Lusitania: Murder on the Atlantic

The movie was okay and the cast did a wonderful job delivering the emotional impact the movie should have. What also worked was the actual footage at the end. What was horrible was depicting Winston Churchill and the British hierarchy as actually evil. That was unnecessary and pure nonsense.

Movies about the Titanic have come and gone and many such movies, from blockbuster epics to cheap low budget movies (some were so low budgeted that the camera crews tilted their cameras instead of tilting the set!) have made their way from the movie theater and the TV, to video and later to DVD.

Yet little has been said about the Lusitania, whose sinking opened a lot of potential.

The story behind the Titanic can be summed up as follows:

Ship sets sail on its maiden voyage.

Ship hits an iceberg.

Ship sinks in the mid Atlantic.

Casualties mount.

A few survive.

End of the story.

But the Lusitania had a story far more complex. Were they bringing arms to England? Were passengers warned? Were dispatches sent to the Captain? Was the Captain innocent? Or was he guilty? These are complex questions with no real simple answers.

The movie was very well done and sure, some facts were distorted. It was war. And every historian knows that the first casualty in a war is the Truth.

Unlike TITANIC (1998), the central characters in this feature were not fictitious. They really did exist. Prof. Ian Holbourn (born November 5, 1872 and died September 15, 1935) was a passenger on the Lusitania. And he really befriended a young girl named Avis Dolphin (born 1903? and died February 5,1996).

And that "good German" on the U-boat that sank the Lusitania was not a fictitious character added to keep things politically correct, either. He also existed. Quartermaster Charles Vogele allegedly refused to relay the order to fire the torpedo and he was tried and courts-marshaled, and spend 3 years in prison for his crime. (Some accounts claimed that Voegele was an electrician, not a Quartermaster.)

It was no secret that Captain Turner later admitted that had the roles been reversed, he wouldn't had behaved any differently than Lt. Capt. Schwieger, who gave the order to fire that torpedo.

I rate this movie an 9 out of 10.

Superb adaptation of the acclaimed book by Diane Preston. This film keeps close to the facts as it dramatizes the horrific sinking of the passenger liner Lusitana by a German submarine in the Great War. The tragedy of the sinking is all too realistically recreated and one can not be chilled to the bone how senseless this act truly was. John Hannah is superb as one of the passengers who befriends a young victim to be. This should be seen by all people everywhere so the Lusitania is never forgotten, so such an act is never repeated, and so those who died did not do so in vain. This will stand as an important document regarding the crimes of piracy committed by the German Empire 1914-1918.

People always talk about Titanic this Titanic that, it was an accident waiting to happen. People died yes on that ship where it could have been averted. The Lusitania however, was the beginning and the end for the Germans and eventually lose World War One. The sinking of the ship was a barbaric act and no doubt a sad ending for those who died. Unlike the Titanic where there wasn't enough lifeboats, Lusitania had all the safety feature that was built into after Titanic like double hull and more then enough lifeboat for the passenger, but wasn't build to stop a torpedo.

The movie itself was really good. I'm surprise that guy from Mummy was in the movie and instead of being a comic relief, gave a very serious acting in the movie where he was a victim on the ship. The other people in the movie also showed the same and for a quality we expected in a docu-drama movie, the movie more the met my expectation. The sinking was very well done and was more sad then Titanic. Thank goodness there is none of this Jack and Rose crap in it.

Otherwise, a very well made movie and one that should be a reminder about how Lusitania became a pawn in the World War.

If you want the best info on it read the book Dead Wake. excellent in the details. makes you think you where on it with the detail info on passengers. used the war diary from the german sub commander and he reviewed the books and pics from the sinking. he obtained some very recent info from the British secret service who knew where the sub was but didint tell the ship. a sad bunch of unfortunate circumstances.