Many thanks to Ron
Tierney for letting me play with a variation of his film pairings, which
usually look at crime films. My film pairing coincides with the 100th
anniversary of the sinking of the supposedly unsinkable White Star liner, Titanic. — Janet Dawson
No, I’m not going to discuss that movie from the late 1990s.
Instead, I’ll look at two earlier versions of the disaster, both from the
1950s.
The first is Titanic (1953), which stars two
Hollywood stalwarts, Barbara Stanwyck
and Clifton Webb, giving superb
performances as an estranged married couple who’ve been living a life of ease
and superficiality in high society Paris. The cast also includes a very young Robert Wagner as a suitor for Stanwyck’s
somewhat snooty daughter, played by Audrey
Dalton. Brian Aherne plays the
ship’s captain, E.J. Smith, and the redoubtable Thelma Ritter puts in an appearance as Mrs. Maud Young. Never mind
that character’s name – Ritter is meant to be Mrs. Margaret Tobin Brown of
Denver and Leadville, aka the “Unsinkable” Molly.
The film starts with an unsettling image of an iceberg
calving, a hint of what’s to come. Then the action switches to Cherbourg,
France, where Stanwyck and her son and daughter board the ship. She’s leaving
her socialite husband, Webb, and returning to the United States so that her
children will have a normal life.
But Webb has discovered this and he’s in pursuit. He manages
to buy a ticket from a steerage passenger and boards the ship. He makes his way
to first class and assumes his paterfamilias role without missing a beat,
convincing his daughter to return to France with him as soon as the ship docks
in New York City. The son, who is younger, is another matter. The verbal
clashes between Stanwyck and Webb, sparring over the fate of their marriage and
their children, provide much of the drama.
Until the ship hits that iceberg. Then it’s women and
children to the lifeboats. Faced with the prospect of never seeing one another
again, Stanwyck and Webb discover they still care for one another – and things
they never knew about each other.
Titanic was directed by Jean Negulesco. Writer Charles
Brackett won an Oscar for Best Screenplay. The film, available on DVD, is
well worth seeing.
For my money, the best version of the Titanic disaster is A
Night To Remember (1958), directed by Roy
Ward Baker. This British film is based on Walter Lord’s book of the same name, and the screenplay was written
by thriller writer Eric Ambler.
The only actor in the film with what could be considered a
starring role is Kenneth More, as
the ship’s Second Officer, Charles Herbert Lightoller, who survived and was
instrumental in organizing the loading of the lifeboats. David McCallum, who appeared in The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and
is currently “Ducky” in the popular NCIS
television series, plays radio operator Harold Bride. Laurence Naismith plays Captain Smith, while Michael Goodliffe plays the ship’s builder, Thomas Andrews. Tucker McGuire does a notable turn as
Molly Brown, as does George Rose as
a tipsy baker.
The real star of A Night To Remember is the ship
itself, its life and death. This is how it differs from the other version,
needing no other drama except that which occurred that night.
The film has a documentary feel to it, full of vignettes of
people traveling about Titanic – a pair of aristocrats, some honeymooners, a
group of Irish steerage passengers, a professional gambler. The film is full of
wonderful bits, showing ordinary people, like the stokers feeding the fire in
the bowels of the ship, and the stewards setting tables in the dining room.
Many of these bits are based on Walter Lord’s interviews with survivors, which
adds to the verisimilitude.
The movie touches on the ice warnings that were ignored, as
well as the class distinctions that kept the steerage passengers below while
first and second class passengers filled the lifeboats. It also gives glimpses
of the ship Carpathia, steaming at full speed to for a too-late rescue,
while the Californian, which was closer, doesn’t respond to distress
signals and rockets, its crew seemingly unable to grasp the urgency.
A Night To Remember
has just been released on DVD in a great new digital restoration. I highly
recommend it.
What to drink while watching these films? After several
hours in a lifeboat on the freezing North Atlantic, I’d opt for a bracing hot
pot of Earl Grey tea, accompanied by scones with clotted cream and a tart lemon
curd.
Janet Dawson has written ten novels featuring Oakland
private investigator Jeri Howard. Her first, Kindred Crimes, won the St. Martin's Press/Private Eye
Writers of America contest for best first private eye novel and nominated for
three other prestigious mystery awards, the Shamus, the Macavity and the
Anthony.
