Films About RMS Titanic
White Star Line Ship Sinks From Sea, Afloat On Screen
The night of 14 April, leading into the date of 15 April, has not been a fortuitous forty-eight hours in the history of the last hundred years of the Western World. These dates mark the final hours to file taxes, the assassination and death of Abraham Lincoln, and the sinking of the doomed ocean liner, RMS Titanic.
Crossing the Atlantic Ocean in 1912, Titanic hit an iceberg on 14 April, sinking in the early hours of 15 April. Dubbed the unsinkable ship, the White Star Line vessel sunk on her maiden voyage.
Carrying numerous wealthy passengers, and infamous for its disastrous management of the crash, the sinking became responsible for causing death, tightening of safety regulations, and Titanic being used as the setting for many forms of storytelling.
Countless books have been written about the doomed passenger ship, which also came to be the subject of a musical staged on Broadway in 1997. However, Titanic has most often captured the imaginations of filmmakers.
Early Films about the Sinking of RMS Titanic
As early as a month after the sinking, a ten minute silent film about the Titanic was made in the United States. Saved From The Titanic (1912) starred Dorothy Gibson, the popular silent screen star, who had herself survived the disaster. Gibson is said to have performed wearing the actual dress in which she was rescued. The film is thought to be lost, but it is recorded as one of the first films to use color, two scenes being shot in Kinemacolor.
In Nacht und Eis (1912) is an early moving picture to have depicted the sinking of Titanic. The German-made film is only thirty-five minutes in length, but it was three times longer than most films of 1912. German film makers used the subject of RMS Titanic again when making Nazi propaganda film Titanic (1943).
Not until 1929 did British film approach the subject of the British ship. The black and white film Atlantic used the story of Titanic as the inspiration for the story of a fictional ship sinking.
Titanic (1953)
Starring Barbara Stanwyck, Clifton Webb, and Robert Wagner, this black and white Hollywood movie tells the story of an affluent troubled married couple and their two children who find themselves aboard RMS Titanic.
Many aspects of the history of the sinking are noted in this movie, but like many film adaptations of the disaster, it focuses most on the story of its fictional characters.
It is sometimes said that during filming Barbara Stanwyck had a love affair with co-star Robert Wagner, who was cast as the romantic interest of the daughter of Stanwyck’s character.
A Night To Remember (1958)
British black and white film, starring Kenneth More, it is usually considered by critics to be the best film version of the story of Titanic’s sinking. It is based on the book of the same name by Walter Lord, and interestingly, while the movie shows some characters and their stories, it focuses on the actual events of the sinking, showing the collision with the iceberg thirty minutes into the film.
This film also unusually approaches the disaster mostly from the point of view of the crew.
The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964)
Starring Debbie Reynolds, the movie musical fictionalizes the life of actual Titanic survivor Margaret Brown, who was herself dubbed by the press as unsinkable following her bravery during the sinking.
The character’s voyage on Titanic is a relatively small segment of the movie, which is based on the hit Broadway musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1960).
S.O.S. Titanic (1979)
This television miniseries sought to approach the disaster from the perspective of all three classes of passengers aboard the actual RMS Titanic. The miniseries also heavily depicted historical characters who were aboard the ship such as John Jacob Astor (David Janssen), Molly Brown (Cloris Leachman), ship designer Thomas Andrews (Geoffrey Whitehead), White Star Line Managing Director Bruce Ismay (Ian Holm), and Captain Smith (Harry Andrews). Helen Mirren also makes an appearance as a ship stewardess.
Originally aired in two parts on ABC, it has a running time of 180 minutes. It is very slow-paced and generally boring. The miniseries also seems more like it is of the 1970s than the 1910s.
Titanic (1996)
Starring Catherine Zeta-Jones, Peter Gallagher, Eva Marie Saint, Marilu Henner, Tim Curry, and George C. Scott the CBS miniseries was sizably superior to the previous television rendition of the sinking of Titanic.
It depicts the stories of both fictional and factual figures, and although far from flawless, it evokes emotion and empathy.
Titanic (1997)
Directed by James Cameron and starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, the motion picture became popular among adolescent girls who became drawn to the movie due to crushes on the leading man and it being an “epic period” romance.
Despite winning several Academy Awards - and raking in the highest box office gross of all time - it is an appallingly boring combination of an action movie and a chick flick romance.
The sinking is merely used as the backdrop for a fictional love story, and the movie is perhaps the most historically inaccurate of any of the films made about the ocean liner.
The performances of Billy Zane and Frances Fisher are the strongest aspect of a film which is otherwise all wet and soggy.
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