A Night to Remember .... not "Titanic"

Last night one of the channels was showing the Titanic film "A Night to Remember." I haven't seen the film in about 35 years. I thought it would be fun to watch in comparison to James Cameron's "Titanic." Well, about 20 minutes into the film, I realized that "A Night to Remember" IS the Titanic film. It is just so much better - a classy, moving retelling of a tragedy. One also gets a sense of authenticity completely absence from "Titanic." I don't care how big a set, or how many china plates, or how good the special effects, Cameron's "Titanic" is completely missing the human drama of the story or any real soul. Cameron's "Titanic" is a fictional Hollywood love story, wrapped within a thin contemporary framework, shrouding an actual event, "A Night to Remember" tries to calmly recount the events of that night, while providing a series of wonderful snapshot characterizations. But the film is anything but calm. You can watch an hour and a half of "Titanic" without experience a whit of drama or tension, whereas "A Night to Remember" - once the ship hits the iceberg - is just filled with SUSPENSE without the need for massive special effects. Just a series of shots of the boat sagging lower and lower into the water over the course of an hour is really all the drama you need visually. I was completely riveted. What I like best about the suspense is that behind it is this low-key, very MANNERED, unfolding of events. The characters in "A Night to Remember" all have this sense of diginity which makes the film feel so much more realistic (at least in my mind) to how the Edwardian-age characters would have acted in the situation. This creates an aural of authenticity and this sense of respect and sadness, unlike Leonardo DiCaprio running around like an idiot. Yes, there was tremendous excitement surrounding "Titanic" but I have to say "A Night to Remember" is the film homage the tragedy deserved. Something I don't believe "Titanic - The Action Film" could ever hope to pose as.

 

Yeah, but do you get to see Kate Winslet naked in the backseat of a car?

 

Male Passenger: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...
Jack: You want to walk a little faster through that valley there?

 

I prefer A Night to Remember. The Clifton Webb Titanic film is good, but A Night To Remember is still the best, a very special film. I rate Cameron's a distant third, although the effects are spectacular.

 

I've never seen A Night to Remember - at least I don't think I have - but I read Walter Lord's book of the same name as a teenager and was riveted by it.

Thanks for the recommendation, chadbang. I'm adding it to my Netflix queue tonight.

 

great movie...

 

One of my personal favorites. There is a young and beautiful Honor Blackman (future ***** Galore) and David McCallum (future Man from U.N.C.L.E.) plays one on the radio operators. Try to find the Criterion version of this movie. Lots of extras.

 

You hit the nail on the head with regard to the fundamental difference in these two films, but I don't think that makes "Titanic" an inferior film. As you have indicated, "Titanic" is essentially a love story...in this case an attempt at an epic, star-crossed lovers story using a major historical event as its backdrop (ala Gone With The Wind). In that vein, I think "Titanic" succeeds remarkably.

"A Night To Remember" was an attempt at a straightforward recounting of the events of the sinking, within a docu-drama type framework. In that respect, it succeeds remarkably.

I think both films are well-done for what they are. I will say that "Titanic" was a more emotional movie experience for me because I had become invested in the lead characters.

 

"A Night to Remember" is definitely my favorite film about the Titanic.

A little off topic - anyone remember the film "The Last Voyage"? I was quite young when I first saw it and thought it was about the Titanic since it was about a sinking ship. It wasn't but I remember that film is pretty intense as well.

 

You're in for a treat.

 

No one's mentioned the worst Titanic flick ever

 

....why did ya'all have to go and make me wanna go and pull out my Criterion LD? I'm trying to just catch up on just my new, unwatched videos.

 

Walt Disney's "Titey"

 

The miniature rowboats had battery-powered rowers, and the sequence was slowed down so that the waves in the filming tank would look more like ocean waves.

I like it because it's a story about the Titanic, rather than a story set aboard the titanic.

 

Thank you for that. Too many people think it's an "either-or", and they enjoy bashing "Titanic". Once that flick became a smash, it became inevitable that mega-bashing would occur, but it still depresses me. People forget that virtually no one thought "Titanic" would be a hit, and I'd bet that if it'd bombed at the box office, many of the folks who bash it now would champion it instead...

 

Apparently a lot of people disagree with you, as it was the "human drama of the story" that made it connect with such a massive audience.

If it didn't work for you, that's fine, but I don't see why you find it necessary to slam one movie because you liked another better. I think both are very good - and very different. From my review of "Night":

"Since I liked Titanic, the strong temptation is to directly compare the two films, and that’s easy to do. However, it’s probably not fair to either work, as each features a different emphasis. Titanic took the more personal view to the tale. Sure, we get a good look at the greater picture, but Cameron clearly felt that the impact of the disaster would be better felt through the eyes of two compelling protagonists, and I can’t disagree; as was the case with the brilliant Sophie’s Choice, sometimes huge cataclysms present a stronger punch when seen on a smaller, more human level.

Night plays more like a documentary. There really are no lead characters, though Second Lightoller (Kenneth More) comes closest to matching the criteria. Nonetheless, the movie focuses on the general events of the evening and relates a lot of information not discussed in Titanic, such as the involvement - or lack thereof - from two nearby ships, the Carpathia - which helped rescue the survivors - and the Californian - which didn’t do squat.

Those elements of Night were especially compelling to me because they hadn’t received much attention in Titanic. As such, the information was new to me. I understand that some of it may not be completely correct - our understanding of the events is clearer today than it was in 1958 - but I was interested to learn more about the subject.

Even when the two films overlap, I still really liked Night. It’s a drier, less emotional exploration of the sinking, but that doesn’t mean it lacks drama or resonance. Indeed, the disaster still seems tragic and horrific, even through a semi-objective undertaking such as this. Director Roy Baker kept the tone fairly even but the movie still offers a powerful impact."

 

I find that this is a major detriment to most films. And TV. And books. The internet, not so much. Naked Kate Winslet is out there. And it is a good thing.

 

A bit of trivia...
My wife's grandfather - David Harcourt, shot this...he was what people would call the DOP (director of photography) now but sas given another title back then..
Pretty impressive resume...he shot Sunday Bloody Sunday and The Lady Vanishes along with other works...I met him finally in June...very very cool dude...and still kicking at 91 I believe...

 

Assuming you're referring to the 1960 film with Dorothy Malone as the female passenger trapped in the cabin, it was sort of based on the July 1956 sinking of the Italian liner Andrea Doria. A woman was trapped in her cabin by some wreckage (the name Mrs. Cianfarra comes to mind), and a great deal of effort was given to trying to free her before the ship sank. In real life (the Andrea Doria), she died before being removed. The sinking of the Doria was caused by being rammed by the SS Stockholm, not from any explosions.

The actual ship that was sunk in The Last Voyage was the French liner SS Ile de France, which had actually participated in the rescue of passengers from the Doria. A fine old liner dating from the mid-1920s, it was sold for scrapping in 1958-59 to a Japanese wrecking firm, who rented out the ship to be used by the film company in the making of the film. It was sunk as shown in the movie, in shallow water, and subsequently raised and scrapped. Many lovers of fine passenger liners were horrified and incensed at the undignified use made of the Ile de France at the end of its useful life.

Guess I'm just an old ocean liner freak......

 

Very cool. Thanks for the historical information. Yes - I am referring to the film with Dorothy Malone. IIRC, Robert Stack played her husband in it.

Now, I wonder if my local video store has this film for rent?

 

I don't know about that, but Amazon has the DVD for sale.

http://www.amazon.com/Last-Voyage-Robert-Stack/dp/B000HEWEF8

 

I don't actively collect stuff from the old ships but I have a pair of menus from Matson Lines Lurline. This is the one that was in service in the Pacific from the 1930's till 1962 with a break for WW2. Mr. Matson named a bunch of ships Luriline after his daughter.

This Lurline was running back and forth between California and Honolulu mostly in the early 1940's. When Pearl Harbor was bombed, the Luriline was on her way to California. Then, the U.S. Government drafted all or most of the Matson Line's ships for use as transports. When it was considered safe, the Lurline and some of her sister ships were sent back to Hawaii to evacuate civilians.

My dad, his sister, and mother came back to the mainland on the Luriline. My grandfather was in the Coast Guard and stayed. Anyway, they were allowed, well encouraged to strip their cabin of anything they wanted....sheets, pillows, clocks, ect. My dad said they got to eat anything they wanted at meals. I remember him sayin' he had Lobster twice. On the last day, he took two menus for mementos. Later, after the war, his dad framed them for him.

Now, I have them. I'd love to take them out of the frames and look at the menu choices. I'm afraid to though because they're so old. Framed, they just look like pictures. The fronts of 'em have bright, purr-dy, painted pictures. One has a two tropical ladies carrying fruit baskets. The other has a guitar with flowers and lays all around it.

My family helped strip the ole Lurline for military service, early in 1942.

 

The problem is, that all the main characters are fictional and not believeable at all. Leo and Kate come across as a couple of late Nineties teenagers trapped in 1912. And don't get me started with the villain of the story, Bill Zane's characters. A cartoonish bad guy-buffoon if I ever saw one. I just can't take any of them seriously. The entire movie reeks of Nineties commercialism. It doesn't put me back in 1912. The only thing missing was the mandatory Aerosmith power ballad, but Celine Dion covered that spot for them.

And then, there are "gems" like this:

This must be one of the crassiest, dumbest and most disgusting bits of film dialogue ever.
I suppose many people found it funny, but I don't remember anyone laughing at the cinema. I just had to roll my eyes.
That tell you everything you need to know about how much James Cameron cared about the tragedy of the Titanic.




On the other hand, "A night to remember" is a vastly superior film. It's amazing how they managed to pull off the sinking of the Titanic so convincingly, even if in hindsight it was revealed that some details weren't entirely accurate. The FX and sets look excellent for the Fifties. They don't look as dated as other films from that era. And overall the acting, the script, verything feels more realistic and immenselly more respectful with the memory of the dead.
That film for me is Exhibit A for how much better are films from the past compared with most of what we have to endure today.
Another examples:
Robert Rossen's Alexander the Great versus Oliver Stone's Alexander.
Although Rossen's film is far from perfect is still much better than Stone's.
The Fall of the Roman Empire versus Gladiator: No contest, the former is the better film and the other a not very good rip-off.