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.
I just saw it this evening, finally have some time (I have a million other shows to watch for it, so watching this now is just for you, RE).
I have to say I was quite impressed. It was very good, overall.
I had a beef with the 3rd-class treatment, but that may be expected at that time; just that it was more blatant than other details. Also bugged me that they made Olympic out to be niggling on details and “idiotic”, but that was brief.
I was so sad by the little boy. I fear he died. Little children in trouble really upsets me now, that I have a little 4yo boy.
But I was impressed by the movie overall. A good move-along story for just about anyone to watch.
Each visitor was given a "passport" with the identity of a real passenger. They were not told till the end of the tour if they survived.
.
“The same clothing that had looked perfectly normal to me two hours earlier now looked so ugly and unflattering. It was an odd feeling.”
Good. We need more of that feeling, and less of “casual Friday”.
Wow...if you walked thru an exhibit with a “passport” that attached you to a real passenger...
Interesting twist that would bring things home like no other.
I have to ask...were you a survivor?
The exhibit brought so many people we were too busy to take the tour ourselves!
I did the tour with two other people. 2 of us (including myself) didn’t make it and 1 did.
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