' Titanic ' or ' ' A Night To Remember '--Which Do You Prefer?

thats a great trailer lol .... ive had this film, still sealed, on my shelf for quite a while ....

 

I agree. I thought it did. It was a huge hit for a reason. I love A Night to Remember too.

 

As hot under the collar as one poster was about the portrayal of Murdoch in 'Titanic', I've gotta say that the depiction of Captain Stanley Lord on the Californian in ANTR always raised my father's blood pressure whenever it turned up on TV. A Glaswegian ex-merchant seaman who survived the WW2 convoys, he couldn't stand it that Lord was scapegoated. At least Murdoch was portrayed sensitively by Cameron.

One of the true to life scenes that was cut from 'Titanic' depicted the radio operator from the Californian trying to warn Titanic's radio operators about the presence of icebergs in the area. Unfortunately they were too busy sending out telegrams from their wealthy passengers and basically told the Californian to shut up.

I took Dad to see 'Titanic'. When the lights came up, he said nothing.

After a long pause he said, "The North Atlantic was never that blue".

Man of few words. I miss him.

 

Love the thrilling excitement as the great ship leaves Cherbourg. The loudness of the ships horn the crowd cheering the giant liner on to those giant propellers spinning away. Jack & Fabrizio excited about going to America. Stunningly beautiful scene, the good feeling you get where anything is possible even for the poor to come to America to change their poor fortunes.

 

Don't favor either. But "Night to Remember" being black & white gives it an eerie feeling.

 

I can get into pretty much any of the Titanic stories. We own DVDs of the big Cameron TITANIC, and the old Clifton Webb/Barbra Stanwyck TITANIC. We also own a television miniseries called TITANIC that starred Catherine Zeta-Jones and had George C. Scott as the captain. We tend to rotate through these during the April anniversary.

But I also have a real sentimental favorite: the pilot episode of THE TIME TUNNEL. It's a true Irwin Allen low-budget affair, but at the time was the most money ever spent on a pilot film. Scenes of the ship are tinted images from the Clifton Webb TITANIC, and they got the first name of the Captain wrong, but Michael Rennie was good in the role.

 

Me too.

If it has Titanic involved, whether it be movies, documentaries, or books, I'm there lol.

 

The Titanic had already received telegrams and was aware of the presence of ice burgs. This is why there were two crew members in the crows nest.

The Marconi company has telegram services on ships back then to provide services to their customers, which were the ships passengers.

The telegraph was not there to provide any official services to the White Star Line.

 

The focus seems to be the romance between the 2 principal players.

 

I’m going to go with Titanic simply because of the visuals and historical accuracy around the ship itself and the sinking. The Jack/Rose romance doesn’t detract that much. And c’mon - Victor Newman as John Jacob Astor? Heck yeah!

A Night to Remember is a great film, though.

 

Preferred him in ' The Rat Patrol '...

 

Another vote for Night, a real reel classic! I loved that Time Tunnel episode as a kid, tho.

 

Every few years or so (more like 10) I get on a Titanic kick and re-read the 2 Walter Lord books, and whatever else I can find at the time. I have a small collection of Titanic related books, and other stuff.

There was a touring exhibit in 1998, which I attended in Hamburg.

Despite the Jack & Rose fiction in Titanic, I do really enjoy that film. In fact, I was semi obsessed with it at the time. Ended up seeing it in the theater many times. When the theater run ended, I bought an industry "screener" VHS off of ebay. No idea what I paid, but probably too much! I watched that screener many times. Then the official double VHS -- and finally, the DVD. I probably haven't watched it in 15 or 20 years, at this point. But I did fetch the DVD out of storage recently....

I've got A Night To Remember -- on LaserDisc! But no working LD player, so...

Anyway, this year I'm on that kick again. Recently re-read the 2 Lord books, and am now about half-way through Wyn Craig Wade's Titanic: End of a Dream.

Such a fascinating, and tragic, story.

Watched an interesting docu-drama recently, called Saving Titanic. Highlights the engineering crew, and how they kept the lights on throughout the sinking, often having to bypass faulty circuits and whatnot. It is estimated that the engineering crew helped keep the ship above water for an extra 1 or one and half hours... not only keeping the lights on, but keeping several pumps going, at least delaying the inevitable. If so, they really were some of the unsung heroes of the event.

 

There was a strange Nazi version of the of Titanic that was created as an attack on England and Capitalism. Hitler and Goebbels opposed capitalist "greed". Goebbels didn't like the movie and he later had the film's director executed. It was not shown in Germany but only in Nazi-occupied Europe.

 

Recently watched S.O.S. Titanic - the TV Cut...it was very good. They rush a bit though the sinking but everything leading up to it was very enjoyable.

 

Titanic is the easy pick for me. Its funny to read here that A Night To Remember is considered accurate history compared to Titanic. Both films take huge liberties with the true events. Titanic has the whole romance and broad-stroke characterizations, but I found all this entertaining (I guess like most of the folks who watched this movie multiple times). The special effects were another point that really lifts this movie above A Night To Remember. I watched both movies multiple times, but frankly, I can't remember much about a Night To Remember, besides the band playing as the ship goes down.

 

At the time "A Night To Remember" was made, they hadn't found the wreckage yet, so the way they show the Titanic sinking was how it was believed it sunk.

So it turns out to be incorrect years later, but I don't really think it was an attempt by the filmmakers to fool the audience.

 

If you have a library card, you can download the Kanopy app on your phone or streaming device and watch 10 movies for free per month. It has a lot of Criterion films, so I imagine "A Night To Remember" is on there. I will try to check for you later on today.

 

It is actually available for free today on Hoopla.

You can also get a documentary about the sinking of the Lusitania there. That is a much more interesting story but the liberal media won't touch it. I don't think they ever made a movie of it.

 

The movie, like other B&W movies during the 50's was a drama (and melodrama), they were not into the special effects aspect at the time. They were however, very much on controlling the budget aspects of the movie.

How much does the average person remember about the dialogue of any drama? Not much I would think.

It was disclosed by survivors during the congressional hearings after the sinking. The concept that a large ship could split in half was not something that was easily accepted. Plus, Officer Lightoller, being the senior surviving officer, testified otherwise.

It was not an attempt to fool the audience, but neither was it accurate. No one to blame here. But, one has to consider that a lot of other information was also based on information that was highly speculative in nature.

The movie was based on the book, do it was not the intent of the producers to challenge the story, only to tell it in movie form.

In any translation from book to screen, you are transferring from one media to another. In doing do, the story gets told in another way. It was meant to be portrayed as a drama, and so it was.

 

For epic filmmaking, Titantic. For drama, A Night to Remember. Cameron crafts epic films unfortunately at their core they are usually derivative and cliched.

 

Actually, he wasn't Jewish; he made the mistake of bad-mouthing the German Navy in public. The asst. director reported him to the Minister of Propaganda, Dr. Goebbels, who denounced him to the Gestapo. He was sent to prison where he "committed suicide" (with an assist from the guards).

 

On the Criterion blu-ray, there is an interview with Swedish survivors from a TV program from 1962; on it a woman talks about the ship breaking in two before it sank.

 

I am not saying that every single person believed it sunk in one piece, but it was widely accepted, right or wrong, that it sank in one piece. When the wreckage was found, it was confirmed that it had broken apart.

 

A Night to Remember hands down... as @carlwm notes, the '90s leviathan was a colossal waste of personal time and money... I was so happy when Leo went down for the count... just wish the Great White from Jaws had grabbed him from below... now THAT woulda been entertaining!