A Night to Remember (1958): Sinking of the Titanic

This British made film is named after the book written by American Walter Lord, and it is considered by many to be the most historically accurate movie about the disaster, although it too has some non historical content, with perhaps the most glaring non historical event being the opening of the film about the ceremony for the launching of the Titanic. Historically, there was no launching ceremony for the Titanic. I'm not sure when I first saw this movie on television and I'm not even certain if I first saw it on national network television or on a local station, but it was definitely decades ago.     

 

There was a large cast in this film, so I'm only listing a very limited number of the cast members. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Kenneth More was a pretty well known English actor, although he was naturally better known in Britain. This is just my own guess, but by the late 1960s, the 1970s and the 1980s, American television executives were looking to get their hands on movies, as films were highly popular (and thus, profitable) for the television networks and also local stations, which had pretty much exhausted the catalog of available films. Thus Americans began to see more and more British, and other European films, and my recollection is that this was how I became somewhat familiar with Kenneth More, with several of his movies being shown on television. David McCallum became well known in the U.S. in the 1960s for his role as Illya Kuryakin in the television series "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.," which also starred already well known British actor Leo G. Carroll and American Robert Vaughn. Tucker McGuire (her real first name was Anne, but her middle name was Tucker) was an American married to British actor Tom Macaulay, which might have helped her (?) land several roles in British films, including this one. Harold Goldblatt played wealthy American businessman Benjamin Guggenheim, although Goldblatt himself was from England, not the U.S.     

 

Partial Cast: 

Kenneth More as Second Officer Charles Lightoller 

Michael Goodliffe as Thomas Andrews, the naval architect for the Titanic

Laurence Naismith (born Johnson) as Captain Edward Smith 

Kenneth Griffith (born Griffiths) as radio operator Jack Phillips

David McCallum as assistant radio operator Harold Bride

Tucker McGuire as Margaret "Molly" Brown

Frank Lawton as managing director of the White Star Line J. Bruce Ismay

Harold Goldblatt as American businessman Benjamin Guggenheim  

This movie is pretty much a straightforward telling of the fateful night in April 1912 when the great ship struck an iceberg and sank some 375 + miles from Newfoundland, which at the time was not a part of Canada, but rather a British dominion, with the British monarch as the head of state (in 1912, that was King George V), but with Newfoundland, otherwise, being self governing. The first part of the movie shows us examples of the passengers aboard the Titanic, with a great number of poorer Irish people heading to America for a new life, but on the other hand, very wealthy people of rank and privilege occupying the elaborate first class area of the great ship. On Sunday, April 14, the Titanic's radio operator begins to receive reports of ice and icebergs from other ships as the Titanic reaches the general vicinity of the Labrador Current, a cold flow of ocean water that comes down from the arctic and often carries icebergs southward, frequently broken off from glaciers in western Greenland. (Note: From what I understand, and it makes sense, these icebergs can be at any time of year, but they are more common in like March through June, when the weather in the Northern Hemisphere shifts into spring, then summer, bringing warmer temperatures, which weakens the ice of glaciers and can cause parts to break off; that is, forming icebergs, which then drift southward with the current to the area around Labrador and Newfoundland; thus, the name of the current. The area is called "Iceberg Alley" due to the many icebergs that travel the current there, and these pose many risks to North Atlantic shipping. To complicate matters, the warm water current that comes up from the south is called the Gulf Current, and when the warm and cold currents begin to mix, it can cause fog and mist, sometimes dense, which makes icebergs even harder to spot.) 

 

The movie deservedly gives a lot of attention to a British cargo ship, the Californian (the British owning company named its ships after American states, which had just recently increased to 48 from 46 in 1912), which was traveling to Boston in the same general area as the Titanic, which was headed to New York City on the night of the disaster. The Californian comes upon a field of ice on the evening of the 14th, and the captain has the engines stopped rather than proceed into the ice. He also tells his radio operator to contact the Titanic, which is in their area, to report the ice and its location. When the radioman tries to carry out his orders, the radioman on the Titanic is busy with all sorts of private messages being sent ahead by individuals to New York City, and he cuts off the Californian's radioman and tells him to stay out because he's interfering with radio traffic. Earlier, the Titanic's radioman was so busy with all the personal messages, he took a message reporting ice, but the message got mixed into all of the personal messages and was not passed on to the captain.    

The lookout spots an iceberg right ahead of the ship, and the Titanic begins to turn to miss the berg, but it's too late and the ship grazes by the iceberg, with some chunks of ice falling on board the lower deck. Most passengers and crew don't notice the shudder when the collision takes place, nor do many people notice that the engines stop not long afterward. Captain Smith sends for the ship's architect, Thomas Andrews, to get his assessment of how serious the damage is. After checking the damage, Mr. Andrews tells the captain the ship will sink in about an hour and a half. Captain Smith orders the lifeboats to be readied and staffed and he has the radioman send out distress signals. The British passenger ship Carpathia answers the Titanic, but the Carpathia's captain let's it be known that his ship cannot be to the Titanic's location for a few hours. The Carpathia was slightly less than 60 miles away from the Titanic at that time. Meanwhile, the Californian sits just about 8 miles away (I chose 8 miles as a sort of compromise, as I've seen 5 miles, 6 miles and up to 12 miles). The radioman had gone to bed, so he never heard the distress calls (radio was relatively new and there were no regulations requiring constant radio monitoring aboard ships, and indeed, not all ships necessarily even had a radio, with the Californian having acquired a radio just a few months before this incident with the Titanic). The Californian's officers and crew see a big passenger liner not far from them, and it seems to be stopped, but they believe, that like their own ship, this big liner is stopped because of the ice field. The captain of the Californian goes to bed to get some sleep before he tries navigating this ice field in the morning. The Titanic's crew begins firing distress rockets and the crew of the Californian see the rockets, but they are perplexed by what they mean. One officer awakens the captain to tell him about the rockets, but the captain wonders if they might be a company signal by the big ship to let other ships from the same company know about the ice field. The captain orders that they try signaling the big ship by flashing Morse code light signals, and he then goes back to sleep. The light signal lamp is too small for the officers on the Titanic to read the signal, and they conclude it is just some flickering light on the ship. The Californian's officers and crew don't even know which ship they're seeing, but without the messages from the radio, it really didn't matter. Likewise, Captain Smith and his crew on the Titanic can see a ship nearby, but they don't know which ship, as they can't get through on the radio. (Note: Of course, while we know the historical end result with the Titanic, many have wanted to know, still to this day, how many people might have been saved if the Californian had come to the rescue. Remember, about 1500 people perished from the Titanic that night, and a rescue of such a number would have involved more than the Californian showing up and 1500 people simply somehow magically transferring to it from the sinking Titanic. The Californian was a cargo ship, but it could "accommodate" a hundred plus passengers and crew, although it had no passengers that night [the movie script has one of the Californian's officers mention the ship's passengers, but historically that is incorrect]. "Accommodate" is meant that passengers and crew would be somewhat comfortable, not with extra people crammed aboard in an emergency such as was taking place that night. It had 4 lifeboats, 1 gig, a type of rowboat usually with a sail that had to be put up, and a pinnace, another type of small boat, usually equipped with a sail and oars.* How many people the cargo area could have held, I have no idea, but the thing to remember is, the Carpathia was nearing the Titanic's location and it arrived about an hour and twenty minutes after the Titanic sank. Other ships were also on the way, but arrived at later intervals. It may not have been pretty or comfortable, but being crammed aboard the Californian would certainly seem preferable to becoming shark doo doo. It is my understanding, that in those times, not having lifeboats for all passengers was not uncommon on passenger ships, because the technology was thought to be enough to keep the ships afloat for a period of time [some likely call this "arrogance," or "tempting fate"], and that lifeboats would be used to shuttle passengers to rescue ships, then return to the damaged vessel to take more passengers to safety. All of the possibilities about the Californian is beyond the scope of this article, but it's something to think about, although not one person can be brought back to life. Perspective.)

 

The movie goes on to show the lifeboats lowered away and the Titanic tilting more and more into the Atlantic until the end comes and the ship disappears beneath the water.** A while later those in the lifeboats see and hear a rocket. It has been fired by the Carpathia. Meanwhile, aboard the Californian, the captain is awakened and told the big ship has moved on, as they still don't realize the ship they had been viewing a few miles away was sinking and that the rockets were distress signals. At one point earlier, one of the officers mentions how odd the ship looks in the distance, "like it's listing," but another officer attributes this to the angle of the big ship to the Californian. We see daylight and the Carpathia has picked up the passengers and crew members of the lifeboats. The captain of the Carpathia is told that the captain of the Californian has contacted them and wants to know if he and his ship can help. ***  

* I just wanted to include some basic information about the Californian, and Wikipedia is great for such information, and while its article on the Californian says the ship's lifeboats, gig and pinnace could hold a total of 218 people, that specific entry's source isn't noted, although the information is likely accurate, I am unable to say what the actual source of that info is. Just another note about the Californian, it was sunk by German U-boats in the Mediterranean Sea during World War One, with the loss of one life (see section on Californian in Encyclopedia-Titanica.org). 

 

** In the 1953 film, starring Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck, the passengers gather and sing the Christian hymn "Nearer My God To Thee," and the version most popular in the United States is used. There has long been historical controversy over the last song on the ship, and one of the questions raised has been why would a British ship play what was basically an American song? And the passengers and crew all know the words, including the Straus couple, who were Jewish? (The song is a Christian hymn.) In "A Night to Remember," the band plays the British version of "Nearer My God To Thee," which is very different from the other version. As I noted, there has been a lot of controversy over the song, and some survivors claimed the last song was neither version, but rather a song called "Autumn." For movie purposes, I can understand why they chose the American version, as the dramatic music fits perfectly with what was already a dramatic and emotional scene. The American version has often been played at funerals and the scene in the movie just before the ship heads to the deep is a funeral setting.    

*** Interestingly, I found 3 different numbers for the total number of survivors: 705 (which is also stated in the movie), 706 (that's according to titanicfacts.net, which shows 492 passengers and 214 crew members) and 712 (this is listed on encyclopedia-titanica.org and also the figure given at the end of the 1953 movie "Titanic"). For the article on the 1953 movie, here is the link:  https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2022/01/titanic-1953.html

 

Photo is of the 1998 The Criterion Collection DVD

WORD HISTORY:

Founder (this is the verb for "to sink")-This verb is distantly related to "bottom," a word from the Germanic roots of English, and it is more closely related to the noun "founder;" that is, "one who sets up or establishes something," a Latin-derived word borrowed by English from French (but it is NOT related to the  word of the same spelling, "founder," nor to "foundry," both of which have to do with melted metal being poured for forming into shapes and sizes). "Founder" goes back to Indo European "bhundhm," which meant "base," with the beginning rendered in Latin as "f," giving Latin "fundus," which meant "bottom, base, foundation," which in French, a Latin-based language, became "fond," which also meant "bottom, base," but also, "ground." This gave Old French the verb "fondrer," meaning, "fall, fall to the ground, fall to the bottom;" thus also, "sink, sink to the bottom." English borrowed the word in the first part of the 1300s as "foundren," meaning "to fall to the ground or floor, collapse, send to the bottom," and Old French had the noun form "fondour (Anglo-French "fondur/fundur?"). The meaning of a ship sinking became more and more the most commonly used meaning in English, and the idea of "sinking" or "falling" gave the word many figurative uses, as in, "His problem with alcohol caused his career to founder."