Why would anyone expect Titanic 1953 to be something akin to A Night to Remember? Doesn't anybody read a synopsis of the film? I mean, it's nearly 60 years old, well- and long-known, and by this time its plot shouldn't be a surprise to anybody. (Incidentally, just to quibble, the wreck and sinking take over half an hour, not "less than fifteen minutes".)
Anyway, there's a lot to criticize about this movie, but at base what's the difference between this and Cameron's 1997 soap opera? Both have phony characters and center on love between the classes. Aside from getting the details of the sinking basically correct (with the benefits of $200 million plus hindsight, in that the wreck had by then been discovered and analyzed, so the facts of its sinking had become known, none of which was available in 1953), Cameron's film was nothing more than an idiot soap opera for teenagers, with one-dimensional characters and a script so badly done and imbecilic that it failed to even receive an Oscar nomination -- in a film that got 14 overall.
This Titanic is far from great: it has lots of mistakes, and its characterizations of a noble upper class, and steerage passengers so stupid and panicky that they require the noblesse oblige of their betters to save them, is little short of repulsive. It didn't deserve the Oscar it won. But it's got a much better cast, better dialogue and characters, and at least one unexpected bit of pathos (the son staying with his "father" to die) that make it preferable to the bloodless, empty-headed 1997 spectacle.
Of course, nothing beats ANTR. You don't need to fictionalize the tragedy of the Titanic to make good drama. But for some reason most filmmakers can't leave well enough alone, and feel compelled to juice up the story with fake people and events.
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HijodelCid
12 years ago
That bit of pathos is spoiled by Webb and everybody else joining together to sing NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE, a fabrication that is possibly the most egregious lie of this falsification of history.
God is subtle, but He is not malicious. (Albert Einstein)
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hobnob53
12 years ago
Yes. I'd agree with that. That finale is ridiculous.
Still, no one ever advertised this film as the true story, as was done (justifiably) with A Night to Remember. But Fox did interview many survivors of the disaster for the movie. In the acknowledgements in his book A Night to Remember, Walter Lord thanks Helen Hernandez of 20th Century-Fox for being "a gold mine of useful leads." Weirdly, he doesn't say why a woman at a movie studio was of such help, but she was the secretary to Charles Brackett, producer of the '53 Titanic, and Hernandez helped Lord contact many survivors. So they did try to get some facts into the film. But they were making a fictional story using the Titanic as background. So has every other Titanic film. Only ANTR bascially resisted this approach.
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Eric-62-2
12 years ago
The first time I saw "Titanic" on television, I was a young wide-eyed Titanic buff expecting accuracy and I was generally infuriated with what I saw. As an adult, my attitude has changed completely as I understand that (1) it was made before ANTR the book appeared and before there was a thing as Titanic-mania with many people knowing the story inside out as we have today (2) as a fictional story it is brilliantly acted and structured, and immensely preferable to Cameron's junk.
I've also become fascinated by how the sets for "Titanic" were reused on short notice by Fox for both "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and the noir thriller "Dangerous Crossing." One can get a fascinating insight into a studio production schedule at its peak when one watches all three films together and then sees how Michael Rennie, who contributes the closing narration of the film, was the co-star of "Dangerous Crossing" using the same sets etc.
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hobnob53
12 years ago
I became a modest Titanic buff in my teens, and I think this movie played better to me then than since. Some of its dialogue (and those awful, "Oi! Guv'nuh!" accents!), the offensive portrayals of First Class and steerage, and some incompetence in the production (the berg impossibly ripping open the wrong side of the ship, people standing stoically singing while the ship was about to take its final plunge) really hurt the film, the more so for their needlessness, though I understand the mind-set of the time at least as the dialogue and some characterizations are concerned. This stuff grates on me much more now than then.
Still, it has a great cast of professionals, and however inaccurate or unrealistic much of it may be, it works well as entertainment. Much better than Cameron's arrogant and condescending script and predictable, one-dimensional characters, though obviously he had the money and technology to creat an astonishing visual spectacle unimaginable in the 50s.
I've seen those Titanic sets re-used in the films you mentioned. They're really quite glaring in Dangerous Crossing, all the more so because that film is set aboard a modern ocean liner, yet its interiors are clearly Edwardian in style. It makes the film look like a knock-off quickie, which in most respects it was.
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Eric-62-2
12 years ago
In a way, that was half the fun of the studio system in those days, that a B-movie with a decent enough plot could be made on the cheap using existing sets from an A-level production. I'm reminded of how Heston wished that a couple B-movie cheapies could have easily been done in the "55 Days At Peking" sets that never got fully shown on-screen
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hobnob53
12 years ago
I think some smaller Titanic sets (staterooms and the like) may have been recycled for another 1953 Fox film whose finale is set aboard an ocean liner, A Blueprint for Murder. That movie was directed by Andrew L. Stone, who always tried to film everything on location, even his interiors. So having to use sets for the climax on a ship must have been grating to him! But he made up for it seven years later by using the Ile de France for The Last Voyage.
It's gotten so you can recognize a lot of studio exteriors -- city streets, suburban areas, western towns and so forth -- in many older films, a lot of which also turned up on TV shows later shot on those studio lots. They may redress them for each movie, but in the end they're all recognizable. I think those studio sets looked a lot more convincing in the 30s, 40s, and 50s than they do today...or maybe it's just because we see them so often, from so many different years (with decades of movie and TV libraries now at our fingertips), that we see them much more for what they are than contemporary audiences, not as inundated with them in such short spans of time, took them for.
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Eric-62-2
12 years ago
Yes, the DVD era has made it possible for us to spot the recycling of sets and costumes for that matter. That carries over into the 70s with Universal TV shows as well. Much as I prefer good authentic use of exteriors, I never find myself critical of such obvious recycling today simply because it was a different era and it represented a simpler time of filmmaking.
I'll keep "Blueprint For Murder" in mind!
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hobnob53
12 years ago
It's available on DVD. Not great, but not bad. A bit creepy, actually.
I had seen your Blackboard Jungle post, made no reply initially, but have since defended you against the poster who did answer you (as you may have seen by now). He's since responded to me, so I'm on my way over now to see how this latest imbroglio is developing. Join us!
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Eric-62-2
12 years ago
Something's not right here, because I haven't made a post about Blackboard Jungle. Sounds like a certain imposter is at work again.
UPDATE-Okay, it's not that imposter guy I've had problems with before (I told you about him in PM's) It's another person entirely whose handle is 1226. That's not me. (And I have to admit, I've never even seen Blackboard Jungle!)
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hobnob53
12 years ago
You're right -- I never paid attention to the number, which is in any case similar. Anyway, I thought I was right. Glad you're out of it! Too many Erics here.
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betty-pauley
12 years ago
Eric-62-2 said,
:: Okay, it's not that imposter guy I've had problems with before (I told you about him in PM's) It's another person entirely whose handle is 1226. ::
How much privacy am I entitled to when I post here? Everyone is supposed to focus on the comment, not the commentator.
That being said, this movie tells you more about 1950s Hollywood than the luxury liner clientele of 1912.
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Captain_Augustus_McCrae
12 years ago
I hope it is understood that in 1953 it was still believed that "Nearer, My God to Thee" actually WAS sung by the people left aboard the ship. Many survivors said so, and the best information at the time was that the story was true. No doubt was cast upon the story until the 1955 publication of Walter Lord's "A Night to Remember". Let's please not stupidly criticize a film for doing it's best to be accurate in this one point, even if subsequent research casts doubt on that aspect of the story.
"It ain't dying I'm talking about, it's LIVING!"
Captain Augustus McCrae
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HijodelCid
12 years ago
The record of GOOFS committed in this movie--listed both in IMDB.COM and in the WIKI article of this soap--seriously casts doubt on whether Negulesco and company did any real effort to be accurate.
The officers of a privately owned shipping line wearing Royal Navy insignia--REALLY!!!
God is subtle, but He is not malicious. (Albert Einstein)
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Captain_Augustus_McCrae
12 years ago
A simple google search for images of both the real Captain Smith and the actor from the film will quickly establish that the uniform in the film is correct and accurate.
"It ain't dying I'm talking about, it's LIVING!"
Captain Augustus McCrae
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Eric-62-2
12 years ago
Actually in the decades since "A Night To Remember" was published, the case for "Nearer My God To Thee" has made a comeback, beacuse Walter Lord discovered that his theory of the hymn "Autumn" may have been based on a misunderstanding of what tune Harold Bride was talking about in his interview with the New York Times. Bride was likely referring to a waltz tune "Songe' D'Automne" which was commonly known as "Autumn" and Bride himself never referred to it as a hymn. Thus, the band may have played "Nearer My God To Thee" which was supposedly a favorite hymn of Bandmaster Hartley at an earlier point.
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HijodelCid
11 years ago
So the makers of this movie actually believed that a panicked crowd, desperately trying to escape from a fast sinking ship, actually took the time to stop and deliver a masterly rendition of NEARER worthy of a solemn Sunday service?
Please excuse my cynicism, but that story was about as credible as the claim that Julius Caesar--in the midst of getting stabbed to death with a hundred dagger blows--still tried to cover his feet because he was embarrassed at people seeing his uncovered feet.
God is subtle, but He is not malicious. (Albert Einstein)
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TheGuyWithTheFeet
11 years ago
The thing is that the 1950s are notorious for changing facts in depictions of historic events. Any of those bio flicks (Houdini, Love Me or Leave Me, etc) all change the facts to make it more (less) interesting.
Titanic 53 is no different.
Further, there was very little research done on the Titanic disaster until Walter Lord wrote A Night to Remember...which was published a couple of years later.
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