Released: 1958

Dir.: Roy Ward Baker

Of the many movies about the sinking of the Titanic, 1958’s A Night to Remember is the best. Mostly because it is one of very few Titanic movies that doesn’t rely on fictional characters to tell the story. Opting instead to keep it real, and dramatize the story of the real people involved, using 2^nd Officer Lightoller (Kenneth More) as our eyes and ears for much of the story without diminishing the scope of the tragedy. It is also one of my all-time favourite films.

The Titanic story is one of enduring fascination, for its overconfidence in what was thought to be a ship so technologically advanced for its time that nothing could sink it, the passenger list was a who’s who of prominent society, that the tragedy took place on its maiden voyage and the staggering loss of life. What I think A Night to Remember conveys the best is that the Titanic is a microcosm of western society and culture on one ship and that ship is sinking beneath them.

Societies’ elite are on the upper decks, pampered and privileged, while the ‘dregs’ of society, third class, the immigrants, the working class, are on the lower decks, hidden from view. The ships officers and crew caught in the middle. It is also a story that features great acts of heroism and sacrifice, as well as acts of cowardice, and selfishness. A Night to Remember captures this brilliantly, and yet doesn’t bludgeon you over the head with it. It’s not a matter of who to root for but rather, who do you relate to. And one hundred and eleven years later this still resonates.

The film introduces us to many characters, some not even identified by name, but we remember them as their stories play out. Mr. Thomas Andrews, wonderfully played by Michael Goodliffe, is a tragic figure as the builder of Titanic who discovers the ship’s fatal design flaw and must report it to Capt. Smith (Lawrence Naismith, who was born to play Titanic’s’ captain). Andrews bears a tremendous amount of guilt, calmly encouraging passengers to put on their lifebelts. He counsels a newlywed couple on how to escape the ship with all the lifeboats gone, while he has absolutely no intention of saving himself. Nor does anyone blame him for the ship’s shortcomings.

There are scenes of incredible poignancy that no other Titanic films have been quite able to capture. Scenes that stay with you. A father (John Merivale) saying his final goodbye to his young son, the moment not lost on Lightoller, who says nothing. He doesn’t have to, it’s in his eyes. As the ship is about to take its final plunge, the people still on board begin to recite the Lord’s Prayer, in multiple languages. We see their faces, the faces of the people in the lifeboats and finally one of the ships waiters trying to protect a child who was separated from his parents, simply saying, ‘Oh God’.

But the scene that gets me every single time, is the ships band, who have been playing as the tragedy unfolds, no longer seeing any point in continuing resolved to their awaiting fate. As they begin to break up, the band’s leader begins to play Nearer My God to Thee on his violin. The rest of the band joins in, the bass player sings. The full weight of the tragedy is evident as Captain Smith retires to the bridge, just before it is consumed by the cold Atlantic, Lightoller and other members of the crew struggle to free two collapsible lifeboats before it’s too late, the helplessness of the people in the lifeboats, listening over the calm ocean, and the people left behind. It’s the scene that makes me the saddest.

There is so much to the story. The class struggle as Third-Class passengers are denied access through Second- and First-Class sections of the ship, based solely on the fact they are Third Class, and preventing them from a means of escape. They are continually looked down upon as the ship dips deeper and deeper into the sea. Societies elite put upon by the inconvenience of the ship sinking even though almost all of them are granted access to the lifeboats. There is sacrifice among the First Class however, Mrs. Isidor Strauss refuses to leave her husband, Mr. Benjamin Guggenheim who dresses in his finest in order to go down like a gentleman, and of course the already mentioned father saying goodbye to his son.

Cowardice rears its ugly head when men are caught disguising themselves as women to get into the lifeboats. And the infamous decision of White Star Line Chairman J. Bruce Ismay (Frank Lawton) to quietly step into a lifeboat in front of one of the ships officers. A move that would prove to haunt Ismay for the rest of his life. And Quartermaster Hitchens, the man at the wheel when Titanic strikes the ice berg, now in command of a lifeboat refusing to lift a finger to help any possible survivors.

Over two thousand people from every walk of life on one doomed ocean liner and practically every humane and inhumane act is committed in a span of two hours and forty minutes, and I haven’t even mentioned the actions of the nearby S.S. Californian. That I may have to leave that for another day, as that part of the story is still shrouded in controversy.

A Night to Remember doesn’t shy away from human failings, and by not using fictional characters, brings us the most realistic depiction of human strength and weakness found within history’s most fascinating disaster at sea. The story of the Titanic isn’t just the story of its passengers and crew, in an unusual way it is a story about us and our society. Just turn on the news.

A Night to Remember is available on DVD and Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection.