Somente Deus por Testemunha

I am nothing short of amazed by what the filmmakers pulled off. Before I saw this movie, I tried to write a script that would encompass the whole story of the Titanic. I had stacks of Titanic books scattered around me, a huge map of the Titanic spread out in front of me, and I was overwhelmed by the sheer mountain of anecdotes and facts and technical details and contradictions in survivors' accounts. Reconstructing the event seemed impossible, and finally I abandoned the project by the time I got to about 1:30. Then I saw A Night to Remember, and wouldn't you know, it was exactly what I was trying to do! Kenneth More's portrayal of Lightoller is perfect. Laurence Naismith is heartbreaking as Captain Smith. The factual, historical, and technical detail is so thorough that this may be the most meticulous historical movie ever made -- certainly that I have ever seen. Somehow the stark black-and-white cinematrography is more realistically convincing than James Cameron's full-color treatment, in which things are inexplicably blue. The thing that disappointed me the most about Cameron's film was the lack of reverence for the historical characters. Lightoller, my personal hero, came off as an cowardly twit, Captain Smith as an incompetent fool, Ismay as the force of all evil in the universe, and Benjamin Guggenheim's change into evening ware as an excuse to get drunk! A Night to Remember had that reverence that was so sorely lacking in Cameron's film. Lightoller is portrayed as the hero that he was. Captain Smith is a fine captain who is understandably ovewhelmed by the magnitude of the tragedy facing him. Ismay is irritating, but tries to help out and be a responsible president -- and when he jumps into the lifeboat, well, would any of us do different? And Guggenheim's final stand brings tears to the eyes. The drama of the Carpathia is as exciting as any fictional Hollywood action film. This is the only Titanic movie that addresses the problem of the Californian, and though Lordites will object to the rather anti-Lord portrayal of the events, the facts speak for themselves. If you want to be picky, you can complain that the movie doesn't go into the politics behind building the Olympic and Titanic, or the near-collision with the New York, or lots of the little personal stories, but let's be fair: the movie has two hours to tell the story of, as Walter Lord put it, "the death of a small town." It's simply not possible for a movie, or even a really thick book, to cover everything. I don't think it's possible for a better movie to be made about the Titanic than A Night to Remember.

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.

Three years ago I wrote comments on the 1997 James Cameron film "Titanic" for this database. Either because of the number of Oscars collected by this film, or its fantastic production cost of some two hundred million dollars, I felt ashamed when reporting that I found it to be a most uncomfortable combination of a historical documentary and an entirely fictional romance. I found it hard to understand why such a major film should have been split between two such disparate styles of presentation. Although I had recognised that several scenes in Cameron's "Titanic" appeared to have been directly copied from the excellent 1979 TV film "S.O.S. Titanic", I did not feel this was adequate to explain the strongly documentary flavour of so many other sequences. All was explained very recently when, thanks to TCM, I had an opportunity to see "A Night to Remember" for the first time. This is an almost completely documentary 1958 film based on a very thoroughly researched and near definitive book of the same name that was prepared from the testimony given at the official enquiries in the U.K. and the U.S.A., and written by Dr. Walter Lord.. Much of Cameron's film was also documentary and appears to have been directly based on this much earlier film, the remainder was a romantic drama that was essentially incompatible. Cameron probably decided on this approach because ANTR, with no well known stars in the cast, failed to achieve the same success in the U.S.A. as in the U.K. I can now understand that featuring the romance in the way which Cameron did was probably intended to enable his film to create a greater degree of viewer involvement with the unfortunate passengers on the liner and so help to avoid this problem. Unfortunately in my view the documentary and the fictional parts of his film never melded.

These comments on the more recent film are necessary before I can meaningfully report my impressions when watching ANTR Although filmed in monochrome and created with a much more modest budget, ANTR is a film that I will find it very hard to forget. Characterisation of both the passengers and crew seemed to me to be spot on, there were none of the occasional caricatures which jarred so severely in the later film. The drama of the events was left to speak for itself and this created a much more powerful film. The three aspects of the Titanic disaster which have gripped public interest so strongly for almost a century are the sudden impact on a community of 2,000 ordinary people from all stations in life as they gradually realize that they probably only have another hour to live, the impact of the rigid class structures of the period on the way in which this situation was handled both by the passengers concerned and by those in authority, and the enormous number of "what if?" questions that the disaster raised (such as what effect pressure to win the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic crossing may have had on the seamanship shown by the officers). All three of these aspects are fully featured in the film, but often in quite subtle ways, and none is given excessive weight. The camera-work and attention to details of presentation, such as the creaking and groaning from the tortured ship, are truly outstanding. Special effects in the 1997 film are admittedly much superior (after all $200 million must buy something!), but those in ANTR are quite advanced for its time and are more than adequate to prevent any serious jarring notes from arising as the film is viewed. Ultimately a film has to be judged primarily by the credibility of the acting and direction, not from the special effects, and I certainly support the view of the majority of IMDb users that these raise ANTR to the status of an exceptionally fine, if not almost unique, movie. A documentary presentation of a major marine disaster which is realistic enough to closely involve most of its viewers will never be everybody's choice of film to watch; but for those who wish to see it, this film will provide an exceptionally rich viewing experience.

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.