टाइटेनिक

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.

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.

While I saw and enjoyed the current "Titanic," I've always held a special place for the excellent 1953 version. Charles Brackett and Walter Reisch's Oscar-winning screenplay, deftly blending fact with fancy, tells the story compellingly in about half the time of the Cameron film. And what a cast! Barbara Stanwyck, Clifton Webb, Richard Basehart, the young Robert Wagner (looking positively "DiCaprioesque," as it were!), the (unfortunately) near-forgotten Brian Aherne, and the underrated Audrey Dalton all give sterling performances. The special effects are equal to anything in the Cameron film. And it all comes together under Jean Negulesco's sure-footed direction. As I say, you've seen the Cameron film, now see the film where they got it right!

To update these comments almost seven years after they were originally written, the DVD of this film is definitely one for any Titanic buff to have in their collection. It features TWO separate commentary tracks, one by critic Richard Schickel and stars Robert Wagner and Audrey Dalton, the other by Titanic historians. There is also the original theatrical trailer and newsreel footage of the film's premiere and Oscar wins. Most impressive of all, though, is a fascinating feature-length documentary, narrated by Victor Garber (ship-builder Thomas Andrews in the Cameron/DiCaprio film), about the sinking of the Titanic and how's it's been presented in films and on TV from the silent era to the present. All this on one DVD.

Just a precaution: If you are expecting a completely accurate historical account of the night with all the scientific details neatly in place, look elsewhere. This film instead focuses (touchingly) on the human drama involved with the ship, with many of the elements of real passengers' accounts rolled into the story of Clifton Webb and wife Barbara Stanwyck (Both excellent; when Isn't Barbara Stanwyck excellent?) and their children. A few real characters are involved, but for the most part the drama surrounding the fictional characters is in the forefront. A beautiful and striking account, the film deserved a few more Oscars than it got, primarily for Miss Stanwyck and a supporting Oscar for Robert Wagner, who does wonderfully in his role.

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.