A Night To Remember

With James Cameron giving his Oscar grabbing 1997 blockbuster a 3D overhaul and Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes offering his version of events on ITV, you won't be short of ways to mark the Titanic centenary in April 2012. But if you need another, you could do worse than revisiting Roy Ward Baker's lucid reconstruction, which forsakes fictional embellishments in favour of documentary credibility and cold, hard facts. The coldest? That on the night the RMS Titanic foundered in the North Atlantic at the cost of more than 1500 lives, another vessel, the SS Californian, stood idly by within sight of the stricken ship ignoring its distress signals.
Using Walter Lord's impeccably researched book as his guide, scripter Eric Ambler views this criminal apathy with the same understated stoic heroism as the doughty second officer who keeps his head in a crisis. It's left to us to get angry, our mounting dismay at the escalating tragedy made all the keener by the knowledge it could have so easily been averted. The emotion generated is no less restrained, rooted as it is in British reserve and stiff upper lips. If anything, that makes it all the more potent, a father's kiss on the head of his sleeping son as he lays him gently in a lifeboat prompting a lump in the throat of iceberg proportions. "This is most unfortunate, Captain!" sighs one passenger in a clipped exchange that may prompt sniggers today.
Of course it's dated and some of the acting is stilted, but this film is almost sixty years old. The effects stand up and the black and white really gives an impression of newly found lost footage. This is a brilliant disaster movie that left an impression as a kid and still hit's hard. It just goes to prove there's no need to slam a 3D transfer on it to mark the event with dignety. And best of all there's no Celine Deion warbling over the end credits.

With James Cameron giving his Oscar grabbing 1997 blockbuster a 3D overhaul and Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes offering his version of events on ITV, you won't be short of ways to mark the Titanic centenary in April 2012. But if you need another, you could do worse than revisiting Roy Ward Baker's lucid reconstruction, which forsakes fictional embellishments in favour of documentary credibility and cold, hard facts. The coldest? That on the night the RMS Titanic foundered in the North Atlantic at the cost of more than 1500 lives, another vessel, the SS Californian, stood idly by within sight of the stricken ship ignoring its distress signals.
Using Walter Lord's impeccably researched book as his guide, scripter Eric Ambler views this criminal apathy with the same understated stoic heroism as the doughty second officer who keeps his head in a crisis. It's left to us to get angry, our mounting dismay at the escalating tragedy made all the keener by the knowledge it could have so easily been averted. The emotion generated is no less restrained, rooted as it is in British reserve and stiff upper lips. If anything, that makes it all the more potent, a father's kiss on the head of his sleeping son as he lays him gently in a lifeboat prompting a lump in the throat of iceberg proportions. "This is most unfortunate, Captain!" sighs one passenger in a clipped exchange that may prompt sniggers today.
Of course it's dated and some of the acting is stilted, but this film is almost sixty years old. The effects stand up and the black and white really gives an impression of newly found lost footage. This is a brilliant disaster movie that left an impression as a kid and still hit's hard. It just goes to prove there's no need to slam a 3D transfer on it to mark the event with dignety. And best of all there's no Celine Deion warbling over the end credits.

Far superior version of the sinking of the Titanic and more emotional than than the James Cameron movie.

Most assuredly the 'stiff upper lip' version of the story of the R.M.S Titanic and almost as equally assuredly the most satisfying from an historical perspective.

In many senses it's a mix of documentary and drama as it sets about recreating the night in question using the best knowledge of the time in which it was made (while several Titanic survivors accurately claimed the ship broke in two it was not widely believed to have done so until the discovery of the wreck in the 1980s) and led by the ever dependable Kenneth More.

Production values for the film in it's time are great and it still looks very good today even for a 54 year old film!

This is a film that I have always enjoyed whenever I watch it. But in fairness I hugely enjoy James Cameron's lavish version as well (his is definitely far from the worst version of the story that I've seen for sure) I have plenty of room for both on my shelves and I think they are both very well made films.

I would just tend to watch 'A Night To Remember' when I want to concentrate less on the spectacle of the event and more the actuality of it.