508w, https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/Tale-Of-Two-Titanic-Review-Logo-v5.1-300x120.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/Tale-Of-Two-Titanic-Review-Logo-v5.1-720x288.jpg 720w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 984px) 100vw, 984px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The title of this article is wrong. I got to thinking about the <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanics<\/span> I had seen on film, and I realized there were at least four of them that have featured in semi- (or pseudo-) historical cinematic retellings of the tragic events of April 14-15, 1912. (This is not counting <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span> cameos:<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"> Time Bandits, Raise the Titanic!,<\/span> and recent goings-on on <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Doctor Who<\/span>.) So the awful pun that popped into my mind when said mind contained but two <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanics<\/span> (James Cameron\u2019s and the <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span> lionized in today\u2019s rant, the <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span> of <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">A Night to Remember<\/span>: Hello,<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"> Bi-tanic<\/span>!) morphed into <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Tri-tanic<\/span> when I recalled Germany\u2019s early Nazi-era go at the story (<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">S.O.S. Titanic,<\/span> essentially a diatribe against the shortcomings of capitalism: a very odd film, to say the least), and finally hit the shoals of nonsense and sank when I remembered the <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span> of 1953, starring Barbara Stanwyck, as a four-way <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span> pileup, or, of course <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Quar-tanic<\/span>.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7393\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7393\" style=\"width: 614px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7393\" title=\"snapshot20090227194335\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/snapshot20090227194335.jpg\" alt=\"snapshot20090227194335\" width=\"614\" height=\"346\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/snapshot20090227194335.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/snapshot20090227194335-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 614px) 100vw, 614px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7393\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Boo! I found you!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Or not. For the sake of sanity and linguistic safety, we\u2019ll be concentrating on two <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanics<\/span>, those of Mr. Cameron and British director Roy Ward Baker. (First, though, a parenthetical in honor of the Barbara Stanwyck one: 1953\u2019s <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span> is by far the hammiest of the lot. Add to a viewing two slices of bread, lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise, and you\u2019d have yourself a fine sandwich. It shares with Cameron\u2019s <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span> a compulsion to drop \u201coriginal\u201d characters into the account&#8211; heaven knows, having only twenty-two hundred people on the ship has limited <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span>-tale scriptwriters in terms of drumming up interesting personal stories; here, Miss Stanwyck is in the midst of a bitter divorce from tight-lipped Clifton Webb while son Robert Wagner, at that point in his young life the dictionary definition of \u201ccallow\u201d [with Fabian hair], is caught in the middle. Never mind that we\u2019re stuck on a sinking ship some three hundred miles from the nearest land; Stanwyck et al. have BATTLES to fight. Adding to the fun is the fact that Webb\u2019s character is a minister who leads the doomed passengers in singing hymns with a verve and at a volume that would have the Mormon Tabernacle Choir slinking away in shame. I remember thinking, witnessing the sheer indulgent Spamburgerness of it, <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">The only way they could make this better is if something BLEW UP. <\/span>And then something <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">did<\/span> blow up! The filmmakers, perhaps having in mind one too many World War II spectacles like <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Action in the North Atlantic,<\/span> decided that one of the boilers just had to go&#8211; historical accuracy be damned. And Doug here, I must admit, crowed with joy.)<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7282\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7282\" style=\"width: 720px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7282\" title=\"2098853620_cfbd0f1679_o\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/2098853620_cfbd0f1679_o.jpg\" alt=\"Capt'n, she's got a fat ass! Thats a big ass Capt'n!! And there's an iceberg up ahead!!\" width=\"720\" height=\"438\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/2098853620_cfbd0f1679_o.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/2098853620_cfbd0f1679_o-300x182.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7282\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Capt&#8217;n, she&#8217;s got a fat ass! That&#8217;s a big ass Capt&#8217;n!! And there&#8217;s an iceberg up ahead!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Watching <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span>, and then, umm, <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span>, I had to ask: <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">What in the hell do we need these fake people for?<\/span> In 1997, I sat in a theater watching Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet play drama-cute against the backdrop of the most famous naval tragedy in history, and I thought: <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">You had two thousand real stories to pick from, Mr. Cameron; you couldn\u2019t find anything of interest?<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In short, with respect to things <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span>, composite characters I respect. Creations I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Arguably, I haven\u2019t seen <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span> all the way through for some time. What I remember: the endless scene in which Kate Winslet, as Rose, threatens suicide from the fantail. (I refuse to believe I was the only one in the theater silently chanting \u201cJump, jump, jump, jump.\u201d) Billy Zane twirling an invisible moustache, with John Warner\u2019s help. Anachronistic feminism, with a capital EFF. The Struggle Between the Classes, also capped, written with all the subtlety of a forty-pound river sturgeon to the face. And some damned nonsense about a huge blue diamond.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Oh, and Kate Winslet\u2019s breasts. (Which James Cameron, I understand, sketched for purposes of the film. I\u2019ll say it if no one else will, Jim: <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">creepy<\/span>.) But, as that comment is apt to clash with the noting of capital-EFF-feminism, above, I am discreetly loath to make it.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7395\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7395\" style=\"width: 614px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7395\" title=\"snapshot20090227194736\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/snapshot20090227194736.jpg\" alt=\"snapshot20090227194736\" width=\"614\" height=\"346\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/snapshot20090227194736.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/snapshot20090227194736-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 614px) 100vw, 614px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7395\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">If this hat was any bigger, my neck would snap and my head would fall off!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Cameron also presented us with a framing device in the form of treasure seekers, led by Bill Paxton, who were after that big fictional blue diamond. They were, to say the least, a sneaky, nefarious lot. All we were missing, when everything was said and done, was a time-travelling Indiana Jones in a wetsuit flicking that diamond out of Billy Zane\u2019s hand with his bullwhip and then handing the greedy Paxton a manly beatdown. Maybe they can add that to <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span>\u2019s fifteen-year-anniversary edition.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7394\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7394\" style=\"width: 614px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7394\" title=\"snapshot20090227194510\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/snapshot20090227194510.jpg\" alt=\"snapshot20090227194510\" width=\"614\" height=\"346\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/snapshot20090227194510.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/snapshot20090227194510-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 614px) 100vw, 614px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7394\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">I don&#8217;t remember putting that in there!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The makers of <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">A Night to Remember<\/span> didn\u2019t need blue diamonds, Bill Paxton, or Professor Jones. In the 1950s, re-emergent <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span> fever had yet to hit. Before Robert Ballard found the lost ship in 1985, before James Cameron himself bathysphered his way fourteen thousand feet into the waters of the Grand Banks to have a look at her rusticled hulk, Walter Lord in 1955 wrote the first detailed, documentary account of the sinking of the RMS <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span>. At that point in history, Lord still had fairly ready access to survivors of the sinking, if not to the Internet or computer simulations; he travelled the globe locating those survivors and listening to accounts. The result was a meticulously detailed book, if one biased, innocently enough, by the vagaries of memory, the distance of time. Lord\u2019s story is far more generous, too, than Cameron\u2019s account on film, especially with regard to the actions of the ship\u2019s command staff. <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">A Night to Remember,<\/span> both as book and film, is respectful yet frank; where Cameron seems content to take cheap shots at the evils and shortsightedness of corporate stoogery as the ship goes down, <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">A Night to Remember<\/span> presents us with a full spectrum of human response: we see officers and representatives of the White Star Line responding to the impending tragedy with courage and resourcefulness, with quiet acceptance or anger, with cowardice and shame.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7284\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7284\" style=\"width: 685px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7284\" title=\"night_to_remember_a_1958_685x385\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/night_to_remember_a_1958_685x385.jpg\" alt=\"I tell you Jeeves, tonight is just not the best moment for me to tell her I love her. Seriously!!\" width=\"685\" height=\"385\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/night_to_remember_a_1958_685x385.jpg 685w, https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/night_to_remember_a_1958_685x385-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 685px) 100vw, 685px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7284\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">I tell you Jeeves, tonight is just not the best moment for me to tell her I love her. Seriously!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">It\u2019s this egalitarian quality, oddly enough, that makes the film <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">A Night to Remember<\/span> difficult to examine. Save for Kenneth More, whose Second Officer Charles Herbert Lightoller serves as our focal point in the story, the cast is simply listed alphabetically in the film, and we\u2019re not told who plays whom. Some of the characters&#8211; such as Molly Brown and Benjamin Guggenheim&#8211; are actual; some are composites. (The Titanic\u2019s chief baker is the best of the \u201creal\u201d ones, and his story is amazing&#8211; and bizarrely funny: Thinking that he, as one of the ship\u2019s working-class crew, had no chance of getting himself into a lifeboat, Charles Joughin got himself quietly bombed on rye whiskey down in his cabin. Then, with the flooding reaching his cabin as the <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span> settled lower in the ocean, he put on a heavy winter coat and went up on deck. As it turned out, he survived. We see him in the film amidst the panic as those trapped aboard the <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span> climb toward the ship\u2019s stern; he\u2019s blissfully drunk, and he\u2019s the only one walking upright on the steeply tipping deck.)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The story, for those only recently arrived on the planet, is simple. It transpires thusly: in April 1912, the Royal Mail Steamer <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span>, a liner of unprecedented size and luxury, sets out from Southampton, England, Cherbourg, France, and Queenstown, Ireland, on her maiden voyage to New York City. Three days out, she hits an iceberg. Her owners have fitted her according to outdated naval trade regulations; as a result, she can provide lifeboat space for only twelve hundred of the twenty-two hundred people she has on board. Just under three hours after striking the iceberg, she sinks, sending fifteen hundred people to their deaths in the icy North Atlantic.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7392\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7392\" style=\"width: 614px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7392\" title=\"snapshot20090227194755\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/snapshot20090227194755.jpg\" alt=\"snapshot20090227194755\" width=\"614\" height=\"346\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/snapshot20090227194755.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/snapshot20090227194755-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 614px) 100vw, 614px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7392\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">If I look pensive enough, perhaps Martin Scorcese will cast me in his next film.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">As befits his source material, director Roy Ward Baker tells the story like a documentary, with a brisk but creeping sense of dread. But if the film has the pedigree of something you\u2019d find on the History Channel, it has the heart of an action film. For sheer nailbiting drama, I rank it with my personal favourite modern actioner-at-sea, <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">The Hunt for Red October,<\/span> where director John McTiernan juggles the storytelling between a dozen different settings, most of them cramped and static, many of them shot to look like the impenetrable darkness of deep ocean water, and all of them populated by people spewing great mouthfuls of technobabble (in two languages, yet!), and manages not only to make the whole thing seem logical and effortless but parks your heart in your mouth in the bargain, too. No mean feat&#8211; especially when compared to our long current slide into the jittery land of videogame Steadicam, when it\u2019s now often impossible to tell, in a fight between two combatants, on dry land and in full lighting, who is hitting whom. (Or, in the case of the car chase that opens the otherwise excellent latest James Bond film, <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Quantum of Solace,<\/span> who is pursuing whom. A hint to modern action directors: If you refuse any longer to provide us with establishing shots, then, please, don\u2019t make all of the cars BLACK. I know black is stylish and sinister, but if we\u2019re to follow the action, then someone has to bite the bullet and pick a ride in blue, gray, or even red.)<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7403\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7403\" style=\"width: 614px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7403\" title=\"snapshot20090227200247\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/snapshot20090227200247.jpg\" alt=\"The &quot;Slip 'N Slide&quot; feature was new.\" width=\"614\" height=\"346\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/snapshot20090227200247.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/snapshot20090227200247-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 614px) 100vw, 614px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7403\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The &#8220;Slip &#8216;N Slide&#8221; feature was new.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Like McTiernan thirty years later, Baker deftly weaves character threads and multiple settings between the <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span> and the ships that did&#8211; and didn\u2019t&#8211; come to her aid.\u00a0 An early establishing sequence takes us from a dance among the <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span>\u2019s steerage passengers, to a procession of first-class passengers entering the gorgeous main dining room, to the hellish roar and heat of the engine room, to, finally, the tiny room where the ship\u2019s wireless operators toil sending heaps of messages. Among these, as it turns out, is one message most fatally heaped: Baker comes in for a tight closeup on an ice warning, just before chief wireless operator John Phillips (an appropriately beleaguered Kenneth Griffith, who looks for all the world like a young Freddie Jones) carelessly slaps a stack of subsequent telegram requests down on top of it. In a wonderful, chilling touch, Baker\u2019s camera keeps returning, silently, to the ice message as still other slips of paper obscure it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Baker and editor Sidney Hayers pace the story with precision and mounting speed as the dying ship settles more and more deeply in the water, cutting between the <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span>, to the <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Carpathia<\/span>, to the <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Californian<\/span>, damned now as the ship that didn\u2019t come to the rescue, despite being a mere ten miles away.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7285\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7285\" style=\"width: 448px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7285\" title=\"film_7w_nightremember\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/film_7w_nightremember.jpg\" alt=\"Do any of you know Like A Virgin?\" width=\"448\" height=\"252\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/film_7w_nightremember.jpg 448w, https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/film_7w_nightremember-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 448px) 100vw, 448px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7285\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Do any of you know Like A Virgin?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In the cast of <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">A Night to Remember<\/span> we find a who\u2019s who of British film, though there\u2019s nary a superstar in sight: a radiant young Honor Blackman as a wife and mother in First Class, a smooth-faced David McCallum playing Assistant Wireless Operator Harold Bride, Anthony Bushell as the heroic captain of the <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Carpathia<\/span>. In Michael Goodliffe, who plays ship\u2019s designer Thomas Andrews, we glimpse actual tragedy. We see it in his dark eyes, too intense, too sensitive: as if life mirrored art, he committed suicide in real life. Laurence Naismith, who plays <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span>\u2019s Captain Edward John Smith, is the captain to visual exactitude; more importantly, he finds in Smith the understandable sorrow of a man who\u2019s not only failed his ship and his passengers but whose final voyage as an oceangoing captain will end in his own death. (Smith was slated to retire after <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span>\u2019s voyage to New York; one of <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">A Night to Remember<\/span>\u2019s finest moments finds Naismith taking one last, silent look at the night sky before walking off into the abandoned wheelhouse moments before the ship sinks.)<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7400\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7400\" style=\"width: 614px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7400\" title=\"snapshot20090227195305\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/snapshot20090227195305.jpg\" alt=\"Awwww, who put THAT there?\" width=\"614\" height=\"346\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/snapshot20090227195305.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/snapshot20090227195305-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 614px) 100vw, 614px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7400\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Awwww, who put THAT there?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Kenneth More, stoic but friendly Bertie Lightoller, is one of my favorite British actors. A mainstay of fifties British cinema, More here is the classic Everyman: a sort of early take on Anthony Hopkins, he\u2019s burly, square-headed, handsome-homely, and intelligent. Not dashing: solid. Dependable. A bulldog on screen, a human Mini Cooper, squat and stable.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Like the rest of the film\u2019s heroes, More\u2019s Lightoller isn\u2019t one, really. Not with Roy Ward Baker\u2019s eye to detail and realism. Lightoller simply acts out of decency, discipline, training, and common sense. He\u2019s a seasoned naval officer, as is Anthony Bushell, playing the captain of the <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Carpathia<\/span>, the ship that comes to the <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span>\u2019s assistance. At this point in history, that is to say the mid-1950s, I believe filmmakers could still safely make assumptions about their audiences\u2019 knowledge of history and civics. Moviegoers knew something about Benjamin Guggenheim, John Jacob Astor, the \u201cUnsinkable\u201d Molly Brown. Now, to audiences whose attention spans are being dragged every which way by split-second spectacle and CNN-style newsbites, they must present history in childishly broad strokes; even in the fairly early Internet days of 1997, James Cameron managed to strip the equation in <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span> down to \u201cpoor equals \u2018good,\u2019 rich equals \u2018bad.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7397\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7397\" style=\"width: 614px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7397\" title=\"snapshot20090227194811\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/snapshot20090227194811.jpg\" alt=\"It's a big boat! No wait, it's a ship!\" width=\"614\" height=\"346\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/snapshot20090227194811.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/snapshot20090227194811-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 614px) 100vw, 614px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7397\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">It&#8217;s a big boat! No wait, it&#8217;s a ship!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This, unfortunately, left him little room for subtlety. By comparison, in <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">A Night to Remember, <\/span>the tragedy is much more contemplative. We have a moment of perfect, silent response from Michael Goodliffe when, right at the end, someone asks Andrews, standing alone before the fireplace in the <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span>\u2019s First Class passenger lounge, \u201cAren\u2019t you even going to try for it, sir&#8211;?\u201d The band, of course, plays on while the lifeboats are loaded and lowered: so very quietly, discreetly, a simple civility so often lacking in modern film. The cellist softly sings \u201cNearer My God to Thee\u201d while the other members of the band join in accompaniment, the sound of each instrument isolated and lonely even as they mesh in harmony. Baker doesn\u2019t steer away from poignancy. \u201cWe should say a prayer,\u201d says one of the boys from steerage, a young Irishman who\u2019s been lucky enough to find his way into a lifeboat. Then, as the camera moves from boat to boat on the pitch-black sea, we hear the Lord\u2019s Prayer in a dozen different languages. All the \u201cclass struggle\u201d in the world is reduced to the sadness of common tragedy: something James Cameron, in <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span>, didn\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7286\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7286\" style=\"width: 720px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7286\" title=\"cap_04\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/cap_04.jpg\" alt=\"The new showers weren't for everyone.\" width=\"720\" height=\"438\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/cap_04.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/cap_04-300x182.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7286\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bob! Bob, you&#8217;re wife&#8217;s on the phone and wants you to pick up some milk when you get home.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I don\u2019t hide my love for <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">A Night to Remember,<\/span> or for what I see as its gift for heartbreaking understatement. (Maybe others in the modern audience see the film as too great an example of the classic clich\u00e9 about the British and stiff upper lips.) I see John Merivale, as First Class passenger Robert Lucas, tenderly placing a necklace around his wife\u2019s throat, then keeping his face cheerful as he bids farewell to her and their children on the boat deck. (With lifeboat space at a premium, women and children had first crack; husbands and fathers were left behind. Lucas has been told by Andrews how long the ship will live; \u201cYou and I may find ourselves in the same boat later,\u201d he responds, drolly.) We and Lightoller are the only ones to witness Lucas whispering \u201cGoodbye, my beloved son\u201d to his little boy; I say <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">only<\/span> even though \u201cwe,\u201d since 1958, when the film was released, may number in the millions; the moment is one of true intimacy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Emotion clearly and honestly presented is a hallmark of the script. Take, for example, screenwriter Eric Ambler\u2019s simple presentation of the fact that the ship is doomed:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cShe\u2019s going to sink, Captain,\u201d says Andrews, calmly diagramming on a blueprint the damage to the ship\u2019s hull.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cShe can\u2019t sink,\u201d says a stunned Captain Smith. \u201cShe\u2019s unsinkable!\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cShe can\u2019t float,\u201d Andrews replies matter-of-factly.<br \/>\n<br style=\"font-style: italic;\" \/><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">A Night to Remember<\/span> offers not only tragedy but class as a matter of course, not as an affront, and hence more believably (certainly less hamfistedly) than Cameron\u2019s <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span> does. A definite, acknowledged class structure existed in 1912: it might be a hard fact to swallow for those of us dwelling in the uber-politically correct here-and-now, but as viewers of <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">A Night to Remember<\/span> we just need to stick our modern social sensibilities on the back burner and deal with it. The characters themselves deal with it: \u201cLet\u2019s go join in the fun!\u201d says a well-dressed gentleman, as he and his lady friend watch a group of young men play an impromptu game of football (or soccer, to me and whatever American readers might be tuning in today) with chunks of ice on the deck below, well before the crew and passengers understand the tragedy that lies ahead. \u201cBut they\u2019re steerage passengers,\u201d his friend gently chides him. Elsewhere, a young newlywed couple on a stroll find themselves out of bounds, too. \u201cWe shouldn\u2019t be here anyway. This is First Class,\u201d says she. Chuckling in the cold, he pats her arm, draped over his: \u201cThey\u2019re welcome to it on a night like this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Maybe it goes without saying, but Baker\u2019s movie, though ambitious, hasn\u2019t the technical advancements of Cameron\u2019s story. Frankly, we don\u2019t need them. (Though I will admit a wide-eyed thrill as the <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span> came to life, in color, in his film.)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">We forgive the technical shortcomings of <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">A Night to Remember<\/span> (and, yes, they\u2019re there: models that look too much like models, a matte-painting <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span> with the smoke from its stacks frozen against the night sky) on the basis of its overarching strengths. Three examples of utter subtlety: The frantic S.O.S. going silent as the second officer on the <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Carpathia<\/span>, not understanding the new code for distress, shuts off the wireless. Water lapping softly on the floor of a cabin in Third Class. A hobby horse beginning to rock slowly, as if tipped by a ghostly hand, as the ship&#8217;s hull rips open, below the waterline, against the iceberg.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7283\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7283\" style=\"width: 504px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7283\" title=\"05057001\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/05057001.jpg\" alt=\"Looking back, Jeffery realised he'd left the keys in the ignition.\" width=\"504\" height=\"378\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/05057001.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/05057001-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 504px) 100vw, 504px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7283\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Looking back, Jeffery realised he&#8217;d left the keys in the ignition.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The film was shot primarily at England\u2019s now-legendary Pinewood Studios, known most familiarly to modern filmgoers as the home of the James Bond movies. The main sets were built on giant gimbals that could be tilted as need be as the ship\u2019s angle in the water increased. As a consequence, the sounds we hear in <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">A Night to Remember <\/span>as the Titanic sinks are chillingly real: the walls of the sets really were popping and creaking.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I remember, when <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span> came out, Cameron\u2019s arguments in favor of the film\u2019s artifice. Jack and Rose, Leo and Kate (if not Kate\u2019s chest), that silly blue diamond: these things would lure a new, young audience to the film\u2019s story, which, for the first time, would be presented with historical accuracy. Ballard had found the <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span>; experts had studied the wreck and formulated precise, scientific accounts of the sinking; Cameron himself had dropped nearly three miles down for a visit. He had personally shot film footage on location; moreover he had at his disposal all the bright new conclusions about the sinking, and the shiniest of those seemed to be that the people whom Walter Lord had interviewed in the 1950s were weak in their recollections. Modern science knocked heads with frail human memory; now, in the 1990s, memory lost. To put it bluntly, for the purposes of Cameron\u2019s computer-enhanced film, those who had survived the sinking were wrong.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7399\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7399\" style=\"width: 614px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7399\" title=\"snapshot20090227195119\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/snapshot20090227195119.jpg\" alt=\"Crikey, is it COLD up here. I should have brought a shawl!\" width=\"614\" height=\"346\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/snapshot20090227195119.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/snapshot20090227195119-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 614px) 100vw, 614px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7399\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crikey, is it COLD up here. I should have brought a shawl!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">But fear, cold, and darkness can have a profound editorial effect on memory. And, in all fairness, \u201ctruth,\u201d even as supplemented by silicon chips, is malleable. For Cameron\u2019s take on the sinking of the RMS <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span>&#8212; so crassly presented in his film by an actor I remember only as a guy who looked like Harry Knowles of <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Ain\u2019t It Cool News<\/span> (<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">was<\/span> that Harry Knowles?) as he runs an animated simulation for octogenarian (or, if we believe Cameron\u2019s screenplay, <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">centenarian<\/span>) Gloria Stuart, playing a much, <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">much<\/span> older Rose, about how the ship\u2019s stern rose steeply into the air before breaking free of the ship itself (\u201cThat\u2019s a whole lotta ass!\u201d leers maybe-Harry, as the animated <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic<\/span> splits in two.)&#8211; has since been disproved, too. It all came down to the weakness of the rivets holding together the plates of the ship\u2019s hull, if we\u2019re to believe Brad Matsen in his excellent new book, <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Titanic\u2019s Last Secrets<\/span>. Like insects in their billions at the bottom of the world\u2019s food chains, the tiny bolts brought the mighty ship low: a metaphor for class struggle if ever there was one.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<h6 class=\"zemanta-related-title\" style=\"font-size: 1em;\">Related articles<\/h6>\n<ul class=\"zemanta-article-ul zemanta-article-ul-image\" style=\"margin: 0; padding: 0; overflow: hidden;\">\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li\" style=\"padding: 0; background: none; list-style: none; display: block; float: left; vertical-align: top; text-align: left; width: 84px; font-size: 11px; margin: 2px 10px 10px 2px;\"><a style=\"box-shadow: 0px 0px 4px #999; padding: 2px; display: block; border-radius: 2px; text-decoration: none;\" href=\"http:\/\/rogerthomasreviews.wordpress.com\/2014\/08\/18\/reviews-of-the-past-titanic\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; border: 0; display: block; 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background: none; list-style: none; display: block; float: left; vertical-align: top; text-align: left; width: 84px; font-size: 11px; margin: 2px 10px 10px 2px;\"><a style=\"box-shadow: 0px 0px 4px #999; padding: 2px; display: block; border-radius: 2px; text-decoration: none;\" href=\"http:\/\/keithandthemovies.com\/2013\/08\/19\/5-phenomenal-movie-sea-captains\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; border: 0; display: block; width: 80px; max-width: 100%;\" src=\"http:\/\/i.zemanta.com\/194932076_80_80.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><a style=\"display: block; overflow: hidden; text-decoration: none; line-height: 12pt; height: 83px; padding: 5px 2px 0 2px; background-image: none;\" href=\"http:\/\/keithandthemovies.com\/2013\/08\/19\/5-phenomenal-movie-sea-captains\/\" target=\"_blank\">5 Phenomenal Movie Sea Captains<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The title of this article is wrong. I got to thinking about the Titanics I&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":33184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[201,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-classic-film-review","category-movie-review"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/Tale-Of-Two-Titanic-Review-Logo-v5.1.jpg",984,394,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/Tale-Of-Two-Titanic-Review-Logo-v5.1-500x280.jpg",500,280,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/Tale-Of-Two-Titanic-Review-Logo-v5.1-660x365.jpg",660,365,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/Tale-Of-Two-Titanic-Review-Logo-v5.1-768x308.jpg",640,257,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/Tale-Of-Two-Titanic-Review-Logo-v5.1-840x394.jpg",640,300,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/Tale-Of-Two-Titanic-Review-Logo-v5.1.jpg",984,394,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/Tale-Of-Two-Titanic-Review-Logo-v5.1.jpg",984,394,false],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/Tale-Of-Two-Titanic-Review-Logo-v5.1.jpg",984,394,false],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/Tale-Of-Two-Titanic-Review-Logo-v5.1.jpg",540,216,false],"profile_24":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/Tale-Of-Two-Titanic-Review-Logo-v5.1-24x24.jpg",24,24,true],"profile_48":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/Tale-Of-Two-Titanic-Review-Logo-v5.1-48x48.jpg",48,48,true],"profile_96":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/Tale-Of-Two-Titanic-Review-Logo-v5.1-96x96.jpg",96,96,true],"profile_150":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/Tale-Of-Two-Titanic-Review-Logo-v5.1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"profile_300":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/Tale-Of-Two-Titanic-Review-Logo-v5.1-300x300.jpg",300,300,true],"sow-carousel-default":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/Tale-Of-Two-Titanic-Review-Logo-v5.1.jpg",272,109,false]},"author_info":{"display_name":"Doug Shearer","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/author\/doug-shearer\/"},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/category\/movie-review\/classic-film-review\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Film Classic<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/category\/movie-review\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Movie Review<\/a>","tag_info":"Movie Review","comment_count":"3","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}