A Night to Remember (1958)

Since Easter Parade understandably has had a long wait, I decided on another semi-timely viewing: one of the most popular depictions of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Like probably most modern viewers, I could hardly watch it without thinking of the 1997 depiction (which did draw inspiration from it), but this won't be another twofer review if I can help it.

It would not have been utterly out of character for a film that old to focus fictitiously on a handful of individuals, possibly as a love story, and then have an infamous disaster shake things up in the third act. Such had happened a generation earlier with In Old Chicago (1937, about the fire) and San Francisco (1936, about a more literal shakeup). Instead, ANtR pays more due to the main event and gives minor attention to a fair number of various characters, both on and off the crew.

The biggest surprise to me was in how slowly the passengers, particularly on the upper tiers, became aware of the emergency and its severity. After grazing the iceberg within the first half hour, the captain did his best to make everyone think they'd be just fine, even as women and children boarded the lifeboats. There's something surreal about seeing gentlemen continue their card game in a visibly tilted room. Only toward the end do things really get panicky, and mildly obnoxious displays of arrogance give way to a few desperate acts of jerkdom.

I'm sure the production was expensive for the time. The only way the studio noticeably cut corners was with dated harbor footage of other ships in the beginning. In the course of the movie, the ship never breaks in two, but that had to do with informational, not budgetary, limits.

The budget might explain, tho, why the voluminous cast includes no big names, at least by an American reckoning. The only credited name I recognized was Honor Blackman, and she hadn't been in Goldfinger or TV's The Avengers yet. (Sean Connery and Desmond Llewellyn appear uncredited, and several more actors would appear less famously in other Bond flicks.) The director wasn't known for much else either.

It's probably not the most accurate movie about the ship. Or the most moving, since we never know anyone for long. But if you want a PG version with a gradual simmer of tension that never loses sight of its purpose, it makes a fine choice. I guarantee it's not too polarizing.