S.O.S. Titanic | |
---|---|
Genre | Drama History |
Written by | James Costigan |
Directed by | William Hale |
Starring | David Janssen Cloris Leachman Susan Saint James David Warner Ian Holm Helen Mirren Harry Andrews Beverly Ross |
Music by | Howard Blake |
Country of origin | United States/ United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
Production | |
Executive producer | Roger Gimbel |
Producer | Lou Morheim |
Production locations | RMS Queen Mary - 1126 Queens Highway, Long Beach, California Shepperton Studios, Shepperton, Surrey, England The Waldorf Hotel, Aldwych, Strand, London, England |
Cinematography | Christopher Challis |
Editor | Rusty Coppleman |
Running time | Unedited U.S. TV version 144 min. Edited European theatrical version 103 min. |
Production company | EMI Films |
Budget | $5 million [1] 1979 $dollars |
Original release | |
Network | ABC |
Release | September 23, 1979 |
S.O.S. Titanic is a 1979 drama disaster television movie that depicts the doomed 1912 maiden voyage from the perspective of three distinct groups of passengers in first, second and third class. The script was written by James Costigan and directed by William Hale (credited as Billy Hale). It is the first Titanic film to be filmed and released in colour.
First class passengers include a May–December couple, multi-millionaire John Jacob Astor IV (David Janssen) and his new wife Madeleine Talmage Force (Beverly Ross); their friend, Molly Brown (Cloris Leachman); another pair of honeymooners, Daniel and Mary Marvin (Jerry Houser and Deborah Fallender); and Benjamin Guggenheim (John Moffatt), returning to his wife and children after a scandalous affair.
One plot line relates the tentative shipboard romance of two schoolteachers, Lawrence Beesley (David Warner, later appearing in the James Cameron 1997 film Titanic ) and the fictional Leigh Goodwin (Susan Saint James).
In steerage, the plot focuses on the experiences of eight Irish immigrants, who are first depicted approaching the ship from a tender in the harbor of Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland. These characters, all based on real people, include Katie Gilnagh (played by Shevaun Bryers), Kate Mullens, Mary Agatha Glynn, Bridget Bradley, Daniel Buckley, Jim Farrell, Martin Gallagher, and David Charters. During the voyage, Martin Gallagher falls for an unnamed "Irish beauty", played by Antoinette O'Reilly.
The cast also includes Helen Mirren in a small role (as Mary Sloan, a real-life surviving Titanic stewardess). [2]
This section possibly contains original research .(September 2023) |
One of the film's major themes is class distinctions. Second class passengers Beesley and Goodwin discuss their ambiguous position "in the middle" and debate whether class distinctions are uniquely British. Goodwin briefly encourages Beesley to pursue his apparent attraction to a young Irish beauty in third class, but he rejects this advice. The third class passengers, mostly from poor backgrounds, do not show any resentment at their meager accommodation—Katie Gilnagh comments that sleeping four-to-a-room is far more comfortable than the situation she experienced in her overcrowded childhood home—but on the night of the sinking, they struggle to evade the efforts of ship's personnel to keep them below decks and away from the lifeboats. Led by Jim Farrell, they successfully sneak up to the first class restaurant, where Farrell persuades the master-at-arms to allow the women—but only the women—to pass up to the boat deck.
Another major theme is the happy, hectic atmosphere aboard ship. Young Mary Marvin comments that many of the first class passengers are honeymooners, and that she does not want to land, but simply to go on sailing and dancing forever. In much simpler surroundings, the third class passengers also engage in music, dancing, winning, and whirlwind romances. Meanwhile, Beesley and Goodwin toy with the possibility of embarking on an illicit affair in an empty cabin but decide not to. Goodwin comments that shipboard romances, like shipboard friendships, are meant to end with the voyage.
A third theme is who deserved, or accepted, responsibility for the wrecking of the RMS Titanic. Captain Edward Smith, a veteran White Star captain nearing retirement, is depicted as a masterful leader who nevertheless failed to slow down in spite of being well aware that he was traveling into ice-laden waters. Shipbuilder Thomas Andrews radiates an almost saintly quality, seeing to the final details of construction and repairs himself, tenderly looking after passengers and crew, and even conversing with a young stewardess about their common hometown of Belfast. He fully understands the implications of the collision, and his knowledge that he cannot save the ship clearly breaks his heart. Meanwhile, White Star Line director J. Bruce Ismay wavers between a stance of command and an unwillingness to take responsibility for the sinking. Identifying himself as a passenger, he defiantly boards a lifeboat, only to experience a nervous breakdown later aboard the R.M.S. Carpathia rescuing ship. Ismay is the only one of these three men who survives, and it is clear that he will never fully recover from the psychological effects and blow to his reputation from the fabled sinking.
This section possibly contains original research .(September 2023) |
The film includes roles on the RMS Carpathia (particularly the radio operator, Harold Cottam) and shows this ship more fully than other film versions. It shows survivors boarding the Carpathia. The seascape is shown heavy with ice floes.
During Titanic's sinking, rather than the sacred "Nearer, My God, to Thee", the ship band plays contemporary secular ragtime tunes. Howard Blake's soundtrack makes especially affecting use of the ragtime waltz "Bethena" by Scott Joplin.
Survivors discuss the silence of the disappearance of the ship and absence of screaming. Several philosophise regarding their losses.
The film was greenlit by Bernard Delfont of EMI Films, at the same time as Delfont's brother, Sir Lew Grade, was making a film based on Raise the Titanic . [3]
Producer William Filmore called it the "thinking man's disaster film". [4]
Several of the scenes on the exterior decks, as well as those in the ship's wheelhouse, were filmed on board the later British ocean liner from the 1930s, the retired RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach, California. [4]
Some interior scenes were filmed at the Waldorf and Adelphi historic hotels in London and Liverpool, respectively. The town of Peel on the Isle of Man served as the Queenstown backdrop. Some external shots were filmed aboard, and of, the TSS Manxman which also appears as the R.M.S. Carpathia in some of the opening sequences and as the R.M.S. Titanic in a few shipboard scenes.[ citation needed ]
Harold Sydney Bride was a British merchant seaman and the junior wireless officer on the ocean liner RMS Titanic during her ill-fated maiden voyage.
Violet Constance Jessop was an Irish-Argentine ocean liner stewardess and nurse in the early 20th century. Jessop is best known for having survived the sinking of both RMS Titanic in 1912 and her sister ship HMHS Britannic in 1916, as well as having been aboard the eldest of the three sister ships, RMS Olympic, when it collided with the British warship HMS Hawke in 1911.
Titanic is a 1953 American drama film directed by Jean Negulesco, and starring Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck. It centers on an estranged couple and other fictional passengers on the ill-fated maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic, which took place in April 1912.
Joseph Bruce Ismay was an English businessman who served as chairman and managing director of the White Star Line. In 1912, he came to international attention as the highest-ranking White Star official to survive the sinking of the company's new flagship RMS Titanic, for which he was subject to severe criticism.
Titanic is a 1943 German propaganda film made during World War II in Berlin by Tobis Productions for UFA, depicting the catastrophic sinking of RMS Titanic in 1912. This was the third German language dramatization of the event, following a silent film released in 1912 just four months after the sinking and the British produced German film Atlantik released in 1929.
Commander Harold Godfrey Lowe, RD was a Welsh naval officer. He was also the fifth officer of the RMS Titanic, and was amongst the four of the ship's officers to survive the disaster.
A Night to Remember is a 1958 British historical disaster docudrama film based on the eponymous 1955 book by Walter Lord. The film and book recount the final night of RMS Titanic, which sank on her maiden voyage after she struck an iceberg in 1912. Adapted by Eric Ambler and directed by Roy Ward Baker, the film stars Kenneth More as the ship's Second Officer Charles Lightoller and features Michael Goodliffe, Laurence Naismith, Kenneth Griffith, David McCallum and Tucker McGuire. It was filmed in the United Kingdom and tells the story of the sinking, portraying the main incidents and players in a documentary-style fashion with considerable attention to detail. The production team, supervised by producer William MacQuitty used blueprints of the ship to create authentic sets, while Fourth Officer Joseph Boxhall and ex-Cunard Commodore Harry Grattidge worked as technical advisors on the film. Its estimated budget of up to £600,000 was exceptional and made it the most expensive film ever made in Britain up to that time. The film's score was written by William Alwyn.
Harold Thomas Cottam was a British wireless operator on the RMS Carpathia who fortuitously happened to receive the distress call from the sinking RMS Titanic on 15 April 1912. Cottam's decision to awaken Captain Arthur Henry Rostron and relay Titanic's message in spite of the scepticism of the officer on watch allowed Carpathia to arrive at the scene hours before any other ship and is "credited with saving hundreds of lives." He was a personal friend of the Titanic's wireless operators Harold Bride and Jack Phillips.
The Titanic has played a prominent role in popular culture since her sinking in 1912, with the loss of over 1,500 of the 2,200 lives on board. The disaster and the Titanic herself have been objects of public fascination for many years. They have inspired numerous books, plays, films, songs, poems, and works of art. The story has been interpreted in many overlapping ways, including as a symbol of technological hubris, as basis for fail-safe improvements, as a classic disaster tale, as an indictment of the class divisions of the time, and as romantic tragedies with personal heroism. It has inspired many moral, social and political metaphors and is regularly invoked as a cautionary tale of the limitations of modernity and ambition.
Lawrence Beesley was an English science teacher, journalist and author who was a survivor of the sinking of RMS Titanic.
RMS Titanic sank on 15 April 1912 in the North Atlantic Ocean. The largest ocean liner in service at the time, Titanic was four days into her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City, with an estimated 2,224 people on board when she struck an iceberg at 23:40 on 14 April. Her sinking two hours and forty minutes later at 02:20 ship's time on 15 April resulted in the deaths of more than 1,500 people, making it one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history.
A total of 2,240 people sailed on the maiden voyage of the Titanic, the second of the White Star Line's Olympic-class ocean liners, from Southampton, England, to New York City. Partway through the voyage, the ship struck an iceberg and sank in the early morning of 15 April 1912, resulting in the deaths of 1,517 passengers and crew.
The crew of the Titanic were among the estimated 2,240 people who sailed on the maiden voyage of the second of the White Star Line's Olympic-class ocean liners, from Southampton, England, to New York City in the United States. Halfway through the voyage, the ship struck an iceberg and sank in the early morning of 15 April 1912, resulting in the deaths of over 1,500 people, including approximately 688 crew members.
RMS Titanic was a British ocean liner that sank on 15 April 1912 as a result of striking an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York City, United States. Of the estimated 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, 1,496 died, making the incident one of the deadliest peacetime sinkings of a single ship. Titanic, operated by the White Star Line, carried some of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as hundreds of emigrants from the British Isles, Scandinavia, and elsewhere in Europe who were seeking a new life in the United States and Canada. The disaster drew public attention, spurred major changes in maritime safety regulations, and inspired a lasting legacy in popular culture.
Titanic is a musical with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston and a book by Peter Stone. It is based on the story of the RMS Titanic which sank on its maiden voyage on April 15, 1912.
Titanic is a four-part television serial and period drama written by Julian Fellowes. It is based on the passenger liner RMS Titanic, which sank in the North Atlantic Ocean in April 1912 following a collision with an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City.
Lifeboats played a crucial role during the sinking of the Titanic on 14–15 April 1912. The ship had 20 lifeboats that, in total, could accommodate 1,178 people, a little over half of the 2,209 on board the night it sank.
Marian Longstreth Thayer was an American socialite and survivor of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. She was the wife of John Borland Thayer II, a Director and Second Vice President of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and the mother of John Borland "Jack" Thayer III. In 1912, all three of them, along with their maid Margaret Fleming, were passengers on RMS Titanic maiden voyage when it struck an iceberg and sank. Marian, Jack III, and Fleming all survived, but John II died.
"A Night to Remember" was an American television play broadcast live on March 28, 1956, as part of the NBC television series, Kraft Television Theatre. The play was based on Walter Lord's 1955 book, A Night to Remember, depicting the final night of the Titanic. George Roy Hill was the director.
William Ernest Carter was an American millionaire, polo player, and survivor of the RMSTitanic.