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Although not as honored as the 1997 Leonardo DiCaprio-Kate Winslet story about the Titanic disaster, this version of Titanic starring Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck can definitely hold its own. In fact it got an Oscar itself in 1953 for Best Story and Screenplay.

Although there was a lot more sociology in the 1997 blockbuster, people do remember most from it the story of ill fated young love between DiCaprio and Winslet. In this version we're dealing with an older married couple whose marriage is on the rocks. The old story of staying together for their children's sake is what's holding them together. But Stanwyck isn't having any more.

It's her children, Harper Carter and Audrey Dalton, that she's most concerned about. Though American from the Middle West, due to their father's influence they're taking on old world and very haughty airs. And you can't get more haughty than Clifton Webb on screen.

Brian Aherne is the foolish, but brave Captain Smith whose eagerness to do the bidding of his employers and set a record crossing led to the disaster. Robert Wagner has a nice role as the young college kid who Stanwyck tries to match up with Dalton to wean her away from her father's fascination with titled nobility.

Also look for good performances by Thelma Ritter as the Molly Brown in all but name role, Richard Basehart as the defrocked priest and Allyn Joslyn as the eager social climber.

It's Webb and Stanwyck who carry the story. Webb who originally is an snob, shows in fact some real character during the disaster. And Barbara Stanwyck's last moments as the film ends are some of then best in her long distinguished career.

It's your father's Titanic and a good one too.

The story follows a handful of characters, most fictional but a few real ones, on the ill-fated transatlantic sea voyage in 1912 that ended in tragedy. Wife Julia (Barbara Stanwyck) and husband Richard Ward Sturges (Clifton Webb) are squabbling over the upbringing of their two children, daughter Annette (Audrey Dalton) and son Norman (Harper Carter). Julia admits that Annette is a hopeless snob, but she plans to bring young Norman up in America where she hopes to make a normal person of him. When hubby balks at giving up his son as expected, Julia has one ace up her sleeve. Complications ensue, some of them quite touching even considering the overall situation.

Meanwhile drunkard George Healey (Richard Basehart) staggers around on deck, nouveau riche Maude Young (Thelma Ritter) tries to relax, and ship's captain Smith (Brian Aherne) is oblivious to the impending danger. Robert Wagner stars as the wholesome college boy whose teeth practically sparkle who might be able to bring Annette down to earth.

The setting and situation are familiar to most by now, but I still enjoyed this disaster effort that resembles the future disaster "epics" of the 1970's. It follows the usual formula of establishing the characters and their petty troubles before casting them into harm's way, many of them to their doom. I thought Stanwyck and Webb were an odd couple on paper, but it works out fine in the movie, and Webb is very good, especially during the last 20 minutes or so. I was also impressed with Edmund Purdom as a ship's officer with a suspicion of the dangers ahead. The movie won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay (Charles Brackett, Walter Reisch & Richard L. Breen), and was also nominated for Best B&W Art Direction.

When I was young I was probably the only kid in years who had checked out our library's copy of Walter Lord's "A Night to Remember." It began a lifelong fascination with the ill-fated liner. I was home sick on the couch a short time later when I saw this film for the first time on TV. Forty years later, I still remember how this movie touched me then. Even then I was hooked -- not just because the film dealt with the Titanic, but for some visceral reason I couldn't put my finger on. Still can't -- decades later. I'm not ashamed to say I continue to get choked up by the scene where Webb is on the slanting deck with his "son", telling the boy he's never been prouder of him. Fast forward several years and I'm sitting on the couch watching this film with my own son for the first time. Sure enough, I'm having a tough time not losing it all during the Webb and son scene (especially poignant now) when I sneak a peek over at my boy. I've seen him cry maybe two or three times in his whole life yet there he sat with unmistakably moist eyes. What a moment to share. I'm very happy to see so many other people here feel positively toward this movie. One of the defining movie experiences of my life.

Titanic (1953)

Visually stunning and with very few special effects

It's hard to be any other Titanic movie than the whopping colossus of 1990s, but once upon a time the best movie about the event was A Night to Remember (and still is in many of our eyes). This is the first of three well-known American versions (there are a number of others, including a slew after Cameron's 1997 Titanic). The 1953 movie not a classic, but it's interesting, with enough subtlety, drama, and really fine beauty to hold it up. For one thing, the photography by Joe MacDonald is stunning, rich and filled with light and shadow without being distracting. Director Jean Negulesco draws out the beauty of the ship less with details than with ambiance. A whole slew of great actors are included, namely Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb. And it clips along in well under two hours, so never flags.

While the story details are largely fiction, the basic framework is of course not. And this bears on how you watch. At the start, for example, when the snotty Webb character Sturges convinces (for selfish reasons, of course) an idealistic young immigrant couple to separate, leaving one of them ashore, we know they might never see each other again. The impending doom of the ship appears again and again in little ways, and it's a fabulous backdrop for drama, if a tragic one.

For awhile, the plot seems almost inconsequential, with the usual upper crust intrigues, sophistication going awry, glimpses of human feelings here and there (the defrocked priest is an untapped resource). If Webb is his usual brilliantly annoying (and amusing) stuffiness, Stanwyck is stately to the point of iciness, no pun there. If her upper crust poise is real, it's also not so interesting, though she does melt a bit by the end. Thelma Ritter is Thelma Ritter, wonderful and purposeful (a counterpoint to the others). There is partying and cardplaying and bickering, the usual cruise ship socializing. There is some singing by a collegiate male choir that is hard to stomach, but it might have been reasonable for the time. And there are iceberg reports, inobvious warnings of trouble. We wait for the event, and then everything tips toward survival, toward reevaluation. The first hour before the iceberg justifies itself in the thirty minutes when all hell breaks loose.

There is little romance, cloying or otherwise, and almost no laboring over the unfair deaths of those in steerage. In fact, if there's a retrospective flaw to the film, it's that it had no qualms telling the story only about the rich, and of their oblivious separateness, and of the false security implied by ponderous wealth.

If you are a true fan of Cameron's Titanic and you really enjoyed the astonishing special effects in it, you might find this tame and stiff and unbearable. If you loved A Night to Remember this one is a good comparison, and if obviously weaker, still an interesting film and visually powerful.

Rather average Hollywood attempt to tell the story of the 1912 marine disaster, the sinking of the Titanic, this one focuses on Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck as an unhappily married couple reevaluating their union and their children surrounded by the splendour of the most wonderful (and unsinkable) tub ever launched.

However, when compared to 'A Night to Remember' and to the occasionally-shown documentary which speaks to the survivors of the disaster who were children at the time, it pales into insignificance. It is well-done, reasonably written, believably cast - but just doesn't touch the viewer in the way the real stories can.

Compared to the Di Caprio version in the 90s ... it is a classic. That just misfired on every level and put spectacle and special effects before the telling of a real and true story. 'Titanic' with Webb and Stanwyck doesn't hit the spot either, but at least it packs a punch without resorting to Celine Dion on the soundtrack.

Oddly enough it is only now in 2019 that I got a chance to sit down and watch the 1953 story of the Titanic tragedy, and that is even more so with my interest and fascination with the history and tragedy that appeared that fateful night on its maiden voyage.

Director Jean Negulesco actually managed to tackle the tragedy in a rather respectful manner and told the story that we all are familiar with from a neutral point of view where we got to follow crewmen, the captain and passengers alike. And I liked the fact that there wasn't so much focus on the destruction of the ship during its sinking moments, much unlike the Cameron version - while that still is amazing to watch. But skipping on that made the movie all about the lives and souls aboard the ship, all those that lost their lives, those that valiantly and nobly helped others, and not just making it about pleasing the audience with an abundance of special effects and spectacular means of showing it off. Granted, that would be rather limited back in 1953, but still...

The story is nicely paced, although we all know the outcome of the story, and that leaves very little room for improvisation and adding things to bedazzle the audience. But director Jean Negulesco managed to keep it to the core of things and keep it riveting for the audience.

The fact that the movie is in black and white is not an issue, if anything then it sort of sets an atmosphere and helps transport the audience back to the fateful days of the maiden voyage back in 1912.

The 1953 version of "Titanic" is definitely well worth a watch, and it is a worthy addition in the movie collection of anyone interested in the fate of the majestic White Star Line ship that sank on its maiden voyage. I was genuinely entertained by the movie, despite it being 66 years old now already.

There have been several stories about the sinking of the Titanic. However, "Titanic" (1953) is a bit different because it really doesn't focus on WHY the disaster occurred but instead focused on one particular fictional family and how this horrible tragedy impacted on them. This is NOT at all a complaint--just an observation on the style of film this is.

The Sturges family is very wealthy--but they also are a mess. The mother (Barbara Stanwyck) is unhappy about her sterile rich life and its impact on her children. Her marriage is loveless and her daughter, in particular, has become spoiled and somewhat soul-less. So, without telling her two children, she is embarking with to a new life in America--back where she grew up with simpler values. The husband (Clifton Webb) apparently has just learned of her plan to leave him and he desperately works to get aboard the sold out ship. He is determined to bring his kids back to Europe and make them American royalty.

When Webb and Stanwyck eventually meet up on the ship, she announces that she is leaving him. She doesn't love him and, in a final slap in his face, tells Webb that his son is NOT his biological son but another man's! At this point, Webb becomes VERY cold towards his wife--which is understandable. But, seeing him turn his back on the young boy is painful--and something the kid doesn't deserve--especially since he practically worships his father.

As far as the daughter is concerned, despite her haughty and socially conscious manner, she meets a nice young man (Robert Wagner) and they slowly start to fall for each other. It NEVER goes as far as the romance in "Titanic" (1997) but is much more innocent and sweet. Yet, you know that their relationship is most likely doomed.

So far, this is quite interesting and well acted. However, when the film ends, all these things come together so perfectly. It culminates with a marvelously tragic ending--one that really pulls at your heart. I thought the writing really took me by surprise--and when the boy and his father's stories cross, I felt myself trying to hold back the tears. It really packed a nice punch.

Now as far as the special effects go, this film, because it's more about a family, aren't as important. Now I am not saying they are bad--by 1953 standards they're very nice. It just isn't the amazing spectacle that the 1997 film is--and could be because of improved movie making technology.

Exceptional and so good that I want to see the British version, "A Night to Remember". I have already seen the newest version and the 1943 German version (which is amazing in MANY ways--especially in its anti-capitalism bent) and want to be able to see the full spectrum of films about this disaster.

The first I ever saw or heard of the sinking of the Titanic, was one Saturday evening, when my family sat to watch this film on the old Saturday Night at the Movies. I have been captivated by the subject ever since. Of course, since seeing this version,back in the early sixties, I have read Walter Lord's book A Night To Remember, saw the movie A Night To Remember based on that book, painfully sat through two terrible TV movies on the subject, was incredibly bored by the fictional, Raise The Titanic, and totally enthralled by James Cameron's definitive (for me) version. This movie remains, on it's own terms, solid big studio Hollywood entertainment.

Right at the start we're given a good fictional story, with Barbara Stanwyck taking her two kids on The Titanic, to get them away from her snooty husband, wonderfully played by Clifton Webb in one of his best roles. In order to get on the ship, Webb must pay a steerage passenger a great deal of money for a ticket, and agreeing to make sure that the steerage passenger's wife and kids make the voyage okay. This set's up a great scene later on, as the ship is sinking, but it is also about as much of the people on the lower decks that you'll see in this version.

The scenes between Clifton Webb and Barbra Stanwyck are outstanding, There is one scene in particular, when they are arguing about the fate of they're children, that she tells him a long kept secret, that though brief in nature, is played to perfection.

As for the supporting cast, they are not wasted either. Thelma Ritter, one of the truly great character actors, is excellent as usual. A young Richard Basehart, as a priest questioning his faith, is not on the screen a lot, yet is quite convincing. A young Robert Wagner does just fine trying to win the hand of Audrey Dalton who is equally as good as Clifton Webb's snooty daughter. There are several real life passengers portrayed, such as Isador and Ida Strauss, and their big scene where she refuses to leave her husband behind, is touching and heartbreaking.

If you are looking for a realistic account of the sinking of the Titanic, you won't get it here. What you do get, is excellent acting, tight drama, and some heart wrenching moments that you won't ever forget. Spectacular it isn't, good film making it is.

This is a drama set aboard the titanic before it sank and it focuses mostly on one family. This was directed by Jean Negulesco and stars Clifton Webb, Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Wagner. Webb and Stanwyck play a married couple who's marriage hasn't worked out that well and Stanwyck is leaving Webb and taking the two kids. Wagner is a young college student who falls for their daughter, played by Audrey Dalton, but she doesn't care for him but changes her mind. The first hour of the movie is focused on these characters and they don't hit the Iceburg until the final thirty minutes. This is much better than the vastly overrated movie in 1997 and i would watch this version any day then the other one.

The Titanic story obscured by !stars!. The film is not bad per se, but amazingly, it provides little tension for its characters or suspense for the viewer. It is pale on its own and certainly so in comparison to "A Night to Remember" (1958).

As the voyage begins, Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck are in a shattering marriage, held together only by their son(*) of about 12 years; this is the central theme.

Oh, by the way, the Titanic strikes an iceberg, is sinking, and there aren't enough lifeboats for all. This motivates Webb and Stanwyck to rethink their lives and to reunite just in time to be permanently parted by the sinking.

Other stars appear as real or composite characters whose various life situations are revealed as the disaster unfolds. (Included is Thelma Ritter of oh-so-many movies, with her same old penetratingly-voiced, wisecracking character.)

This story formula---a disaster envelops fictional characters whose life stories unfold and resolve as the crisis plays out---is a standard, e.g., "The High and The Mighty" (1954), the later "Airport" movies, et al.

(*)apparently omitted from the foregoing credits.

The media is full of reports of the maiden voyage of the unsinkable Titanic and all are excited about the prospect, whether it be the third class passengers travelling to a new life or the first class passengers travelling to continue the good life they have. Richard Ward Sturges is not a passenger but he buys a third class ticket off someone else then makes his way up to first class. He has done this because his wife has taken his son and daughter on board the Titanic. Tired of an uncomfortable life among the British upperclasses, Julia Sturges is seeking a "normal" life for her family back in her native America, and if that means being away from the stiff and very English Richard then so be it. As their marital drama is played out, the Titanic sails on ever faster, with bigger problems just over the horizon for all of the passengers.

Many decades before James Cameron delivered Titanic as a disaster movie with a dramatic relationship at its core, someone else had already done it with this 1953 disaster melodrama. The main difference in the narrative is perhaps a note on the difference with our time because the story is not about romantically intertwined young people but rather an older married couple and their romance. Aside from this difference the approach is similar because the majority of the film is a melodrama driven by the characters, which then is fitted into the bigger drama of the ship sinking, taking many with it. Unlike the effects-heavy modern version, this film puts the focus on the family drama happening.

This works well in making for an engaging film as we see the very English Richard clashing (in an English way) with the more modern Julia in their relationship. Of course it all comes good in the end (well, in a way) but up till then this centre-piece held my attention well. The emotion during the actual sinking of the ship is well received as well, it is restrained and very much the stiff-upper-lip type of thing of the period. Compared to the manipulative use of music and sweeping expressions of emotions in the remake, I must admit I found the changes in the characters played out with restrained emotions of the disaster. The cast work well with this. Webb is strong in his character, retaining what makes the man while also softening towards the end. Stanwyck does likewise, convincing in her early character but yet able to find the love inside her character from the past. The rest of the cast are solid enough but do not really have the same material as the two leads; Dalton, Aherne, Wagner, Basehart and others are all good enough for what is asked of them and, as normal, Ritter is entertaining in her usual character.

Overall then, an engaging melodrama that maintains a very British sense of emotion but yet is still quite moving. Those who have not yet seen the remake for what it is should perhaps take a pass at this and see if they prefer this version for being shorter and more restrained.

Since James Cameron made his epic, nobody has remembered the three or four other Titanic movies of the 20th century. They have have almost 'sank' into oblivion. I thought it would be interesting to see another version of how the unsinkable sank Some may find this film hard to approach having seen Cameron's. In order to judge it effectively, you will have to (As the Chinese say) empty your cup of standards which you may have judged Cameron's film with. While this movie is still no match for his, it is nonetheless pretty interesting, and not bad at all.

Although there are plenty of historical inaccuracies, There is a better sense of history to this version of Titanic. The story is presented much more objectively. If Cameron's film could be called a roller coaster of an epic, this one is more of a merry-go-round. It is much stiffer/slower but it feels more mundane and less extraordinary. The things people say here, are probably indistinguishable from Edwardian era talk.

There are two reasons why this Titanic is inferior to Cameron's. First of all, it's not very involving. Like I said, it is stiff, humorless, occasionally charming, but there is a feeling of distance between us and the characters. Secondly, there is no sense of peril. The way the second half plays out is far too torpid, to generate suspense. Cameron was able to show the array of suffering (both physical and emotion) which grew stronger as the water level rose higher and higher, and the boats became fewer by the minute.

One thing that this Titanic addresses (something that Cameron barely touched on) is the nature of Captain Smith. He has a bigger role here. Cameron presented him as a kind of weakling, too scared to do anything once tragedy struck. This Captain Smith is a bit more heroic, fighting to save as many lives as he can. Knowing that he is one of the reasons why the ship sank, it's hard to know whether to be symathetic to him here or not.

It would be foolhardy to even think of downgrading this movie on account of special effects. Only an idiot would do that. Unfortunately, every movie that Cameron does seem to break special effects barriers making peoples expectations higher with each passing year. As a result of Avatar, the ratio of 2D screenings to 3D screenings of other movies, is getting more one sided.

Anyone who loved Titanic (or even just liked it) should try this film if you can find it. It is a long way from greatness, but it truly does make you think not just about the disaster but about cinema, and how far it has progressed in the years leading up to 1997.

I just saw this film again. The only other time I saw it was probably 40 years ago on "Saturday Night at the Movies," when it made a powerful impression. It still does, in part thanks to the marvelous acting of Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck, who looks particularly lovely in this movie. They and their young son and daughter are the focus of the story. Both wonderful actors, if they seem an unlikely couple at first, you probably won't think so by the end of the movie, they are so superb.

In this version, Stanwyck is actually leaving her husband (Webb), unbeknownst to him, but when he realizes what's happening, he bribes the father in a lower class for his ticket. Webb is a social climbing, superficial man, and his American wife wants more for her kids than snobbery, arranged marriages, and a series of hotels instead of a home, so she is going back to her family with the children. What happens to Webb and Stanwyck's relationship during the voyage is powerful, touching - and, alas, too late.

While on board, a young, gorgeous Robert Wagner plays a college student suitor to the daughter, played by Audrey Dalton. Webb's last scene with Stanwyck will leave you in tears, and if it doesn't, there's also the poignant scene on deck with his son, Norman, which is beautiful.

I don't pretend to be an expert on the Titanic - however, I know a little more than a friend at work who, announcing she was seeing the Cameron version when it first came out, said, "Don't tell me how it ends." I realize that the Fox script drew a good deal of information from the navigation reports of the ship; however, I saw a documentary which showed footage of this film while it demonstrated that in this telling, the underwater scene shows the iceberg hitting on the wrong side.

I have also seen "A Night to Remember," which I also remember as being a very emotional experience. Perhaps it's the story that tugs at our hearts, or the site of that huge vessel sliding beneath the surface. Whatever it is, this is a truly engrossing and heartwrenching film.

One of the most fateful and foreboding stories ever committed to film, this version is by far the best cinematic treatment of the epic ocean disaster of 1912. A fictional but plausible story of the breakup of a marriage and the effects on a wealthy family overlay the real-life cataclysmic end to the unsinkable boat, the largest moving object ever built at the time. This blatant irony is unnerving.

The fictional story is well written with good plot flow and transitions. Characters are well defined and interesting. What I like here is the contrast between the personal pettiness of Julia (Barbara Stanwyck) and Richard (Clifton Webb), against the ominous and overarching doom toward which they are unknowingly moving.

Similarly, Captain Smith (Brian Aherne) goes about his ship duties in a most nonchalant manner, just one more voyage among countless others. Arguably, the ship itself is the main character, majestic, stately, grand, and luxurious, matching its first-class passengers, the focus of this story.

The script is terrific but the production may be even better. Production design and costumes are detailed and seem authentic for that era. Photographic effects of the ship sinking, combined with that mournful wailing sound, magnify the drama. Absence of score enhances realism, and songs are appropriately melancholy. Casting and acting range from acceptable to great; Thelma Ritter gives an unusually good performance.

Some Titanic films convey a semi-documentary look and feel; characters in these films are mere props, lacking humanity. By contrast, "Titanic" (1953) has heart and soul. After all, the epic event was first and foremost a story about people, individuals with personal problems and dreams for the future. That's what makes this film so emotionally rich.

With its poetic script and terrific execution, "Titanic" (1953) gives us a timeless story of ominous fate, a poignant humanistic story of misplaced trust in technology, and the dramatic contrast between short-term pettiness and misfortune so dire as to overwhelm those affected for the rest of their lives.

In director Jean Negulesco's 1953 version of Titanic, Clifton Webb plays an affluent man brimming with confidence and as we soon see, a touch of arrogance. He believes their children should continue to be raised in Europe, and his wife (Barbara Stanwyck) believes they should return to America to get a taste of more humble surroundings. The two are at odds with another, and it culminates in the film's best scene, her informing him that their boy is not his son, and then walking off with the door slowly closing. The scene later where she describes how it happened, and the frostiness of his reaction, is sad and chilling. We admire Webb's certainty and his understanding of just what to do in social situations, and we recoil in horror at the coldness of his feelings, and his disdain for the common man. He's an iceberg, on a ship destined to hit an iceberg.

Another nice moment is when Barbara Stanwyck reads the poem 'When I Was One-and-Twenty" by A.E. Housman to a young man played by Robert Wagner. Unfortunately, Wagner's character isn't all that likeable. He has a few comments to Stanwyck's daughter (Audrey Dalton) that may make you smile, such as "Never heard it before? Where have you been, locked up in some art gallery? Why, that's the hottest jig the kids do." However, he also has some musical performances between the 60 and 70 minute points of the film (pre-iceberg) that don't have the intended endearing effect, including a cringe-inducing performance of the "Navajo Rag", about how they dance down on the ol' reservation.

Richard Basehart is strong in his supporting role of priest who we find out has been defrocked because of his drinking, and his scene with Stanwyck on the deck at night, each lost in their own troubles, is a good one. However, the performance seems a bit wasted, as there's nowhere for the character to go, and the film ends up choosing a path high in schmaltz.

Unenviable comparisons to other Titanic movies aside (in particular Cameron's), the film fails most post-iceberg. Some of the right elements are there, including the hubris of a foolhardy increase in speed in order to impress the world in the first place, and the lack of enough lifeboats. The special effects are relatively brief but reasonably good for the time period. And of course, the moment is poignant, being a true story, and fate being so arbitrary. Stanwyck is said to have cried on set imagining the horror.

Perhaps one of the ways people have of coping with this is to create heroic characters. In this version, it just gets to be a little much, and the stories between Webb and Stanwyck, their little boy, Basehart, and Wagner all seem false. Similar accusations are leveled at other movies that I sometimes find myself defending, but I can't in this case, or at least, as much. It's an average movie, certainly watchable, but dated and without balance in the fictional part of its story.

What a surprise to see this 1953 sinking of the Titanic after the long and expensive James Cameron version. To say that Jean Negulesco's version is better is saying only half of it. In fact it is much, much better. The whole story told in half the time with a scrumptious script by Charles Brackett and Walter Reisch and superb performances by Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb. The 1953 special effects are as effective as anything in Cameron's film but, I believe, that the secret of the older version is that the heart and mind of the filmmakers were on the human drama and the effects came to be part of it and not its center. It was also a time when stories were told thinking of an adult audience. The poignancy of of the tale is thought out by thinking people for thinking people. In the modern version, Leo teaches Kate how to spit, remember? Just look in Negulesco's version the power of the unfolding. Two disasters, one natural, irreversible, the other, human with unexpected twists and turns. Thelma Ritter plays Molly Brown with extraordinary little touches. Look at her eyes when she witnesses Webb shabby treatment of his son. Young and gorgeous Robert Wagner is a delightful plus. I advise you to rent it, you'll be amazed.

There have been many films and TV dramas about the sinking of the RMS Titanic, a story which ever since 1912 has gripped the human imagination, far more than other, similar, maritime disasters. (I cannot, for example, think of a single film about the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915, even though it caused nearly as many deaths). There are several reasons for this, primarily that the Titanic can be seen to symbolise the vanity of human wishes, the inadequacy of human technology and human powerlessness against a hostile Nature. (The Lusitania was sunk as a deliberate act of war, so its loss carries no such symbolic meaning). As Thomas Hardy wrote in "Convergence of the Twain", his poem on the disaster:-

"In a solitude of the sea

Deep from human vanity, And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she".

This American film was one of two versions from the 1950s, the other being the British-made "A Night to Remember". There was also a notorious Nazi propaganda version (which I have never seen) but the one everyone knows today is James Cameron's from 1997. Jean Negulesco's "Titanic" from 1953, however, has one advantage over Cameron's grand epic- a better human interest story. Whereas Cameron just had that clichéd love-story of Kate and Leo, Negulesco's film has a plot which could almost be something out of Henry James. (It won the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay, although it was fortunate in that many of the "big films" of 1953, such as "From Here to Eternity", "Julius Caesar" and "Shane", were adaptations from other media and hence not eligible for that award).

The film centres upon a wealthy estranged couple, Richard and Julia Sturges. Julia is from Mackinac, Michigan. (I understand that the name of the town is correctly pronounced "Mackinaw", but in the film it is always pronounced as it is spelled). Richard's nationality is something of an enigma. He is played by an American actor, Clifton Webb, but speaks with a British accent. There are, however, hints that he is not an Englishman but a Europeanised American, possibly an East Coast blue blood, who has fallen in love with European "high society". This has caused his estrangement from his wife, who regards this world as snobbish and artificial, and has booked a passage to America on the Titanic with her children Annette and Norman. Julia has kept her plans a secret from Richard, but he has somehow found out about them and, determined to persuade the children to return to Europe with him, buys a ticket from a Basque immigrant. (Despite his only holding a steerage ticket, nobody attempts to prevent Richard from using the first-class facilities).

Julia privately despairs of being able to influence the seventeen-year-old Annette, whom she regards as being as great a snob as her father, but hopes to rescue young Norman from European decadence. On the voyage, however, Annette falls in love with Gifford Rogers, a young college student who, although wealthy, is exactly the sort of non-decadent sun-tanned, crew-cut, All-American male whom Julia would want as a son-in-law. There is also a sub-plot about George Healey, a Catholic priest defrocked for alcoholism.

I found the story of the Sturges family so entertaining that I wished that these characters had been created in the context of some other film where they could have worked out their own solution to their problems rather than having a solution forced upon them by the iceberg. I never felt like that about Jack and Rose. In other respects, however, Cameron's film is superior. It is obviously superior in terms of its visual effects, but it might be unfair to make comparisons in this respect; the makers of the earlier film did not have either the modern special effects technology or the budget (even allowing for inflation) that were available to Cameron.

The other respect in which I feel the newer film is better is in the way in which it portrays human reactions to the disaster. Although the older film was made four decades after the loss of the Titanic, it suggests that in some respects social attitudes had not changed very much between 1912 and 1953, certainly much less than they were to change in the next four decades between the 1950s and the 1990s. If the film-makers of the 1910s had had the benefits of more modern technology, including talking pictures, and if they had decided to make a movie about the sinking shortly after it took place, I doubt if the resulting film would have been very different to Negulesco's.

The prevailing atmosphere after the iceberg strikes is one of Edwardian stiff-upper-lip heroism, with all the adult males (bar a single coward who disguises himself as a woman) unquestioningly following the "women and children first" policy, helping their wives, sweethearts and children into the few lifeboats then stoically standing on the decks to await their inevitable deaths while singing hymns. The ship's captain, Edward Smith, portrayed in the 1997 film as a weak character unable to stand up to the bullying ship-owner J. Bruce Ismay, here becomes a gallant hero whose decisive leadership and self-sacrifice saves the lives of many others.

Cameron's film, by contrast, does show some acts of heroism, but also shows that not everyone was a hero and that chaos and panic were more common reactions. That film may have been unfair to certain individuals, particularly in its calumny of the ship's First Officer William Murdoch, but overall I felt that its picture of the disaster was not only more accurate but also more moving, presenting it is the tragic waste of life it really was rather than sentimentalising it as some sort of noble and heroic martyrdom. Not every remake is inferior to its original. 6/10