Titanic (1953 film)

Titanic is a 1953 American drama film directed by Jean Negulesco and starring Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck. Its plot follows an estranged couple and other fictional passengers on the ill-fated maiden voyage of the ship of the same name, which took place in April 1912.
The film was Twentieth Century-Fox's first about Titanic, and the studio would later release the 1997 film of the same title internationally while Paramount Pictures handled the North American distribution.
Richard Sturges, a wealthy expatriate in Europe, buys a third-class ticket for the maiden voyage of the Titanic from a Basque emigrant. Once aboard, he seeks his runaway wife Julia and discovers that she is trying to take their two unsuspecting children, 18-year-old Annette and 10-year-old Norman, to her hometown of Mackinac Island, Michigan to rear them as ordinary Americans rather than as privileged elitists in Europe. The passengers also include the wealthy Maude Young (based on real-life Titanic survivor Margaret Brown), social-climbing Earl Meeker, 20-year-old Purdue University tennis player Giff Rogers and George Healey, a Catholic priest who has been defrocked for alcoholism.
As the ship is prepared for departure, Sanderson, the company representative (based on J. Bruce Ismay), suggests to captain Edward J. Smith that a record-setting speedy passage would be welcomed. One night on the bridge, Captain Smith asks second cfficer Charles Lightoller about a note from first officer Murdoch about binoculars, and Lightoller explains that the ship has very few; just enough for the bridge, but none for the lookouts.
When Annette learns of Julia's intentions, she insists on returning to Europe with Richard on the next ship as soon as they reach America. Julia concedes that Annette is old enough to make her own decisions, but she insists on keeping custody of Norman. This angers Richard, forcing her to reveal that Norman is not his son, but rather the result of a brief dalliance after a bitter argument. Richard declares to make no claim to Norman and does not want to see him again.
Richard joins Maude, Earl and George Widener in the lounge to play auction bridge. The next morning, when Norman reminds him of a shuffleboard game that they had arranged, he coldly rebuffs him. Meanwhile, Giff falls for Annette at first glance. At first, she repulses his brash advances, but she eventually 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.
Lightoller 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. However, Smith assures him that there is no danger, as the sea is clear and the track is south of the reported icefield.
That night, the lookouts spot an iceberg dead ahead. The crew tries to steer clear of it, but it gashes the side of the bow below the waterline and water breaches the hull. When Richard finds Captain Smith, he insists on the truth, and Smith informs him that the ship is doomed and that there are not enough lifeboats to save everyone on board. Richard tells his family to dress warmly but properly, and they head outside.
Richard and Julia have a tearful reconciliation on the boat deck and he places her, along with Annette and Norman, into a lifeboat. Unnoticed by Julia, Norman volunteers to surrender his seat to an old woman and boards the ship to find Richard. When one of the lines becomes tangled, preventing the boat from being lowered, Giff climbs down and fixes it, only to lose his grip and fall into the water. Unconscious but alive, he is dragged onto the boat.
Meeker disguises himself as a woman to board a lifeboat, but Maude notices his shoes and unmasks him in front of the others. George Healey selflessly heads into grave danger in a boiler room to comfort injured crewmen.
As the Titanic is in her final moments, Norman finds Richard, who tells Norman that he has been proud of him every day of his life. They join the rest of the doomed passengers and crew in singing the hymn "Nearer, My God, to Thee". As the last boiler explodes, the Titanic's bow plunges, pivoting her stern high into the air while she rapidly slides into the icy water. As dawn approaches, the survivors are seen in the lifeboats, rowing aimlessly.
Walter Reisch recalled that studio head Darryl F. Zanuck summoned him and Charles Brackett and told them, "I have Clifton Webb under contract, and we have CinemaScope, and I now want to do something big. ... Don't make Clifton a clown. I want him to start a new career as a character actor. Use all the young people we have on the lot, like Audrey Dalton and Robert Wagner." In response, Reisch proposed the Titanic idea and pitched Webb as one of the 25 multimillionaires who died during the sinking of the ship. He said that the film would be "60 percent truth, completely documentary", based on real historical accounts. Reisch said that it was fellow writer Richard Breen who proposed the character of an alcoholic priest.
Brackett, who cowrote and produced the film, told the press that some of the stories were discarded "because they are too fantastic for movie audiences to believe". At one point, the film was to be titled Nearer My God to Thee.
Filming began in late October 1952 and wrapped in early December 1952.
The 28-foot model of the Titanic used for filming is currently on display at the Maritime Museum at Battleship Cove in Fall River, Massachusetts.
In a September 1952 news article, it was reported that Terry Moore was set to play the role of Annette Sturges if she could finish production of Man on a Tightrope on time.
Titanic contains many historical inaccuracies. For example, the voyage was not sold to capacity but was barely more than half-booked. Author Linda Koldau writes: "[...] the Titanic was far from being sold out and an additional passenger would easily have been able to purchase a first-class ticket...Yet if one accepts that historical accuracy is not the point here, since the story is not at all that of the Titanic, it is a perfectly functioning script".
Captain Smith was not awake at the time of the collision with the iceberg, as shown in the film, but he was awakened immediately thereafter and summoned to the bridge. Although the film correctly shows the ship striking the iceberg on the starboard side, an underwater shot shows the collision occurring on the port side.
In reality, the wireless message from the Caronia warning the Titanic of an iceberg ahead on the steamer track was never shown by wireless operator Jack Phillips to Captain Smith or to other officers, but in the film, Phillips delivers the message to Smith and first officer Charles Lightoller, who wonders whether the iceberg mentioned in the warning message is that of which they had been previously warned in a wireless message from the Baltic.
During the evacuation scenes, the ship's steam whistle and fire alarms are continually heard, but Titanic did not blow her whistle at all during the sinking, and no fire alarms were ringing.
In the film, the band plays "Londonderry Air" and "Nearer, My God, to Thee" from one of the ship's decks, but by most accounts, the band played lively music such as ragtime and waltzes from a lounge inside the ship.
The Carpathia had arrived at the scene at around 4:10 a.m. and started rescuing survivors before sunrise, but the film depicts the lifeboats filled to capacity and rowing briskly in daylight
In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic A. H. Weiler called Titanic "a sometimes moving and often exciting drama" with parallels to the Grand Hotel formula of multiple concurrent plotlines and wrote: "As a dramatization of an historic tragedy 'Titanic' is adult and restrained about fiction, heroism and history. ... While the destiny of the Titanic is a foregone conclusion known to many, a fact that robs the film of some suspense, director Jean Negulesco and his associates have generated a mounting tension through careful use of such facts as the need for more binoculars and the fouling up of wireless messages of icebergs ahead."
Reviewer Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times praised the "tremendously moving total impact of this extraordinary film" and Negulesco's "beautifully moderated direction" of "an inspired cast".
Variety reviewed the film positively, writing: "[B]y 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".
Pauline Kael panned the film's special effects, writing that "the actual sinking looks like a nautical tragedy on the pond in Central Park".
According to the film aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 92% "Fresh" rating, based on 10 reviews.
The film won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and was nominated for Best Art Direction. Negulesco's direction was nominated for a Directors Guild of America Award, and Stanwyck was nominated for a Golden Laurel Award for Top Female Dramatic Performance.