Titanic | |
---|---|
Written by | Ross LaManna Joyce Eliason |
Directed by | Robert Lieberman |
Starring | Peter Gallagher George C. Scott Catherine Zeta-Jones Eva Marie Saint Tim Curry Harley Jane Kozak Marilu Henner |
Music by | Lennie Niehaus |
Country of origin | Canada United States |
Original language | English |
Production | |
Producers | Harold Lee Tichenor Rocky Lang |
Cinematography | David Hennings |
Editor | Tod Feuerman |
Running time | 173 minutes |
Budget | $13 million [1] |
Original release | |
Network | CBS |
Release | November 17 – November 19, 1996 |
Titanic is a 1996 American two-part television miniseries which premiered on CBS on November 17 and 19, 1996. [2] It focuses on several characters aboard the RMS Titanic during her maiden voyage in 1912. The miniseries was directed by Robert Lieberman. The original music score was composed by Lennie Niehaus.
Titanic follows three main story threads.
Isabella Paradine is traveling on the Titanic to join her husband after attending her aunt's funeral in the United Kingdom. On the Titanic, she meets Wynn Park, her former lover. She falls in love with him again, and after a brief affair, she sends her husband a wireless saying they cannot be together anymore (despite their daughter). When the ship starts sinking, Isabella reluctantly leaves Wynn when he forces her to board a lifeboat. As the boat is lowered, Isabella confesses a long kept secret that her daughter Claire is actually Wynn's. Later on board the RMS Carpathia she is grief-stricken when she finds Wynn's lifeless body on deck, having died of hypothermia, but luckily, when the Carpathia reaches New York City she is reunited with her family who are blissfully unaware of Isabella's tryst because the telegram was never sent out due to the sinking.
Also in first class is the Allison family, a family travelling on the Titanic, returning home to Montreal with their two small children and new nurse, Alice Cleaver. They gradually become wary and suspicious of her hysterical and neurotic behavior. Later on, a fellow maid asks her if she'd seen her in Cairo the previous month, but soon realizes that she remembers her from the highly publicized trial where Alice was accused of throwing her baby off a train. When the Titanic starts sinking, Alice Cleaver panics and quickly boards a lifeboat with Trevor, the Allisons' infant son. The parents with their small daughter are unaware that the baby is safe and refuse to leave the ship without him, which in the end costs them their lives.
In third class, a young vagrant named Jamie Perse steals a ticket to get on board. He manages to become friends with one of the crewmen, Simon Doonan, who is also a robber, but later is revealed to be a much more violent and callous criminal than Jamie. The young man falls in love with Aase (pronounced "Osa") Ludvigsen, a recent Christian convert and missionary. On the night of the sinking, Aase is brutally raped and beaten by Doonan, causing her to lose her faith and will to live, but Jamie manages to get her into Isabella's boat. Unbeknownst to them, Doonan also sneaks aboard that same boat, disguised as an old woman. After the ship sinks, Aase is knocked off the lifeboat by Doonan after she recognizes him, and he attempts to hold the passengers in the boat hostage at gunpoint, but Officer Lowe, who is in charge of the boat, hits Doonan in the head with an oar, snapping his neck and killing him. Jamie himself manages to survive when he accidentally falls into one of the last lifeboats before the Titanic sinks. He subsequently atones for his past life after he finds Aase in the makeshift hospital aboard the Carpathia. In the end, upon arriving in New York City, the two plan to start a new life together.
Actor | Role |
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Peter Gallagher | Wynn Park |
George C. Scott | Captain Edward J. Smith |
Catherine Zeta-Jones | Isabella Paradine |
Eva Marie Saint | Hazel Foley |
Tim Curry | Simon Doonan |
Roger Rees | J. Bruce Ismay |
Harley Jane Kozak | Bess Allison |
Marilu Henner | Margaret "Molly" Brown |
Mike Doyle | Jamie Perse |
Sonsee Ahray | Aase Ludvigsen |
Felicity Waterman | Alice Cleaver |
Malcolm Stewart | First Officer William Murdoch |
Kevin McNulty | Second Officer Charles Lightoller |
Kavan Smith | Fifth Officer Harold Lowe |
Terence Kelly | Captain Arthur Rostron |
Scott Hylands | John Jacob Astor IV |
Janne Mortil | Madeleine Astor |
Tamsin Kelsey | Clarinda Jack |
Eric Keenleyside | "Black" Billy Jack |
Katharine Isabelle | Ophelia Jack (as Katherine Isobel) |
Kevin Conway | Hudson J. Allison |
Barry Pepper | Assistant Marconi Operator Harold Bride |
Gina Christodoulou | Dancer |
Matthew Walker | Captain Stanley Lord |
Byron Lucas | Lookout Frederick Fleet |
The New York Daily News commented on the fact that the acting was substandard and the ship's operators and owner are portrayed "about as sympathetically as those connected with the Exxon Valdez." [3] The Seattle Post-Intelligencer also referenced the "embarrassingly bad acting" and out of place scenes. [4]
Titanic received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Drama Miniseries or a Special. It was also nominated for Outstanding Costume Design for a Miniseries or a Special.
Year | Category | Nominee(s) | Result |
---|---|---|---|
1997 | Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Drama Miniseries or a Special | David Husby, David E. Fluhr, Adam Jenkins, Don Digirolamo for part 1 | Won |
Outstanding Costume Design for a Miniseries or a Special | Joe I. Tompkins, Jori Woodman | Nominated |
John George "Jack" Phillips was a British sailor and the senior wireless operator aboard the Titanic during her ill-fated maiden voyage in April 1912.
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.
Madeleine Talmage Dick was an American socialite and a survivor of the RMS Titanic. She was the second wife and widow of businessman John Jacob Astor IV.
Lillian Gertrud Asplund was an American secretarial worker who was one of the last three living survivors of the sinking of RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912, and the last living survivor with memories of the disaster.
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.
Robert Hichens was a British sailor who was part of the deck crew on board the RMS Titanic when she sank on her maiden voyage on 15 April 1912. He was one of seven quartermasters on board the vessel and was at the ship's wheel when the Titanic struck the iceberg. He was in charge of Lifeboat #6, where he refused to return to rescue people from the water due to fear of the boat being sucked into the ocean with the huge suction created by Titanic, or swamped by other floating passengers. According to several accounts of those on the boat, including Margaret Brown, who argued with him throughout the early morning, Lifeboat 6 did not return to save other passengers from the waters. In 1906, he married Florence Mortimore in Devon, England; when he registered for duty aboard the Titanic, his listed address was in Southampton, where he lived with his wife and two children.
James Paul Moody was a British sailor, who served as Titanic's sixth officer. He died when the ship sank on her maiden voyage.
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.
Commander Joseph Groves Boxhall RD, RNR was the fourth officer on the RMS Titanic, and later served as a naval officer in World War I. Boxhall was the last surviving former officer of the Titanic.
Titanic: The Long Night is a 1998 romance novel by Diane Hoh. It is an entirely fictional story set aboard the Titanic.
Edith Eileen Haisman was a South African-British woman who was one of the last remaining and oldest survivors of the sinking of RMS Titanic in April 1912. She was the last survivor born in the 19th century, and therefore the last survivor who was a teenager at the time of the sinking, although seven younger survivors outlived her.
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.
The Allison family was a Canadian family of first-class passengers on board the RMS Titanic, which struck an iceberg and sank on 15 April 1912.
Joseph Philippe Lemercier Laroche was a Haitian engineer. He was one of only three passengers of known Haitian ancestry on the ill-fated voyage of RMS Titanic.
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.
Titanic Lifeboat No. 1 was a lifeboat from the steamship Titanic. It was the fifth boat launched to sea, over an hour after the liner collided with an iceberg and began sinking on 14 April 1912. With a capacity of 40 people, it was launched with only 12 aboard, the fewest to escape in any one boat that night.
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.
Dickinson H. Bishop was an American businessman who traveled on board the ill-fated maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic while on his honeymoon with bride Helen, née Walton. They both survived the sinking of the Titanic on 15 April 1912.
Frederick William Barrett was a British stoker. After having served as a stoker on several ships, on 6 April 1912, he was hired on board the RMS Titanic as lead stoker. On April 15, 1912, while the ship was sinking, Barrett boarded lifeboat No. 13 and took command of it, thus surviving the disaster. He later testified before commissions of inquiry into the sinking of the ship and continued to work in the navy until the 1920s. In 1923, after losing his wife Mary Anne Jones, he remained in Liverpool and worked ashore as a logger.
Alice Catherine Cleaver (1889–1984) was a survivor of the RMS Titanic and nursemaid for the Allison family, wealthy insurance moguls from Canada during the early 20th century. She is best known for rescuing the youngest Allison child, Hudson Trevor, from the Titanic. Little is known about her later life, as she refused to give interviews after surviving the shipwreck. She was the subject of books and movies that misidentified her as Alice Mary Cleaver, a woman who was infamous for murdering her own infant.