Titanic (1953)

I just saw this film again. The only other time I saw it was probably 40 years ago on "Saturday Night at the Movies," when it made a powerful impression. It still does, in part thanks to the marvelous acting of Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck, who looks particularly lovely in this movie. They and their young son and daughter are the focus of the story. Both wonderful actors, if they seem an unlikely couple at first, you probably won't think so by the end of the movie, they are so superb.

In this version, Stanwyck is actually leaving her husband (Webb), unbeknownst to him, but when he realizes what's happening, he bribes the father in a lower class for his ticket. Webb is a social climbing, superficial man, and his American wife wants more for her kids than snobbery, arranged marriages, and a series of hotels instead of a home, so she is going back to her family with the children. What happens to Webb and Stanwyck's relationship during the voyage is powerful, touching - and, alas, too late.

While on board, a young, gorgeous Robert Wagner plays a college student suitor to the daughter, played by Audrey Dalton. Webb's last scene with Stanwyck will leave you in tears, and if it doesn't, there's also the poignant scene on deck with his son, Norman, which is beautiful.

I don't pretend to be an expert on the Titanic - however, I know a little more than a friend at work who, announcing she was seeing the Cameron version when it first came out, said, "Don't tell me how it ends." I realize that the Fox script drew a good deal of information from the navigation reports of the ship; however, I saw a documentary which showed footage of this film while it demonstrated that in this telling, the underwater scene shows the iceberg hitting on the wrong side.

I have also seen "A Night to Remember," which I also remember as being a very emotional experience. Perhaps it's the story that tugs at our hearts, or the site of that huge vessel sliding beneath the surface. Whatever it is, this is a truly engrossing and heartwrenching film.

Fmovies: What a surprise to see this 1953 sinking of the Titanic after the long and expensive James Cameron version. To say that Jean Negulesco's version is better is saying only half of it. In fact it is much, much better. The whole story told in half the time with a scrumptious script by Charles Brackett and Walter Reisch and superb performances by Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb. The 1953 special effects are as effective as anything in Cameron's film but, I believe, that the secret of the older version is that the heart and mind of the filmmakers were on the human drama and the effects came to be part of it and not its center. It was also a time when stories were told thinking of an adult audience. The poignancy of of the tale is thought out by thinking people for thinking people. In the modern version, Leo teaches Kate how to spit, remember? Just look in Negulesco's version the power of the unfolding. Two disasters, one natural, irreversible, the other, human with unexpected twists and turns. Thelma Ritter plays Molly Brown with extraordinary little touches. Look at her eyes when she witnesses Webb shabby treatment of his son. Young and gorgeous Robert Wagner is a delightful plus. I advise you to rent it, you'll be amazed.

While I saw and enjoyed the current "Titanic," I've always held a special place for the excellent 1953 version. Charles Brackett and Walter Reisch's Oscar-winning screenplay, deftly blending fact with fancy, tells the story compellingly in about half the time of the Cameron film. And what a cast! Barbara Stanwyck, Clifton Webb, Richard Basehart, the young Robert Wagner (looking positively "DiCaprioesque," as it were!), the (unfortunately) near-forgotten Brian Aherne, and the underrated Audrey Dalton all give sterling performances. The special effects are equal to anything in the Cameron film. And it all comes together under Jean Negulesco's sure-footed direction. As I say, you've seen the Cameron film, now see the film where they got it right!

To update these comments almost seven years after they were originally written, the DVD of this film is definitely one for any Titanic buff to have in their collection. It features TWO separate commentary tracks, one by critic Richard Schickel and stars Robert Wagner and Audrey Dalton, the other by Titanic historians. There is also the original theatrical trailer and newsreel footage of the film's premiere and Oscar wins. Most impressive of all, though, is a fascinating feature-length documentary, narrated by Victor Garber (ship-builder Thomas Andrews in the Cameron/DiCaprio film), about the sinking of the Titanic and how's it's been presented in films and on TV from the silent era to the present. All this on one DVD.

Titanic fmovies. Titanic (1953)

Visually stunning and with very few special effects

It's hard to be any other Titanic movie than the whopping colossus of 1990s, but once upon a time the best movie about the event was A Night to Remember (and still is in many of our eyes). This is the first of three well-known American versions (there are a number of others, including a slew after Cameron's 1997 Titanic). The 1953 movie not a classic, but it's interesting, with enough subtlety, drama, and really fine beauty to hold it up. For one thing, the photography by Joe MacDonald is stunning, rich and filled with light and shadow without being distracting. Director Jean Negulesco draws out the beauty of the ship less with details than with ambiance. A whole slew of great actors are included, namely Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb. And it clips along in well under two hours, so never flags.

While the story details are largely fiction, the basic framework is of course not. And this bears on how you watch. At the start, for example, when the snotty Webb character Sturges convinces (for selfish reasons, of course) an idealistic young immigrant couple to separate, leaving one of them ashore, we know they might never see each other again. The impending doom of the ship appears again and again in little ways, and it's a fabulous backdrop for drama, if a tragic one.

For awhile, the plot seems almost inconsequential, with the usual upper crust intrigues, sophistication going awry, glimpses of human feelings here and there (the defrocked priest is an untapped resource). If Webb is his usual brilliantly annoying (and amusing) stuffiness, Stanwyck is stately to the point of iciness, no pun there. If her upper crust poise is real, it's also not so interesting, though she does melt a bit by the end. Thelma Ritter is Thelma Ritter, wonderful and purposeful (a counterpoint to the others). There is partying and cardplaying and bickering, the usual cruise ship socializing. There is some singing by a collegiate male choir that is hard to stomach, but it might have been reasonable for the time. And there are iceberg reports, inobvious warnings of trouble. We wait for the event, and then everything tips toward survival, toward reevaluation. The first hour before the iceberg justifies itself in the thirty minutes when all hell breaks loose.

There is little romance, cloying or otherwise, and almost no laboring over the unfair deaths of those in steerage. In fact, if there's a retrospective flaw to the film, it's that it had no qualms telling the story only about the rich, and of their oblivious separateness, and of the false security implied by ponderous wealth.

If you are a true fan of Cameron's Titanic and you really enjoyed the astonishing special effects in it, you might find this tame and stiff and unbearable. If you loved A Night to Remember this one is a good comparison, and if obviously weaker, still an interesting film and visually powerful.

Just a precaution: If you are expecting a completely accurate historical account of the night with all the scientific details neatly in place, look elsewhere. This film instead focuses (touchingly) on the human drama involved with the ship, with many of the elements of real passengers' accounts rolled into the story of Clifton Webb and wife Barbara Stanwyck (Both excellent; when Isn't Barbara Stanwyck excellent?) and their children. A few real characters are involved, but for the most part the drama surrounding the fictional characters is in the forefront. A beautiful and striking account, the film deserved a few more Oscars than it got, primarily for Miss Stanwyck and a supporting Oscar for Robert Wagner, who does wonderfully in his role.

This film has been overshadowed by the 1997 blockbuster, but this 1953 story of the tragic ocean liner certainly stands tall on its own merits, not the least of which are the star performances by Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck.

Built around the domestic drama of a fictional family, the well-known story of the sinking of the Titanic unfolds in an unrelenting and straightforward fashion. Brian Aherne (as the captain) is the victim of delayed and incorrect information and sails the ship right into the iceberg. We get glimpses of the rich and famous who populated the doomed ship as well as the luscious interiors of the ship.

The special effects are tremendous without taking over the film. The final scenes of the sinking ship are awesome. But the story of innocent passengers takes center stage here. Stanwyck and Webb are a squabbling couple with two children. The girl (Audrey Dalton) is a snob who is charmed by a college boy (Robert Wagner). Thelma Ritter plays a Molly Brown- like character addicted to loud jewelry and cards. Richard Basehart plays a defrocked priest. Allyn Joslyn plays the infamous coward who dresses like a woman to gain a seat on a lifeboat. Oh, and that's Mae Marsh the kid gives his seat to.

The final scenes of Webb and son are superb. An excellent film.