The Sinking of the RMS Titanic and other ships.

[Errata]

Wasn't it the one with Clark Gable and Myrna Loy that I only ever saw because It was supposedly the last movie Dillenger saw?

[Mayerling]

Mild trivia question:

These films deal with Titanic (and are not the whole list):

1) ATLANTIC (1929)
2) CAVALCADE (1933) - one memorable scene's fade-out.*
3) TITANIC (German UFA film) - (1943)
4) TITANIC (1953)
5) A NIGHT TO REMEMBER (1958)
6) THE UNSINKABLE MOLLY BROWN (1965)
7) TIME BANDITS (gag sequence) (1982?)
8) TITANIC (1997)*

There were also several television films and a famous live actor dramatization in the middle 1950s. It has also been used as a reference or plot point in both UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS (remember Lady Marjorie Bellamy's death), and the first episode of DONSTON ABBEY.

Lusitania has not appeared frequently. There seems to have been a British film for television about it (You Tube has some sequences). Windsor McKay, the cartoonist who did the splendid series LITTLE NEMO IN SLUMBERLAND did one of the first animated cartoons abou the disaster entitled THE SINKING OF THE LUSITANIA (it is on You Tube, and I recommend it to you). In the so-called film biography of Jerome Kern, 'TIL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY, Robert Walker tries to get to the "Lusy" to speak to Charles Frohman before it sales, but sees it leaving the dock. It appears as a newspaper headline only in YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (where the wrong ship's picture appears on the newspapers) and in the Cole Porter "biography" NIGHT AND DAY, and is mentioned in an episode of UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS.

Films about the cruises and ends of Bismarck and Graf Spee were made in England in the early 1960s. SINK THE BISMARCK also deals with the fate of HMS Hood. PURSUIT OF THE GRAF SPEE ends with the scuttling of that craft by Captain Landsdorff.

No films seem to have been made of the EMPRESS OF IRELAND, or the ANDREA DORIA, or the EASTLAND, or the SULTANA. But one film began with a fairly accurate depiction of the destruction and carnage of the burning of the GENERAL SLOCUM at Hell's Gate in June 1904. Do any of you know the film?

[Mayerling]

Hi Adam and Louisa,

Yes it is the 70th Anniversary, and I was saddened to hear that it may be the last time they will have any survivors turn out - there are only a handful of servicemen left. One of them was quoted as being shocked about how the young don't know anymore - he was invited to lecture and while being introduced to talk about the attack on Pearl Harbor, one of the female students near him asked a friend, who is this Pearl Harbor, does she attend this school. This was not apparently a joke.

We lost over two thousand men in the attack, the Arizona taking down somehing like 1100 alone. Not quite the Titanic or Lusitania, but close to it. By the way, since we are on this anniversary, about the same time the British lost HMS PRINCE OF WALES and REPULSE near Malaysia from arial attack.

By the way, A NIGHT TO REMEMBER is (despite some errors) my favorite Titanic movie too. It gets the basic story down pat, and unlike the 1953 and 1997 TITANIC films, it concetrate on what happened to the ship, not to fictional socialites (Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck in 1953) or young lovers in 1997.

Jeff

[Adam Went]

Hi Louisa,

Yes, very true. ANTR is still the benchmark for other Titanic films.

Also, it is the 70th anniversary of Peal Harbour....remembering all those who fought and died and the legacy that event has left.

Cheers,
Adam.

[louisa]

Hi Adam

'A Night To Remember' is still my favourite Titanic movie. There are inaccuracies, yes, but not nearly as many as in all the subsequent movies.

[Adam Went]

Louisa:

Yes I think you're right, and the Titanic class liners were certainly ill-fated. We of course know what happened to Titanic and then a few years later the Britannic, and then Olympic narrowly escaped being sunk on several occasions, was damaged plenty of times.

I remember A Night To Remember having the non-existent scene of smashing the wine bottle on the bows at the beginning of the film.....

Cheers,
Adam.

[louisa]

It wasn't just the Titanic that didn't have the champagne bottle smashed against her bows. I understand that the White Star Line had long since abandoned the practice.

[Adam Went]

Hi Louisa,

Very true, anyone can make such claims after the disaster has happened, but there was certainly a few odd premonitions before the ship ever sailed as well. Any such major event always has the doomsayers.

I think the suggestion with "No Pope" was that the ship was unholy, or "flying in the face of God" as i've heard it put - and contrary to popular belief, she was never christened with the traditional smashing of the wine bottle across the bow at launch.

Cheers,
Adam.

[louisa]

If that message had read 'NO HOPE' it would have made more sense.

After a tragedy people tend to have 20/20 vision and can find all kinds of 'signs' where none really exist.

There are probably numerous times when aircraft or ships set sail and problems have arisen before and en route - but the vessel gets there fine. Because a tragedy didn't happen, the public never gets to know about them.

[Adam Went]

One of my pet hates is people who bemoan comparitively small and trivial bad happenings in their day to day lives when there's so much violence, starvation, disease and death in other corners of the globe amongst people who would give anything to enjoy a semblance of the life we have. It drives me absolutely up the wall.

As for the Titanic, we've probably mentioned it before but there was a number of superstitious circumstances surrounding it from the beginning which some claimed were a bad omen before it even sailed. Like its dockyard number reading "No Pope" when reflected in the water, or premonitions in the dreams of passengers, or the near miss with the New York as she first left Southampton. Or the doomsayers who preached at sailing.

Some could even argue that fate was being tempted, and the warning signs of it were there, before the ship ever set sail.

Cheers,
Adam.

[louisa]

I hate it when I hear somebody say "Well things couldn't possibly get any worse". I always want to say "Of course they can!". It's like tempting fate.

[Robert]

My mind goes back to the haunting remark by somebody on board, that the collision was like a giant finger being scraped along the side of the ship.

Yes without getting superstitious, calling a ship unsinkable is asking for trouble. Similar remarks would be "What can possibly go wrong?" and "You are guilty of a spelling error" (the writer will nearly always make an error while pointing out the error).

[louisa]

For the builders to label a ship 'unsinkable' or a building 'indestructible' would give people using them a false sense of security, which would be a good starting point for any compensation claim.

[Adam Went]

Oh no, Jeff!
Well one of the major lessons that came out of the Titanic sinking was that never again would a ship be called "Unsinkable", no matter the new technology and safety features that go into them.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Mayerling]

A Sheepish Confession

I feel like repeating this story (and it is true, unfortunately) like Estelle Getty as Mrs. Petrillo on THE GOLDEN GIRLS in the early 1990s. "Picture it! Jeff Bloomfield's 30th Birthday celebrations with his mother and friends at Top of the World Resturant on April 20th 1984!..." Mom got several family and personal friends together to eat at that wonderful but ill-fated eartery on my birthday. One was my Drew University friend Roy. In the banter of the fine food, and that never to be forgotten arial view of some fifty or sxty miles from the Twin Towers, Roy and I discussed the glories of the building, and (now I consider weird and stupidly) I made the comment, "This is the building God himself could not sink!" I thought it was clever at that time. Heaven forgive me.