Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 25-July-10
Spoiler Rating: Low

A Night to Remember (1958)

It intrigues me that so many people know the details of an event from almost a century ago: the sinking of the Titanic. This happened in 1912 and yet any man on the street today could probably relate the tale with accuracy. Some 1,500 souls perished when the ship went down, a small number compared with losses from the war that soon followed, but for some reason the Titanic's demise is generally known while World War I is relegated to hobbyists and historians. I have to think that one reason for this is the cinema. In addition to James Cameron's huge hit there are a 1943 Nazi propaganda film about the sinking, a 1953 melodrama starring Barbara Stanwyck, and the 1958 British production A Night to Remember, along with other movies that reference the tragedy without probing its details. These pictures provide a sense of what it felt like, or at least looked like, to be on the ship during her only voyage. If you are someone who enjoys this vicarious experience and would have preferred the latest Titanic movie without the histrionics ("Jack, Jack!"),* then A Night to Remember is the DVD for you.

The movie opens with the inescapable theme of class distinction. A supercilious blue blood criticizes a man on a train for seeming to deride the engineering feat of the Titanic only to discover that the man is the ship's Second Officer, Charles Lightoller, who becomes the hero of the piece. (He is well played by Kenneth More, a mid-century Dennis Quaid.) When the action moves out to sea the camera follows several characters from first class, second class, and steerage without settling on any one, creating a true perspective of a fly on the wall. There follow all the occurrences we have come to know so well: the luxurious indulgence in the ship's lounges and staterooms; the blustering of Molly Brown; the meeting with that damnable iceberg; the realization by the ship's engineer and bearded captain that she is going to sink; the evacuation of women and children on a pitiful number of lifeboats; the barring of the lower-class passengers from the decks; the display of almost comic nonchalance by some doomed gentlemen; and the playing of those immortal musicians until the very last. One can watch these things many times and still be fascinated by them, and in this film they bear the stamp of realism tinged with a fatalistic calm.

A Night to Remember addresses one lamentable aspect of the story that the 1997 film did not, namely the wasted opportunities for avoiding and mitigating the disaster. The most suspenseful scenes take place in the radio room, where the wireless operators lose one iceberg warning and fail to heed contacts from other ships in the area. The real heartbreaker involves another ship, the Californian, which was near the Titanic but did not sail to her aid because its crew took little interest in her emergency flares and other signals for help. The scenes showing this crew's negligence pose bitter questions about how many more lives might have been saved. Perhaps this "what if?" quality is what keeps the Titanic in the public's mind. It is represented by the few feet of water that might have separated her hull from the jagged ice that sunk her.

*Don't get me wrong; I like the 1997 blockbuster even though it is a tad overblown.

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