We commemorate the sinking of the Titanic every year on April 14th, the date of the sinking by watching the 1997 film “Titanic”. Scheduling a viewing on that exact date was an issue so I decided to make it a Titanic week and watched 5 Titanic films starting on Monday April 13th the 112th anniversary of the sinking. It was striking how familiar the world of Titanic was especially in the films made after the 1950’s as each of these films featured a Titanic that looked similar and I could imagine Jack and Rose doing their thing on other parts of the ship. All shared similar moments like a romance, Thomas Andrews before the clock, the look outs in the crows nests, a fortuitous last minute ticket obtained, Ismay sneaking into a boat, the unsinkable Molly Brown in the life boat demanding they go back for survivors but each also had their own stories to tell about the passengers on the trip.
First I watched a 2 part 1996 Titanic on VHS that came out a year before James Cameron’s film. The Jack of this film steals a ticket to get on board and falls in love with a fellow steerage passenger. He becomes involved with a nefarious crew member played by Tim Curry who blackmails him into a plot to rob the 1st class cabins. The film also features an odious rape scene in the non existent 3rd class showers where Curry’s crew member rapes the thief’s steerage crush. Meanwhile in 1st class the Rose character is on her way home to her husband and daughter when she meets up with an old flame that rekindles. She sends a telegram to her husband informing that she is leaving him. Her love suffers Jack’s fate and she fears she has lost all. Her husband and child meet her arrival in NYC and fearing she has lost all starts to explain the telegram when her husband interrupts “What telegram?” Big smile, swelling music The End. The thief avenges his love, she gets in a boat and he doing Fabricio’s knife job on the ropes falls into a lifeboat and is saved. Marilu Henner plays an over the top Molly Brown.
George C. Scott as Captain Edward J. Smith
Catherine Zeta-Jones as Isabella Paradine
Peter Gallagher as Wynn Park
Tim Curry as Simon Doonan
Marilu Henner as Molly Brown
I watched A Night to Remember (1958) Based on the book by Walter Lord on Tuesday. It followed the point of view mostly of the officers, the captain and the men in the boiler room. There is the requisite 3rd class party scene. In 1st class Lady Richard refuses to get in a boat opting to stay with her husband Sir Richard with the iconic line “Where you go I go” They suffer Fabricio’s fate when they are crushed by the funnel. The usual rich icons appear, Astor, Guggenhem and Molly Brown. The band plays on deck during the sinking and the violinist remarks the no one listens to them when they are eating either.
Kenneth More as Second Officer Charles Lightoller
Laurence Naismith as Captain Edward J. Smith
Michael Goodliffe as Thomas Andrews
David McCallum as Harold Bride
Honor Blackman as Mrs. Liz Lucas
S.OS.S Titanic (1979) on Wednesday night was filled with all the familiar rich folk, the boiler room, 3rd class steerage party scene and a romance between a lad and an unkown beauty. David Warner who plays Lovejoy in the 1997 film appears in this one as a professor who falls for an American woman. The Astors are also central characters and we get much more detail about them than we do in any of the other films. In this and the other films there is much emphasis on the telegraph room and in communications with the Carpathia. There is also a third ship the Californian which is visible from Titanic but through mischance does not get the SOS and interprets the flares as some kind of ship to ship communication not meant for them. This ship is entirely absent from the 1997 film.
David Janssen as John Jacob Astor IV
David Warner as Lawrence Beesley
Cloris Leachman as Molly Brown
Helen Mirren as Mary Sloan
Harry Andrews as Captain Edward J. Smith
Titanic (1953) features a Jack and Rose romance between Giff a college student who meets and falls in love with Annette the daughter of the main couple, Richard and Julia Sturges who begin the movie estranged but fall in love again by the lifeboats as the wife heads to safety while the husband remains on the ship. Both Giff and Anette survive but her younger brother gives up his seat to a woman and goes down with the ship by the side of his father singing a welsh hymn. In this film the Irish passengers are replaced by Basque passengers and Molly Brown is renamed Margaret Young. This was the worst of the films, the sets looked like hotel rooms and there is a cringy dance to a song called “the Navaho Rag”
Barbara Stanwyck as Julia Sturges
Clifton Webb as Richard Ward Sturges
Robert Wagner as Gifford “Giff” Rogers
Thelma Ritter as Maude Young
Brian Aherne as Captain Edward J. Smith
I concluded Titanic week watching the best TITANIC film of them all with Colleen and Jakobi
More April Snow!
Our Town
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy had an episode built around the play “Our Town” and both Colleen and I had never seen it so we went to see it on Thursday at Lost Nation Theater
Emmett was in it, it was good but old timey.
