Titanic (1953)

Titanic (1953)
film poster
Directed by	Jean Negulesco
Produced by	Charles Brackett
Written by	Charles Brackett Richard L. Breen Walter Reisch
Starring	Clifton Webb Barbara Stanwyck Robert Wagner Audrey Dalton Harper Carter Thelma Ritter Brian Aherne Richard Basehart
Music by	Sol Kaplan
Cinematography	Joseph MacDonald
Edited by	Louis R. Loeffler
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Running time	98 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$1,805,000
Box office	$2,250,000 (US)

Titanic is a 1953 American drama film directed by Jean Negulesco. Its plot centers on an estranged couple sailing on the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic, which took place in April 1912.

Plot

At the last minute Richard Sturges (Clifton Webb) buys a steerage-class ticket for the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic from a Basque immigrant. Once aboard he seeks out his runaway wife, Julia (Barbara Stanwyck). He discovers she is trying to take their two unsuspecting children, 18-year-old Annette (Audrey Dalton) and ten-year-old Norman (Harper Carter), to her hometown of Mackinac, Michigan, to raise as down-to-earth Americans rather than rootless elitists like Richard himself.

As the ship prepares for departure, her captain, E. J. Smith (Brian Aherne), receives a hint from the shipping company representative that a record-setting speedy passage would be welcomed.

Other passengers include a wealthy woman of working-class origins based on Molly Brown, Maude Young (Thelma Ritter); social-climbing Earl Meeker (Allyn Joslyn); a 20-year-old Purdue University tennis player, Gifford "Giff" Rogers (Robert Wagner); and George S. Healey (Richard Basehart), a Catholic priest who has been defrocked for alcoholism.

When Annette learns her mother's intentions, she insists on returning to Europe with her father. Julia concedes that her daughter is old enough to make her own decisions, but she insists on keeping custody of Norman. This angers Richard, forcing Julia to reveal that Norman is not his child, but rather the result of a one-night stand after one of their many bitter arguments. Upon hearing that, he agrees to give up all claim to Norman. Richard joins Maude, Earl, and George Widener in the lounge to play contract bridge with them. The next morning, when Norman reminds Richard about a shuffleboard game they had scheduled, Richard coldly brushes him off.

Meanwhile Giff falls for Annette at first glance. At first she repulses his brash attempts to become better acquainted, but eventually she warms to him. That night, Giff, Annette, and a group of young people sing and play the piano in the dining room, while Captain Smith watches from a corner table.

Second Officer Lightoller (uncredited Edmund Purdom) expresses his concern to Captain Smith about the ship's speed when they receive two messages from other ships warning of iceberg sightings near their route. Smith, however, assures him that there is no danger.

That night, however, a lookout spots an iceberg dead ahead. Although the crew tries to steer clear of danger, the ship is gashed below the waterline and begins taking on water. When Richard finds the captain, he insists on being told the truth: the ship is doomed. He tells his family to dress warmly but properly; then they head outside.

Richard and Julia have a tearful reconciliation on the boat deck, as he places Julia and the children into a lifeboat. Unnoticed by Julia, Norman gives up his seat to an older woman and goes looking for his nominal father. When one of the lines becomes tangled, preventing the lifeboat from being lowered, Giff climbs down and fixes the problem, only to lose his grip and fall into the water. His unconscious body is dragged into the boat.

Meeker disguises himself as a woman to get aboard a lifeboat. Young notices his shoes and unmasks him in front of the others in the lifeboat. At the other end of the spectrum, George Healey heads down into one of the boiler rooms to comfort trapped crewmen.

As the Titanic is in her final moments, Norman and Richard find each other. Richard tells a passing steward that Norman is his "son" and then tells the boy that he has been proud of him every day of his life, never so much as in that moment. Then they join the rest of the doomed passengers and the crew in singing the hymn "Nearer, My God, to Thee". The Titanic's bow plunges, forcing her stern high in the air, then the ship rapidly slides into the icy water.

Cast

• Clifton Webb as Richard Ward Sturges
• Barbara Stanwyck as Julia Sturges
• Robert Wagner as Gifford "Giff" Rogers
• Audrey Dalton as Annette Sturges
• Thelma Ritter as Maude Young
• Brian Aherne as Capt. E. J. Smith
• Richard Basehart as George S. Healey
• Allyn Joslyn as Earl Meeker
• James Todd as Sandy Comstock
• Frances Bergen as Madeleine Astor
• William Johnstone as John Jacob Astor IV
• Harper Carter as Norman Sturges (uncredited)
• Edmund Purdom as Second Officer Charles Lightoller (uncredited)
• Mae Marsh as Woman to whom Norman gives his seat (uncredited)

Historical inaccuracies

During the film, many inaccuracies occur:

• There was no horn section in Titanic's band.
• Several times throughout the film first class passengers are seen dancing in the first class dining saloon. The Titanic did not have a dance floor at all aboard ship and in addition public dancing would have been viewed as inappropriate among the middle and upper classes in 1912.
• The interiors of the Titanic in the film are highly inaccurate as opposed to the real ship.
• Many hairdos and outfits in the film reflect that of the 1950s rather than 1912.
• Madeline Astor, as played by Frances Bergen, is portrayed as a blond buxom woman in her late twenties or early thirties. In reality Madeline Astor was just barely eighteen years old when she married John Jacob Astor, and was a rather slender brunette.
• The boilers on Titanic did not explode, but in the film they do several times.
• The Titanic was not booked solid as stated in the film, she was just over half-full for her maiden voyage.
• A general alarm, consisting of a siren and a public address system, is portrayed as informing the passengers about the collision. No such system, though, existed on the Titanic; passengers in all three classes were informed about the sinking through stewards knocking on their cabin doors.
• Crewmembers on the Titanic did not wear British Navy uniforms.
• The film portrays a man named Harold Sanderson as the chairmen of the White Star Line who disembarks in Cherbourg, France before the ships heads for the open Atlantic. Harold Sanderson was indeed a senior official with the White Star Line in 1912, however, he was not company chairmen. In reality J. Bruce Ismay was the actual White Star chairmen and did sail on the ship. However, he was omitted from the film altogether.
• The ship is portrayed as heading for the open Atlantic after its port of call at Cherbourg. In reality the ship recrossed the English Channel to make a port of call at Queenstown, Ireland before heading for New York.
• The passengers did not stand up on deck and sing a chorus of Nearer My God To Thee. It is disputed whether the band played it on their instruments, but passengers were all rushing about. No one stood and sang.
• People are seen easily pulling a small raft down from the roof of the officers' quarters. The collapsible life boats stored there were quite unwieldy, having boat-like lower hulls and having room for 47 passengers each.
• At the beginning, a steward asks about the Astor cabin. They say it is A-54. There was no A-54, only A1-A37, and the Astors' cabin was C62-64, a deluxe parlor suite.
• When the ship is going under you can see the ensign on the stern flagstaff. The ensign was only flown during daylight hours.
• Supposedly the Sturges family comes from Mackinac, Michigan; however, they all pronounce the name of the place incorrectly. It should be pronounced "Mak-i-naw" not "Mak-i-nak".
• Right at the start of the film a valley glacier iceberg is shown splitting away and falling into the sea. The Titanic was hit by an Arctic iceberg, carried by the Gulf Stream southward during the summer when the frozen edge of the Arctic Ocean started to melt.
• The stern of the Titanic rose while it sank. It didn't reach 30 degrees at the very end, it reached 30 degrees a reported 10 minutes before it broke in two and then made its final plunge.
• The ice warning first received was not delivered to the bridge.
• There was no shuffleboard on RMS Titanic nor did the ship have its own tailor shop. Additionally the ship is portrayed as having a traditional type of bar were passengers would come to get drinks. In reality passengers on the ship would order drinks through waiters and stewards who would then deliver them to the passengers.
• None of the First or Second Class children died in the sinking, except for Loraine Allison, who stayed on deck with her parents.
• The Titanic did not hit the iceberg on its port side.
• At least the No. 4 funnel fell as the ship made her final plunge.
• The watertight doors on Titanic did not slide horizontally.
• At least one collapsible lifeboat was not launched before Titanic sank, but was floated off, upside down, allowing Lightoller and others to survive. The film incorrectly shows them all having been successfully launched.
• The Titanic is shown sinking with lights in her portholes. In reality the electrical power failed a few seconds before she went down.
• The film narrative states that 712 people in 19 lifeboats survived. The ship, however, was equipped with 20 boats all of which were utilized during the sinking.
• At one point, a World War II-era lifeboat is seen being launched into the water.
• The Titanic did not sink as quickly as shown in the film but rather took as much as ten minutes to make her final plunge into the Atlantic..
• The film shows men being effectively prevented from getting in lifeboats, thus leading to only few men surviving. In reality on the night of the sinking men were indeed prevented from entering port side lifeboats, however, officers loading the starboard boats were allowing men in them if no more women were willing to go, thus leading to a more significant number of male passengers surviving than the film portrays.
• The 'crow's-nest' where crew looking out for possible obstructions or threats to the ship, such as icebergs, was not mounted to the forward funnel as depicted in the film. It was actually partway up the foremast.
• In the scene just before the ship strikes the iceberg, a photo of RMS Queen Mary can be seen behind Edmund Purdom, The Queen Mary had not been built at the time of the Titanic.
• The lifejackets are 1950's style when in the real disaster they were long, skinny, 1900's style lifejackets.
• The elaborate brass dome of the Grand Staircase is missing, and the one shown in the film is a more modern version of a staircase.
• When the iceberg is first sighted, the officer of the deck says 'Hard a starboard!'. This appears to be an error, but is not. In British ships of that era, rudder orders were given in the direction the officer conning the ship wanted the rudder to move, not the bow. By putting the rudder hard a-starboard, the bow would swing to the left, as was shown in the film.

Production

Charles Brackett, who co-wrote and produced the film, told the press that some of the stories had to be discarded, "because they are too fantastic for movie audiences to believe. In a September 1952 news article, it was reported that Terry Moore was set to play the role of Annette Sturges, on condition that she would finish production of Man on a Tightrope on time.

Reception

According to the film aggregator website, Rotten Tomatoes, Titanic holds an 88% "Fresh" rating, based on 8 reviews.

Variety Magazine reviewed the film positively stating, "but by the time the initial 45 or 50 minutes are out of the way, the impending disaster begins to take a firm grip on the imagination and builds a compelling expectancy."

Awards and nominations

Titanic won the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Art Direction. The film was also nominated for the Directors Guild of America Award.

Remake

See Titanic (1997)

External links

• Titanic at IMDb
• Titanic at All Movie Guide
• Titanic (1953) at the TCM Movie Database
• Titanic at Rotten Tomatoes

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