The Sinking of the RMS Titanic and other ships.

[Mayerling]

I would think that the reason nobody has made movies about other ships that sank is because - despite the loss of life - no other 'sinking ship story' has the romantic elements of the Titanic on her maiden voyage.

The timeline of events leading up to the loss of the Titanic, the people involved, the dramatic event itself and the aftermath - are all elements that have captured peoples' imaginations and continue to do so.

No other sinking comes close.

Hi Louisa,

Actually you are probably right about the event and setting and characters just being right. Nine times those lost on the TITANIC were lost in the Nazi steamer Wilhelm Gusloff in January 1945, but despite the huge numbers of wives and children drowned the fact that so many were in the Nazi Government's operations in conquered eastern territories (and probably involved in the Final Solution) certainly makes total sympathy for the dead impossible.

Jeff

[Adam Went]

Hi Jeff,

The first film with David Warner was "SOS Titanic" from 1979 - not a terrible film but the picture quality itself was appalling for some reason - watching it, particularly the outside shots, one struggles to make out what's going on.

Was the CZJ mini-series the same one with George C. Scott as Captain Smith?

Let's also not forget the musical from the 60's, "The Unsinkable Molly Brown", with Debbie Reynolds.

Very good point as well about the more "famous" shipwrecks perhaps covering up notice of the less well known boats but those who also suffered hefty loss of life. I remember being astounded at the fact that there was such a heavy loss of life on the S.S. Princess Alice on the Thames in 1878 (which of course is linked to the JTR case), which went down in just four minutes - and yet there was seemingly so little interest or knowledge on her these days.

Cheers,
Adam.

[kensei]

I think a movie about the Andrea Doria would be quite good, and that the revelation that a young girl who'd been ripped out of her bed by the collision was found unconscious but still alive in the damaged prow of the Stockholm would carry some particular and poignant shock value on the screen.

[Errata]

I'm always rather surprised that their isn't a whole movie bout Dunkirk out there (That isn't a documentary or a docudrama). It's shown up a couple of times, but that whole story deserves more than 5 minutes.

[Adam Went]

Kensei:

All the more so because there's still quite a lot of people out there who would remember the Andrea Doria and may even have sailed on her, unlike the famous wrecks from 40 odd years prior to that. Perhaps there's been an Italian movie made about her (not that i'm aware of, but you never know...).

Errata:

No doubt it's been mentioned before but Second Officer Lightoller of the Titanic was of course involved with his own boat in the Dunkirk rescue....

Cheers,
Adam.

[louisa]

Sorry to sound like a bighead but I knew that. Lightoller had also led a very colourful life before his Titanic days.

[Adam Went]

Louisa:

Shame he didn't quite live long enough to see A Night To Remember, as Kenneth More was probably the lead character in that film, portraying him...

I have a feeling that i've heard Joseph Boxhall (4th officer) was an advisor to the film though.

Always feel really sorry for Fred Fleet, tragic end he had....

Cheers,
Adam.

[louisa]

In those days Kenneth More was cast as the hero of most British films.

Lightoller would have been surprised to hear himself being portrayed with an upper class English accent though (Lightoller had a west country accent).

[Adam Went]

Louisa:

Fading memory in my old age but I believe there's a voice recording of Lightoller in existence somewhere?

One of my father's favourite films was "Reach For The Sky", which came out at a similar time as A Night To Remember IIRC and featured Kenneth More in the role of Douglas Barder, the disabled air ace.....it is a brilliant story actually.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Mayerling]

Hi all,

Before I forget - may you all have a Merry Christmas / Happy Chanukkah Holiday.

I think that the CJZ miniseries was the one with George C. Scott. Given disaster movies, by the way, Scott also appeared in THE HINDENBURG in 1976. Films dealing with zeppelin disasters are even less than shipwrecks. However, THE COURT MARTIAL OF BILLY MITCHELL with Gary Cooper, Ralph Bellamy, Fred Clark, and Rod Steiger does get involved with the death of Mitchell's friend Captain Zachary Landsdown, of the U.S.S. Shenandoah, which crashed in a thunderstorm in Ohio in 1925. Mitchell's comments about the incident led to his court martial. Oddly enough, as far as I recall, the R 101 disaster of 1930 never got a film, even though a splendid account of it was made by Nevil Shute in his memoir SLIDE-RULE. That would make an interesting film. But look how long it took to make a commercial movie two years back about Amelia Earhart.

[I will add that in one of their sketches, MONTY PYTHON had Napoleon appear as the R 101 in flight.]

Another earlier Gary Cooper film, SOULS AT SEA, deals in part with an actual 1841 case, the sinking of the William Brown in the North Atlantic. It is made into a fire at sea in the movie, while in reality the Brown hit an iceberg. What made the film unique was it followed the legal problem that first mate Cooper gets when he has to keep people out of the one lifeboat to save any survivors, and faces manslaughter charges afterwards (which is what happened). The same story was modernized for Tyrone Power in 1957 in the film ABANDON SHIP! or SEVEN WAVES AWAY.

Comparison with Titanic also appears in the film HISTORY IS MADE AT NIGHT (1937) with Charles Boyer, Jean Arthur, Colin Clive, and Leo Carrillo. The wife of an obsessive shipping tycoon, who is naming his new, world largest liner after her, wants out of her marriage, and he won't do it. In the cliffhanger ending, knowing she and her lover (Boyer) are on board the ship returning to England, Clive insanely orders the Captain by radio to go at full speed through the same area the Titanic was in. It hits an iceberg as a result, and the fate of 2,000 passengers are at stake. By the way, the first name of the tycoon is Bruce, Bruce Vail.

Jeff

[Adam Went]

Hi Jeff,

Very nice summary there.
No Titanic mentions in Poseidon Adventure then? I've seen the film but it's been such a long time that I honestly can't remember....

Merry Christmas to you and all our other fellow maritime enthusiasts.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Mayerling]

Thanks Adam, I'm about to leave for my holiday.

You know I have never seen the original POSEIDON ADVENTURE, it's sequels, or the remake. There is another one, GOLIATH AWAKES about a similar sea tragedy, with Sir Christopher Lee (naturally) as a maniacle Captain. As for the original POSEIDON , one of the problems about it now is it is a transitional film for one of it's stars. Leslie Nielsen is the capatin of that vessel, and thinking of him (post 1980) one does not recall his dramatic roles (some as villain) but as the "great" Lieutenant Frank Drebbin of The Police Files and other comedies. It is hard to think of Drebbin in an overturned ocean liner without cracking up!

The television film about the loss of the HMHS Britannic was mentioned in an earlier comment, but I recalled last night that the creation, career, use of, and loss of the C. S. S. Hunley was the subject of a television film of that name (THE HUNLEY) starring Armand Assante and Donald Sutherland (as Gerneral Pierre Gustave Toussaint Beauregard). It came out about 2000 or so, one of several films on the Civil War that Ted Turner produced (GETTYSBURG was another as was ANDERSONVILLE).

Turner also produced a film about the Monitor and the Merrimac (I think the title mentioned Hampton Roads, but I'm not sure). E. G. Marshall and Fritz Weaver (as John Ericcson) were in it. While it did not deal with the self-destruction of the C. S. S. Virginia (the "Merrimac's" correct name as a Confederate craft) in May 1862 or the loss of the U. S. S. Monitor in that storm off Cape Hatteras (where it was later found and partly raised), it did do a vivid set of scenes of the loss of U.S.S. Cumberland and U. S.S. Congress by the "Virginia".

Unfortunately Turner stopped short of doing anything about the C.S.S. Alabama - a really worthy subject as (despite it being a Confederate craft) it was the greatest commerce raider under American command in our history. Maybe someday he or someone else will. My suggestion for a title is "Semmes' Command" after her commander, Captain (later Admiral) Raphael Semmes.

Titanic references pop up all over. A Miriam Hopkins' film comedy of the middle 1930s, MILLION DOLLAR LADY, explains that she grew up an orphan (but a rich one) due to her father being the world's richest man who went down on the Titanic. But the first two names of the father are "John Jacob" without the "Astor", and his wife went down with him (the second Mrs. Astor survived). A comic reference (somewhat hidden) popped up in POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES, where Peter Falk tries to steer away a suspicious diplomat from Spain from a spurious Bette Davis as a dowager. He tells the diplomat there has been a catastrophe - the Staten Island Ferry is sinking in the harbor due to hitting an iceberg, and then being accidentally torpedoed by one of our submarines (a bit of the Lusitania is thrown in). In a series, BACKSTAIRS IN THE WHITE HOUSE, made in the 1970s, President Taft (Victor Buono) is disturbed about his old friend Theodore Roosevelt turning against him just before the 1912 Presidential election, but he is optimistic their joint friend Major Butt can smooth over the differences. Buono is asked where Butt is, and says he'll be home from a European vacation next week. He's returning on the Titanic.

Jeff

[Adam Went]

Hi Jeff,

Again many thanks for posting up those references - as you say they seem to be everywhere, not easy to think off of the top of the head but you hear them time and time again!

The original Poseidon Adventure had quite a few fairly big names in it and it was a decent movie but IMO dragged on a little bit too much in parts....

As for specifically Titanic related movies, Cameron's aside, there's not been a lot of them in the past 30 years or so.....plenty of documentaries but once the ship was discovered and then Cameron's blockbuster came out, I think it kind of turned movie producers away from trying to take on a film like that, very difficult to beat in terms of revenue.

Hope you enjoy your holidays!

Cheers,
Adam.

[louisa]

I don't know if anyone has been keeping abreast with the developments of the stricken (and capsized) Italian passenger liner the Costa Concordia?

It ran aground and overturned, killing many people. The captain has been criticized for leaving the ship before the passengers and now he reckons he tripped and fell into a lifeboat. Yeah right.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/9023753/Costa-Concordia-Flee-I-just-tripped-into-a-lifeboat-says-captain.html

[Zodiac]

I don't know if anyone has been keeping abreast with the developments of the stricken (and capsized) Italian passenger liner the Costa Concordia?

It ran aground and overturned, killing many people. The captain has been criticized for leaving the ship before the passengers and now he reckons he tripped and fell into a lifeboat. Yeah right.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...s-captain.html

Hi louisa,

Yes, I too have been watching this whole sorry episode unfold, live on TV. RIP to those who are lost and my sincere condolences to their loved ones. Here is the best translation I have found, as yet, of the conversation between Capt. Schettino of the Costa Concordia and Capt. Gregorio De Falco of the Italian Coast Guard in Livorno.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX_08zcCmx8

Best Wishes,
Zodiac.