Posted on 04/12/2012 6:57:39 PM PDT by re_nortex
The 1958 film, A Night to Remember is scheduled for a showing this Saturday night, April 14, 2012 at 10:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time.
Because the book was so well written and the facts so compelling, it reads like a suspense novel. [Walter] Lord scrupulously researched all information available at the time, reviewing testimony from boards of inquiry, plus newspaper and eyewitness accounts of survivors from both passengers and crew. There are a few scenes where slight artistic license is taken, but no wholesale fabrication of characters or fictionalized sub-plots.
In reality, the film is more docudrama, yet never lacks for tension. Costuming was perfectly detailed and accurate, interiors perfect reproductions of the actual grand staircase, dining rooms, and smoking lounges were used. It is the most accurate of all Titanic films, even though exterior modeling shots were a bit weak.
The British production, which took five months to film, added even more authenticity to the film with a cast mostly unfamiliar to American audiences. This film features an incredibly poignant scene with cellist John W. Woodward playing and singing “Nearer My God to Thee” in the more likely Horbury setting.
It is fun to see a young David McCallum as assistant telegraph operator Harold Bride, plus Honor Blackman, and very brief uncredited appearances as crewmen from both Desmond Llewelyn and Sean Connery (the latter three later appearing together in larger roles in Goldfinger.)
Those remarks are from Tennessee Jed of CommentaramaFilms, a source for Conservative film talk.
LOL Thanks for that. I bet he never wore that T-shirt in Texas or someone would have slapped him.
***No one on this thread has mentioned the 1978 made for TV film “S.O.S. Titanic”***
I saw that film at that time. I remember that David Warner was in it and also in the 1997 version of TITANIC.
this is nice. (Titanic 1953) No sex-crazed voyeur childishness. And nice to have a “romance” based on MATURE people, for a change, for any kind of movie.
________________
Agree
I don’t know why they even bother with a plot in today’s movies..why not just a split screen with graphic sex on one side and blow-ups/violence/murder on the other?
What does CQD stand for?
I always assumed they sent SOS.
I thought it a pity to waste the china. That scene affected me the most of the sinking scenes.
But that HAT at the beginning. What an entrance. Any actor would have loved that one.
Too bad real hats are not worn much. Men or women. Too expensive, I guess.
Goebbels film used significant war material in the making..
Hearst knew..he had detested Ismay for over 20 years..and devoted every resources of his papers to hounding the guy for the rest of his life, but I can't believe that less than a few hundred NYers would have any idea that day who Ismay was..
The Times of that era carried detailed shipping and sailing news. Although I can't find an on-line archive of issues from a few days prior, I recall that the voyage of RMS Titanic was covered extensively in the paper. As chairman of the White Star Line, I would surmise that J. Bruce Ismay was not an unfamiliar name to Times readers. My guess (and it's only that) is that Ismay's name was as well known as, say, Jeffrey Immelt's is today to those who follow business.
The Times of the late 19th and early 20th century still had a heritage of being the Republican paper having been founded by Henry Raymond, a chairman of the RNC. Growing up in East Tennessee, Adolph Ochs, who purchased the paper from Raymond, got his start at Knoxville's Republican paper. Its readership, unlike the mass circulation papers of the city, was targeted to the more upscale business community, those who would better know of J. Bruce Ismay.
Hearst knew..he had detested Ismay for over 20 years..and devoted every resources of his papers to hounding the guy for the rest of his life...
And speaking of William Randolph Hearst, here's his paper's headline coverage:
Good points..thanks....as a kid in the 50’s, and back then avidly reading the NYT every day cover to cover, I rememebr the list ecah day of ships arriving and departing...and when the cargo ships ( this was before containers) still unloaded at rhe piers in lower Manhattan. It was said that the longshoremen stole 50% of every cargo..
I recall it being a pretty good character study.
“Too bad real hats are not worn much.”
—
The Brits are still good at hat wearing.
It’s nice to see that I’m not the only one that hated the little romance.
"A hat should be taken off when you greet a lady and left off for the rest of your life. Nothing looks more stupid than a hat." ---P.J. O'Rourke
No you’re not. I’m not you’re typical woman in that I go for the average sappy romance, but it wasn’t even the romance that bothered me. It was that the story was ridiculous. I don’t want to see a documentary when going to a movie, but there have to have been plenty of interesting, TRUE stories that could have been fleshed out. If I had to rate it, it would be a C- and that’s because of the story bringing the A+ special effects down.
Near as I can figure out, there was no standard call for commercial shipping at the time.
CQD was a military code term for Close Quarters Distress. That is what they used ...
Most people think that SOS stands for Save Our Ship, but that is not true - in Morse Code, it was three dots - three dashes - then three dots.
This was the fastest method of signalling distress in Morse Code and they settled on it ...
thanks for the ping
CQD was a military code term for Close Quarters Distress. That is what they used...
By the way, the call sign for the Marconi Wireless on RMS Titanic was:
By the way, that's the IATA code for Dayton-Wright Brothers Airport in Montgomery County, Ohio.
In post #18, Nortex wrote in part, "I think part of the reason why it became such a big story was that mass communications was really starting to reach a global audience. It was THE STORY of that era."
I agree completely with the point Nortex makes. The news of the tragedy reached all continents quickly and continued in real time, something that wouldn't been possible worldwide in previous eras.
Another freeper wrote me: "IMHO, the reason the Titanic wins is because of the romance. Not Jack and Rose, but the whole idea of a ship steaming at night in darkness under the silent stars of a cold sea, wrecking and foundering with no one to hear.
"I mean, there was a monster black ice berg out there in the dark, just waiting.....and the lookouts never could see it.
"Any kid who had an imagination could see that picture in his mind's eye. Years ago, I saw a Titanic exhibit. It had an exhibit room dressed up to look like a lonely deck in the dark. You could stare out over the sea. They even had a cool fan blowing so you could feel the chill. It was eerie."
I think this is another cogent reason that the story of the Titanic is so seductively gripping....the drama, the heroics, the mystery, the darkness, the cold, the unknown, the feeling of fate and doom.....all the things that were going to be found in the ever-popular suspense and horror films of the fledging silent "moving pictures" industry (and later the talkies) of the time.
If you have additional opinions and comments of your own on the reason for the lure of the "Titanic story", let's hear from you.
Leni
Isn’t it true that the lookouts in the crow’s nest (”the eyes of the ship”) had no BINOCULARS!!?
IIRC, there were five pairs of binoculars on board, but none of the ship’s officers could remember where they were stowed.
Captain Smith was no doubt aware of this, but he had orders from Bruce Ismay to push the gigantic ship to its highest speed, on a moonless night, into a known ice field amid a flurry of ice reports from other ships, some of which were forced to stop in mid-ocean, surrounded by ice. Madness!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.