Titanic

Titanic must have been the great cause for discussion at the Propaganda Ministry in 1943. Ostensibly put out to show the kind of materialistic greedy people the Germans were fighting back then, it seems as though Joseph Goebbels felt the wrong message might still go out. The original director, Herbert Spelvin, was arrested mid production by the Gestapo and found hanging in his cell the next day. Of course suicide was the official reason given and ostensibly Goebbels was mighty put out about the scenes of panic shown on film. Yet there are certainly enough of them left in the product I saw.

What's showed here is nothing new. But that's the difference between a free society and Nazi Germany. The story has been told a whole lot in both British and American productions. What the Nazis did in this film was to create a wholly fictional second officer named Peterson who serves as the voice of conscience in the film. The villain of course is Ismay the head of the British White Star Line who is looking for the stock in White Star to go up if the much ballyhooed Titanic makes a record crossing in its maiden voyage. Peterson as portrayed by Hans Nielsson is as Aryan as they come, while Ismay looks vaguely like those people we're eliminating as played by E.F.Fuhwanger.

John Jacob Astor is here to represent American capitalism. Such folks as Captain Harry Guggenheim and Mr.&Mrs. Isidor Straus who died in the sinking are eliminated from the story. So is the plucky Denver millionairess Molly Brown.

For a movie that's supposed to show and criticize the British class distinction, very little time is spent on the huddled masses in steerage who were the bulk of the people killed. James Cameron in the recent Titanic with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet spent more time with them than this production.

I do however wish that more films of the Nazi era would become available now to view and study. If this one is available on DVD and VHS than this must be mild as compared to others.

Right off the bat, no, I don't speak German, but I wanted to see this depiction of the Titanic. I am truly puzzled by why a German studio and German performers (okay, they were just enjoying the work) would portray what had been English and American characters in such a sensitive and thoughtful light.

I have heard the first officer is a fictional German character, but hey, they were ALL speaking German!

Did this thing do like the English comedy "Allo, Allo" and have the rest of the cast speak German but with American and English accents? That would have been fun to hear.

I got a copy of "Lady and the Tramp" in Spanish and it is delightful to hear the Italian butchers sing their priceless song in Spanish, but now with Italian accents! It actually worked!

But I digress.

I recognize the dropped names, Ismay and Astor, but it seems the majority of the rest of the cast have undergone name changes. Whatever. The captain seems more like der Burgermeister than he does the ted-dibly English Captain E.J. Smith actually was. I was amused by the crewman bringing the captain his jacket on deck and slipping it on him. I thought to myself, an actual English captain would not have appeared on deck unadorned like that.

Our man Ismay here doesn't look at all as he did in real life, which I thought was puzzling. Ismay in this film is slightly grey and no moustache.

I wondered if the nose was striving for some Jewish look, or was it shooting for the English look. About the last time we see Ismay in this thing, he is shrieking like Adolf, so any stereotype either way was done away with.

Wallace Hartley's band on the Titanic consisted of eight members. In this German version, it would be a large oompah oompah band. In the 1929-30 "Atlantic" film, we hear a Charlston band.

As I watched this film, I looked at the extravagance and thought "are they trying to mimick Hollywood?"

The fashion sense to 1912 didn't connect, it was more "buy war bonds" to me.

Everytime the film would be mucking up for me (that German couple) there would be a saving grace (the wireless operator setting the bird free, while not true, was intriguing to observe).

That the racy steerage woman would survive I found interesting. The tenderness extended in these directions, with what was going on in the world at that time, is bewildering and if this film wasn't released back then after completion, I think that was a terrible shame.

Still, this film just stands as one more film version of the Titanic that is perplexing to watch for historical reasons if nothing else.

Not as bad as the 1929 version, and possesses more dimension than the '53 one.

This is Titanic as you've probably never seen it before. One would think it was more a communist propaganda film than a Nazi one, since all of the villains of the piece are the rich while the poor workers are the heroes. Its a film that has a definite point of view, and right or wrong, is certainly one that keeps things interesting to watch.

Centering on the rich owners of the White Star Line and the rich passengers on the ship, this film is in large part about how the greed of the rich led to the destruction of "society". A large portion of the early part of this film has to do with manipulating stock before the Titanic breaks a speed record allowing the owners to get even richer. The plan seems to backfire and as the rich try to pick up the pieces the ship hits an iceberg. There are also several other story lines running through this film, including a healthy dose of romance, so don't think its all business.

While some of the interior model shots of the sinking are obviously models, the scenes of panic and the real human drama makes this a film to watch. Its understandable why the Nazi's banned this film as upsetting, these people are in panic mode. I read somewhere that this film showed the ship breaking in half. Kino's DVD doesn't appear to show that, although the final slide under the waves is really too dark to see.

While not a perfect film its a good one. Certainly its one with enough talking points that you could very well talk about the film on every level for many hours after its finished running. Frankly There is so much to discuss that I'm having a hard time keeping this entry brief.

If you love film, if you love Titanic stories, if you love seeing something different then see this movie.

7 out of 10, but you'll be talking about so much more than most other movies you've seen in years.

Titanic (1943)

Goebbels takes on the Titanic. And loses. In fact, the movie languished in hiding or in bad t.v. versions until 2005.

This is the most expensive German film to date, and its technical competence pales next to American films of the same period. It uses the sinking of the Titanic as a vehicle to criticize the avarice of capitalist England, their enemy at the time. So along with the usual drama of love and chivalry and overconfidence, there is a story of stock trading and of racing the ship at top speed in order to break the record and raise the company's value per share.

All of which isn't totally improbable, and as a weird Nazi view of the world it's pretty fascinating. In truth, it's not a bad film. But in truth, it's not something you need to bother with unless the political propaganda aspects sound appealing. Or unless you are just curious about different film versions of the events. The effects here are vivid and often very realistic until they show the ship from the water. The interpersonal acting is uneven and a bit stiff going, usually, with some caricaturing used as a way to avoid character development.

If you want a classic older Titanic film for the pure drama of the disaster, I suggest the 1958 A Night to Remember (a British production) over the American 1953 Titanic which has star power but is boring by comparison. Of course, there is the 1997 version, in color, which has its own problems and dazzlements. But stop to at least imagine what the Nazi regime could possibly have been thinking, spending a ton of money on an unlikely movie just as the tide is turning against them in the war. And watch how terrific they paint the one German officer on the ship, telling the truth and saving lives like no one else. Propaganda, for sure, but not a horrible movie, as a movie, either.

It's not that common in movie history that a director angers the producer/distributor of his movie so much that the latter has the former murdered. That's what happened to co-director Herbert Selpin in 1942 before the release of Germany's film contribution to the Titanic saga. Dr. Josef Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister and self-anointed arbiter of culture in the Third Reich, had the Gestapo arrest Selpin who was reported dead in his cell the day after. Suicide? Ridiculous.

The Titanic story has been told many times on film, both as documentary and as drama. Interest currently appears to intensify with the same speed as the over-visited wreck rapidly succumbs to a final ballet of disintegration.

Years ago The Film Society of Lincoln Center ran a retrospective of movies produced during the Third Reich. For most attendees it was a revelation, and a disturbing one at that. Many are familiar with the late Leni Reifenstahl's documentary paean to the Olympics (propaganda aside, one of the greatest films of that genre) and the odious "Jude Suss" is the iconographic movie symbolism of Nazi antisemitism. Few were aware how much genuine creativity, free of obvious dogmatism, emerged from that twelve-year period of German darkness and depravity. The retrospective made many think about the complexity of life in 1933-1945 Germany.

One of the films I saw was the 1943 "Titanic" which had a small premiere followed by an order from Goebbels pulling the movie. Ostensibly, Germans were not to be exposed to seeing the panic on the great liner as it foundered (actually most Germans, especially those in urban areas, had more visible frequent reasons to panic by 1943.

Selpin (with co-director Werner Klingler) turned out a sumptuous, ornate and dramatically compelling movie. Largely using the known facts, "Titanic" tells the well worn tale of a ship driven to unreasonable and dangerous speeds in order to set a record. There are some significant deviations. Here, the English first officer - seized with some malady - is replaced by a German seaman named Petersen, a model of experience and rectitude. J. Bruce Ismay, whose social life was justifiably ruined because of his escaping the sinking behemoth, is unrealistically portrayed as a grasping cad whose crudity was not found in the self-absorbed, rich and supinely confident real shipping magnate. The vessel's master, Captain Smith, is overly subservient to Ismay but he responds well to the disaster.

This movie wasn't made on the cheap. Given the deteriorating wartime situation, a lot of marks were expended for terrific sets and fine attire.

There's no real Nazi propaganda. The movie ends with a comment that English greed occasioned the loss of so many lives but very many books and articles from Old Blighty and the U.S. echo that view.

Because of its anti-British utterances, the Allies banned the movie in their sectors in Germany at first while it was freely available in the Soviet zone. Hardly a surprise-that movie maven, Stalin, probably loved this capitalist-bashing film.

KINO VIDEO has performed a real service by releasing the film on DVD. There are two versions-this release is the shorter one without the trial scene in which survivor Petersen rails against the British in court. Actually the movie is stronger for that omission. After she goes down, what else is there really to say?

There are some interesting special features on the disc including an early commercial short made by the White Star Line showing the amenities of RMS Olympic, another luxury liner built before Titanic (technically, Olympic wasn't a sister ship of its more famous and briefly triumphant successor but the differences aren't important).

This is an important release for Titanic buffs but also for those interested in film-making in Nazi Germany. There were movies made that deserve current viewing for reasons apart from their historic association with a barbaric regime.

7/10