A Night to Remember (1958)

I happened to come across the movie A Night to Remember while channel surfing last night. I caught it just as it was starting. I've wanted to see it for some time now. It is the second film of four about the sinking of the Titanic in April of 1912. I have heard that the first film version from 1953 is not very noteworthy. And the third I had not even heard of until tonight when I looked it up. Apparently, in 1996, there was another theatrical release version starring Catherine Zeta-Jones. Who knew? It must have been pretty awful, because it only grossed 13,000,000 at the box office. Compare that to James Cameron's 1.8 billion world wide grossing in his version a year later. I'm not suggesting that the amount a film grosses has anything to do with its merit, but Cameron must have been onto something that the Zeta-Jones version clearly missed.

Although I have bagged on Cameron's 1997 version quite a bit over the years, I have recently come to appreciate some of the beauty in it. The relationship between Jack and Rose still bothers me a little bit because it just doesn't belong there, but the movie otherwise has some qualities, particularly Cameron's action sequence technique that probably shouldn't be enthralling considering the subject matter. But it is just that: enthralling. The spectacle quality of the film was the "Lord of the Rings" of the day. It was groundbreaking in its size and wonder, and still holds much of that wonder now in 2007. Add to that a magnificent score (which so many people hate, but I love) and you've got yourself the stepping stones of a beautiful movie. Unfortunately, Cameron mistook the basics stepping stones as a bridge to the other side of the gargantuan river known as film making. Spectacle sells, but if you want film geeks to respect you for centuries, you've got to have some meaningful focus.

A Night to Remember has that focus. It wastes no time getting into the meat of things. Within 25 minutes, the ship has hit the iceberg, and men are playing ice soccer on deck. Things play out much like they did in Cameron's version, with the only big and important exception being the added dimension of the communication (or lack thereof) between the Titanic, the Carpathia, and the foolish crew of the Californian. This is a major plot point missing in Cameron's version. Few people know that the Californian was only ten miles away from the Titanic as it sank and could very well have gotten there on time to save almost every life. In fact, they had stopped for the night because of icebergs (imagine that) and could see the Titanic's lights from where they were. They saw the distress rockets, and even logged their notebooks when the Titanic seemingly disappeared from the horizon. Not only that, they had turned off their radio earlier in the evening so all of the distress calls never reached them. Talk about waking up the next morning to some major regrets. None of this was in Cameron's version. 'Tis ashame, because that very well could have made his version a near masterpiece, if only he could have gotten over the rather un-rapturing love story. If he had focused more on the historical figures and done more research, he would have had so many stories to tell that Jack and Rose would have been made extras sitting in deck chairs. (sidenote: probably the greatest achievement of Cameron's Titanic is the thrusting into stardom of Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet, two incredible performers; unfortunately their characters don't matter that much in this movie.)

That said, I enjoyed A Night to Remember immensely. The fact that it is black and white didn't hinder it a bit. I've always had a liking for black and white movies anyway. And as I've said, it includes the stories of the other ships involved that evening, which thoroughly enhances the story line and makes it so much more of a historical piece than its successor. It may not have the sweeping camera moves and the glorious music of James Horner, but it does have a well researched back bone. This historical accuracy pays in my book. Fluff is nice, but not nearly as important to me as story. Story, story, story. So I guess I can't blame James Cameron entirely, now can I? I mean, his screenwriter is just as much to blame as he is, if not much more. Oh wait, Cameron was the screenwriter. Wow, it is all his fault! No scape goat there.

Titanic (1997) B
A Night to Remember (1958) A-


Interesting fact:
"The Carpathia docked at Pier 54 at Little West 12th Street in New York with the survivors. It arrived at night and was greeted by thousands of people. The Titanic had been headed for Pier 59 at 20th Street. The Carpathia dropped off the empty Titanic lifeboats at Pier 59, as property of the White Star Line, before unloading the survivors at Pier 54." - (wikipedia)