Atlantique, latitude 41°

The original adaptation of the "Ship of Dreams", 'A Night to Remember' is a riveting and emotional study of the fateful maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic. A British production made on location at Pinewood Studios, Roy Baker's meticulous re-creation of the sinking of the Titanic is an utter masterpiece of cinema. The scale of the sets, the ingenuity of the visual effects and the stellar performances all make this a 1950's Brit-blockbuster at its very best. Whilst the '97 adaptation from James Cameron is a powerful piece of cinema, this stunning and melodramatic 1958 flick spends its 2-hour duration focussing on the lives of everybody aboard the ship instead of wandering off to study a love story between two characters. A film that relies on real-life survivor testimony, 'A Night to Remember' is in my opinion the best adaptation of the tale of the "unsinkable" ship and one of the best British films to have ever graced the screen.

Based on the Walter Lord novel of the same name, A Night to Remember is far and away the most definitive and honest telling of this famous and world-shaking disaster. Flaws it may have, but these largely revolve around a lack of special effects technology available at the time, and a lack of historical evidence due the fact the wreck had not yet been discovered. Despite these minor quibbles, the film is probably the only one to loyally adhere to telling the truth about what happened that night; and it does so in a most compelling way.

Unlike the smartingly awful James Cameron schlock boiler, ANTR doesn't pack a spectacular special effects punch - but nor does it pack a spectacularly corny and improbable love story concocted with teenagers in mind. The producers of ANTR understood that you didn't need a fictitious love story to heighten the tragedy of that night - the bitter irony of the real events sufficed.

And it is this irony and tragedy that the filmmakers brought out absorbingly well. The comprehensive book by Walter Lord was consulted down to the letter; so the story is told as authentically as possible. With a great script involving mainly real historical characters, perfect casting, and performances that show the actors were engrossed in their roles, the film really does shine. The snappy, economical directing is both proof of the lack of pretensiousness of the producers, as well as being extremely effective in bringing out the meaning in each scene. This makes for intelligent and gripping viewing.

Watch out for the poignant scenes in which the crew attempt to contact the nearby Californian to no avail, and Captain Smith walks to the railing and implores God to help them; the scene where the Captain calls "every man for himself", then walks into the wheelhouse just before it dips underwater; and the gripping scene in which Thomas Andrews (the Titanic's designer), a broken man, waits in the smoking room for the end, determined to go down with his creation. All these scenes are powerful, authentic and sincere; scenes in which all the various emotions aroused by such a disaster are brought out very clearly and movingly.

The special effects, although not so brilliant for today, were fantastic for the times; half the ship was actually constructed for life-size shooting, and a large model was also built, complete with miniature little row boats featuring motorised oars, for the long shots. So the maximum effort was made to make as realistic a depiction of the disaster as possible. And, in fact, the interior scenes of the ship are perfectly authentic, and the audience feels that they are actually aboard the Titanic. Only in the long shots, where a model was used, does the film look noticeably dated.

So by sticking as close as possible to the survivor's accounts featured in the Walter Lord novel, and by avoiding modern cinematic clichés, A Night to Remember remains the only Titanic film to provide a genuine account of the sinking of the great ship that is not marred by superficial Hollywood garbage. It tells the story, as it happened, of an event that changed mankind's attitudes toward his own creations; and as such, it brings to the screen the full impact of what this disaster really meant to the world in, as mentioned, a very compelling, poignant and honest way. It is a true testament to British film making.

As a footnote, many actual survivors of the Titanic were on set as the film was being made; and the musical pig in the lifeboat scenes was the actual one from the real disaster. In addition, the Titanic's fourth officer Boxhall was a technical adviser to the production. And the film's producer was there, as a small child, when the actual Titanic was launched in Belfast. This kind of authenticity makes this movie almost a living documentary.

Intelligent, honest and compelling, A Night to Remember is at least one of the best historical films ever made, and is well worth anybody's time. Everyone is bound to get something out of this movie; and indeed it is a powerhouse for anyone with an interest in the Titanic or just history in general. A totally underrated gem.

Walter Lord sadly died in May 2002 aged 85 and is justly famous for his meticulous research of the circumstances surrounding the sinking on Monday 15/4/1912 of the White Star liner,RMS Titanic and stirring the public's interest in this disaster.There are a few factual errors in this marvellous Rank Organisation 1958 film.The ship is seen to sink in one piece but this was the received wisdom in 1955 when the book was first published.The picture above the fireplace in the first class smoking room is seen to be "The Approach to the New World (by Norman Wilkinson).In fact this hung in the equivalent location on her earlier sister ship, RMS "Olympic".The correct painting should have been "Plymouth Harbour" by the same artist.Also White Star and the ship's constructors, Harland & Wolff just launched their liners at their Belfast shipyard without flowery speeches such as "....I Name this ship Titanic.May god bless her etc etc".The launching scene is actually of the "Olympic" which you can tell because of her light grey painted hull made more photogenic for the cine cameras of the day - Titanic's hull was black. with white superstructure and a gold band separating these two colours.Lord admitted these understandable errors in his sequel "The Night Lives On" (1986) after Dr Robert Ballard ( of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute ,Massachussets) at last found the final resting place of the ship, 2 1/2 miles down on the Atlantic floor in 1985.

That said, this is a riveting and unforgetable docu-drama of this historical event, arguably the most infamous maritime disaster (although loss of life has been greater in other shipwrecks).The fascination lies in the "if onlys".i.e. if only she had been going a few knots slower, if only she had had enough lifeboats for all instead of the maximum laid down by the British Board of Trade in their already out of date 1894 regulations, when the maximum tonnage was deemed to be up to 10000 tons.Titanic came in at 46000 tons.If the weather had been rougher, waves would have broken over the base of the iceberg thus making it more visible.If the crow's nest crew had been given binoculars (they were removed at Southampton).If the Titanic had not been delayed in her construction (and therefore her 31/5/11 launch) by her shipworkers being transferred to the repair in September 1911 of the RMS Olympic following a collision in the Solent with HMS Hawke.If 1st officer Murdoch had steered straight at the berg instead of trying to avoid it the ship may have stayed afloat (although deaths would have occurred by the crumpling of the bow).If the "California's" captain, Stanley Lord had raised wireless operator, Cyril Furmston Evans who had just retired for the night, instead of trying to contact the mystery ship with a Morse lamp.If Alexander Carlisle, marine architect who originally planned 32 lifeboats had not been over-ruled by White Star because it made the boat deck look "cluttered".In fact RMS Titanic ended up with 16 lifeboats, the regulation number required by law, but then White Star actually exceeded the quota by the provision of an extra two Englebert collapsible sided lifeboats with a further two lashed on top of the officers' quarters.If a vital ice message from the "Caronia" sent on behalf of Capt. Barr and received by senior Titanic Marconi operator John Phillips, had gone to the bridge in good time, warning of icebergs directly in the path of the ill fated vessel.And so the "if onlys" go on.

The fascination is of a small Anglo Saxon floating town set in 1912 with all the social classes represented from the aristocratic and rich (first) class, to the professional middle (second) class down to the emigrant and poor (third/steerage) classes - and "never the twain shall meet".The "gilded age", as termed by Mark Twain, had begun in about 1890 and society was marvelling at the wit of man and the many technological innovations and inventions.Perhaps Mankind could outdo Nature but a Greek tragedy was waiting in the wings to punish man for his rash hubris and arrogance.

There is a companion video available called "The making of A Night To Remember" which goes behind the scenes at Pinewood studios and shows the locations used.Actual Titanic survivors were invited as advisors to the Irish producer, William MacQuity, among them were Fourth Officer Joseph Boxhall, Lawrence Beesley, the science master from Dulwich College (who wrote the book "Titanic Its Story and Its Lessons, published by Houghton Mifflin 1912)- a second class passenger who escaped in boat 13.Captain Edward John Smith's daughter Helen stated that the actor Lawrence Naismith who played him, was uncannily like her father as evidenced in contemporay photographs of the two men at approx. the same age.Captain Smith died aged 62, (probably on his last voyage before retirement although this can never be proved).Actor Kenneth More is seen chatting to Sylvia Lightoller the widow of Charles Herbert Lightoller who was second officer,- read his biography "Titanic Voyager".The convincing creaking sound you hear as Andrews tries to sit down in the first class smoking room just before the end, was the actual sound of the hydraulic lifting gear in the studio as it progressively raised the floor.MacQuitty was very careful to ensure the accuracy of the film set angles (of the ever slanting deck as she sank by the bow and rose by the stern), were always matching the dramas recorded by witnesses, so there is a marvellous sense of continuity in the filmed sinking.The B&W photography merges seemlessly with the authentic period film and all the actors convincingly say their lines many based on actual speeches said by the principal characters as remembered by witnesses.This is a superb film.Watch Cameron's "Titanic" 1997 only for the special effects.

I've seen several film versions of the Titanic tragedy (I'm something of a buff--I'm distantly related to Mr. & Mrs. Edwin Kimball, who were 1st class passengers!) "A Night to Remember" is still the best, no contest. The effects are 1958 state-of-the-art, the script was meticulously researched, and the people are actually written and played as 1912 people (James Cameron's cast were a bit too much 1990's to be convincing). Even those characters who are slightly fictionalized (the "lady" who represents--without mentioning--Lady Cosmo Duff-Gordon, and "my dear son" and his family, for examples) behave as their real life counterparts would have in 1912, giving the film a documentary feel without failing to give the viewer people to identify with and care about. This is classic film-making at its finest!

The Titanic disaster has provided material for quite an assortment of films, and a number of them have at least something to offer. This is one of the more effective, with its straightforward and, based on the knowledge then available, factually accurate approach. One particularly worthwhile aspect is that it spends more time detailing the reasons for the disaster than do most movies on the subject.

Often movies that try to stay close to the facts suffer from a lack of focus, especially when there is/are no central character(s) to hold things together. In this adaptation of "A Night to Remember", they solved the problem by focusing much of the action around Second Officer Lightoller, who was involved in some way in so many different aspects of what happened. As a device it works well, and there is enough action involving the other characters to keep it balanced.

Another inherent challenge in the story is that there are so many characters, and most of them hold some interest. In this adaptation, they chose simply to depict as many brief situations as possible, often without giving much with which to identify the characters. If you are familiar with Walter Lord's book, it is often possible to identify many of them, but otherwise, it might be a little confusing to sort through so many characters.

For such a detail-heavy story, this is an effective and commendable movie. With very few frills, it tells the story believably and sometimes memorably.

It does a pretty good job of meeting the main challenges, not telling the complete story, of course, but providing a worthwhile overview of events.