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.
My mother and grandparents always told the story of "two Irish relatives" of ours who were in the steerage (lowest class) section of the Titanic, and went down with the ship (two young men). Unfortunately we never learned their names, so I can't prove who they were. Anyway, relatives or not, I've always had an interest in the RMS Titanic.
My husband and I happened to be in Nova Scotia in the summer of 1998 and visited the Fairview Cemetery in Halifax, N.S., the final resting place of many victims of the sinking of the Titanic. One of the graves was marked "J. Dawson". There were mountains of flowers, stuffed animals, movie ticket stubs, etc. on top of this grave, which is actually the grave of Joseph Dawson, an Irishman who worked in the Titanic's boiler room.
Several sobbing teenage girls were standing over the grave, absolutely convinced that the grave belonged to Jack Dawson, the fictitious character in the 1997 movie played by Leonardo DiCaprio. My husband and I couldn't stop laughing - the girls' mother looked pretty sheepish, LOL.
That's one of the postings from the FR thread, Titanic mystery over violin 'from band leader who played on'.
I was able to see the Titanic exhibit several years ago.
Interesting artifacts, etc.
There was an enormous block of ice that everyone was invited to put their hands on for as long as they could stand it, to show what the passengers in the water must have felt. It didn’t take long to take one’s hand away.
A Night To Remember is far superior to Cameron’s “Jack and Rose”..but the special effects were very good.
It was the Rose and Jack thing that did it for me. I almost walked out it was so ridiculous.
I had seen “A Night to Remember” and read the book so the “Titanic” was a big disappointment.
I just plain don’t like romantic movies. I love espionage,adventures,war movies,and murder mysteries etc.
I tell my grandchildren it is my dark side.
I first saw it when it was released also. I was on a date with a new guy who later became my husband.
1958 was a good year for me.
“I think part of the reason for why it became such a big story a century ago was that mass communications was really starting to reach a global audience. It was the story of that era.”
News still travelled slow to the hinterlands. My grandfather grew up in Haskell County in west Texas. He was 14 when the Titanic sank, and he told me it took a week before they heard about it.
BTW, I just bought the Blu-Ray version of “A Night to Remember” and the restored print looks fantastic. Some of those old B&W films had great tonality.
I think this was the very first movie I saw as a very young child that I can still remember to this day, it must have been in the early 60’s.
“Yes, but the costumes were tremendous.”
—
I’ll give you that——the costumes were great and of course the scenes of the sinking were terrific.
Amazing. I was not aware of the 1943 German film and I have been a Titanic buff since I first saw the 1953 version. I read A Night to Remember in high school and later learned of the 1929 film which did not even refer to the Titanic by name.
No one on this thread has mentioned the 1978 made for TV film “S.O.S. Titanic”. It wasn’t that bad if you can forget it was filmed on board the Queen Mary in Los Angeles harbor, a vessel launched nearly twenty years after Titanic.
How ironic that the one of Titanic’s sister ships that survived, the Olympic, would wind up being broken up for scrap in 1935, victim not of icebergs or torpedoes, but of the Great Depression. Saw a photo of Olympic being towed to the scrapyard, reduced to a sad rustbucket that was once a great ship. Her interior fittings however, survive in London hotels & pubs to this day.
Oh yes! A few low moments but the high points are many. Wonderful screenplay.
Where was that? A few months back, a FReeper recommended an RMS Titanic exhibit up in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
Kenneth More had an amazing career. He got to sink both the Titanic AND the Bismarck.
Yes, another great World War II movie. Great actors!
The running time for A Night to Remember is 123 minutes. For me at least, it's one of a handful of films that I felt was a tad too short. That probably means it's just about right to really grip everyone's attention.
So finally I shall watch this movie.
I always have misgivings about UK productions. Europeans love “reality” (i.e., they never had enough money to do more) which tends to be boring and uninspiring.
I also find it ironic it’s based on a book by a man from my own backyard. I read it when in middle school - excellent; the “bible” of Titanic.
Walter Lord also wrote an excellent book “Dawn’s Early Light” about that little British spat in our backyard. Should get more play being it is the 200th anniversary starting this year of the British War.
Thanks for mentioning Stanwyck. Some people don’t want any subplots, but if you’re going to have any, this is nice. No sex-crazed voyeur childishness. And nice to have a “romance” based on MATURE people, for a change, for any kind of movie.
Geared to craven sex-soaked teens.
That angered me. The unreality of it, never mind I’m sick of sex-sex-sex in every goddamn movie. Also the ridiculous idea these 2 fools would “fall in love” so hard in 3 days they’d “care” so much about each other in the sinking. What BS. (And, by her brief “encounter” with this low-life, she’s “free-spirited” now....what gunk.)
The technical aspects of the ‘97 were great - but I was angered how it was wasted on this kind of story.
I was really angered by that jackass in the start of the movie - the bearded bespectacled explorer on the sub who makes such disrespectful and snide remarks. I wanted to smack him - no, PUNCH him. SOB.
Yes, I despise the movie.
It was a traveling exhibit in Dallas.
I’d have to look back to see what year it was...but at least 10 years ago.
I always have misgivings about UK productions. Europeans love “reality” (i.e., they never had enough money to do more) which tends to be boring and uninspiring.
As one of the more active and erudite Titanic enthusiasts among us, I'll be very interested in your reaction. I think the story stands on its own merit and A Night to Remember captures it well. I want to caution you that special effects are somewhat crude. We oldsters can overlook that but since you're younger, just try to realize the limitations of the late 1950's.
I also find it ironic it’s based on a book by a man from my own backyard. I read it when in middle school - excellent; the “bible” of Titanic.
Yes, Walter Lord is from Ball'mer. Actually several great writers came from there such as Poe and Mencken.
I’m sure there are a thousand little known real stories of the Titanic that Cameron could have told. He could have highlighted several. Why choose to make up a couple out of whole cloth? It was ridiculous. I loved the special effects, but the fake story really detracted from the movie for me.
I was really angered by that jackass in the start of the movie - the bearded bespectacled explorer on the sub who makes such disrespectful and snide remarks. I wanted to smack him - no, PUNCH him. SOB.
Same here. That was very disgusting and uncalled for. What a Pig. I wanted to smack him, too.
Hollywood can’t avoid the gutter, it seems.
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