A TITANIC DISASTER

April 14 . .

Some days in history are loaded . . like April 14. In 1865, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. In 1881, Billy the Kid made his legendary escape from Lincoln County jail. And on this date in 1912, just before midnight, the world’s largest luxury cruise ship, the Titanic, struck an iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland while on her maiden voyage from England to New York. Within the next few hours, the Titanic sank to the bottom of the sea, taking with it over 1500 lives. Of the 2,340 passengers aboard, only 745 were saved. There were only enough lifeboats for half of the passengers and crew, and many of those left the decks of Titanic only half full.

Everyone’s seen James Cameron’s soggy, waterlogged epic Titanic (1998) – and I won’t try to dissuade you from seeing it again if that’s your choice. Just try not to notice what an ineptly-written script it has. Ignore such plot holes as the fact that the famous paintings shown as sinking on the Titanic can’t be in two places at once (the bottom of the ocean and hanging in a modern-day museum.)

Overlook the nonexistent chemistry between the two young stars, who together generate about as much heat as the massive iceberg that does the ship in. Try to ignore the stupid dialogue (Leonardo DiCaprio telling Kate Winslet, “I’ll wait for you here”, as he’s handcuffed to a pole!) and idiotic melodramatics (villain Billy Zane chasing DiCaprio and trying to shoot him while the ship is going down.)

Wave aside the fact that if Cameron had jettisoned the hokey love story and concentrated on virtually any one or more of the real life participants, he might have had something glorious. Well, I suppose he did wind up with something glorious: Titanic was a massive hit. But, as a movie, Titanic lives up to its name: It’s huge, full of bilge water, and takes about 3 hours to sink underneath the weight of its own hubris.

Can you tell I loathe this movie?

For a more emotionally satisfying experience, try watching the gripping British film, ‘A Night To Remember’ (1958), instead. Clocking in at just over 2 hours, it’s significantly more streamlined than Cameron’s elephantine epic, but infinitely more rewarding. What it lacks in majesty and special effects, ‘A Night To Remember’ more than makes up for in a literate, compelling, and (mostly) historically accurate storyline – focusing on the courage, humanity and despair of the voyagers – most of whom will never return. Screenwriter Eric Ambler did a magnificent job in adapting Walter Lord’s book of the same title. Featuring a very young David McCallum (later Illya Kuryakin on The Man From U.N.C.L.E.) as a heroic crew member.