They can't make them like they used to

screenman

The excellence of this movie just cannot be overstated. Nothing is missing. Nothing is out of place.

Titanic was a microcosm of social class stricture. This point is made very clear at the outset, when we see wealthy, landed gentry (upper), the educated but comfortable (middle) and the Irish rustic (lower) classes, each making their separate rendezvous with the doomed vessel. Lightoller (perfectly played by Kenneth Moore) and his wife, represent our middle-class, arriving by train. There is an interesting comedy of manners concerning personal hygiene, played out in the railway carriage.

This film is based upon John Lord's original heavily-researched book, a factual account which has not been compromised with additional drama. As if any were needed. Seen today, it has the appearance of a documentary, an impression reinforced by filming in black & white. Furthermore, because the film is about as long as the Titanic actually lasted after the collision, events unfold in what might be called 'real-time'.

The gradual shift from humour and indifference to one of concern and fear, as the realisation slowly begins to gel that this ship is in serious trouble, is astonishingly well done. The camera cuts and cuts again, presenting brief but graphic vignettes of individuals on board, and how their circumstances and attitude alter with time. The captain stares in disbelief at the lights of the nearby Californian. A lost child is picked up by an ageing steward. The baker elects for drunkenness. We hear garbled conversation, often in a foreign language. Millionaires disintegrate, other remain steadfast until the end. The band never falters.

In its time, this was the most expensive movie ever filmed in Britain. And it shows in the lavish and authentic set-pieces. Today it is possible to tell that the long-shots of the ship at sea are actually those of a model; though I'm blowed if I know quite how. That model was some 22 feet long and painstakingly copied. Many of the scenes were also filmed during a very cold late-Autumn, so the steaming breath and shivering depicted later were unintentionally authentic.

The 'epilogue' on the Carpathia now seems rather needless and trite, but it would have been entirely appropriate in 1912. I think the almost endless cycle of disaster/horror movies of the last half-century have hardened our hearts somewhat. It's all so easy to forget, in a world of celluloid fiction; that this actually happened, and pretty-well just as you see it.

Today, perhaps the saddest element of this movie is that it can never be made again. The characters and mannerisms, the sense of honour and stoicism arising from an unflinching belief in ideals, have quietly passed away with their very last representatives that the 1950's encapsulated. There'll be no more fine fellows, no more old beans, no more stiff upper-lips. And hopefully - in an emancipated society - no more 'women and children first'.

Get a hold of this movie, and cherish it. Both it and the ship are gone forever.

score 10/10

screenman 26 March 2006

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1325380/