A Night to Remember (1958 film)
A Night to Remember is a 1958 British docudrama film based on the eponymous 1955 book by Walter Lord. The film and book recount the final night of RMS "Titanic", which on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic and then sank in the early morning hours of Monday, 15 April 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 (who saw the original ship launched) 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 (£ adjusted for inflation ) was exceptional and made it the most expensive film ever made in Britain up  to that time. The World Premiere was on Thursday, 3 July 1958, at the Odeon Leicester Square. "Titanic" survivor Elizabeth Dowdell attended the American premiere in New York on Tuesday 16 December 1958. The film disappointed at the box office. However, it received critical acclaim and won the 1959 "Samuel Goldwyn International Award" for the UK at the Golden Globe Awards. The film has been described as "the definitive cinematic telling of the story." Among the many films about the "Titanic", "A Night to Remember" is regarded highly by "Titanic" historians and survivors for its accuracy, despite its modest production  values, compared with the Oscar-winning film "Titanic" (1997). Plot. In 1912, the luxurious "Titanic" is the largest vessel afloat and is widely believed to be unsinkable. Among the passengers boarding for her maiden voyage to New York are first class passengers Sir Richard and Lady Richard, second class passengers Mr. Clarke and Mrs. Clarke, a young newly wed couple, and steerage passengers Pat Murphy, Martin Gallagher and James Farrel. On 10 April, "Titanic" sails out from Southampton. On 14 April, in the Atlantic, the ship receives a number of ice warnings from other steamers. Only a few of  the messages are relayed to Captain Edward J. Smith, who orders a lookout. Later that night, the SS "Californian" spots float ice in the distance, and tries to send a message to the "Titanic". On the "Titanic", the steerage passengers enjoy their time at a party in Third Class where Murphy becomes attracted to a young Polish girl, and dances with her. In the wireless room, wireless operators Jack Phillips and Harold Sydney Bride are changing shifts. Phillips receives an ice warning, but when more messages arrive for him to send out, it is lost under them. On the "Californian , field ice is spotted, and the ship stops, for it is too dangerous to proceed, and a message is sent to the Titanic". Because the "Californian" is so close, the message is very loud, and Phillips cuts off the message. "Titanic"s passengers begin to settle in for the night, while some, including gamblers Hoyle and Jay Yates stay up. Suddenly, the vessel collides with an iceberg. Captain Smith sends for Thomas Andrews, the ship's builder, to inspect the damage. Andrews determines that the ship will sink within two hours, and it lacks sufficient lifeboat capacity for everyone on board . Distress signals are sent out, but the "Californian"s radio operator is off duty. 58 miles away, the radio operator on the receives the distress call and alerts Captain Arthur Rostron, who orders the ship to turn around. Unfortunately, the ship will take around four hours to reach the "Titanic". Seeing the "Californian", visible on the horizon 10 miles away, "Titanic" begins efforts to signal the ship, but the "Californian"s crew fails to comprehend why the ship they are in sight of is firing rockets. Captain Smith orders Second Officer Charles Lightoller to start lowering the lifeboats. Lightoller does not allow  men to board on his side, but First Officer William Murdoch, working the other side of the ship, is far more lenient, letting men board. In the Grand Staircase, passenger Robbie Lucas is told by Andrews the truth. Lucas gets his wife and children safely in a boat. Murphy, Gallagher and Farrel help the Polish girl and her mother through the ship and get them to a boat. The Richards and Hoyle are admitted to a boat by Murdoch. Yates gives a female passenger a note to send to his sister. Ida Straus and Isidor Straus refuse to be separated , inadvertently setting an example for Mrs. Clarke, who first decides to stay with her husband, until Andrews advises them on how to survive. As the crew struggle to hold back passengers in third-class below, most from first- and second-class board the lifeboats and row away from the ship. The passengers begin to realise the danger, as the ship lists and when the third-class passengers are allowed up, chaos ensues. White Star Line Chairman J. Bruce Ismay steps into one of the last lifeboats to save himself. The "Titanic"s bow submerges, and only two collapsible lifeboats are left . Lightoller and other able seamen struggle to free them, as Captain Smith gives the order to abandon ship, and every man for himself. The Clarkes use a rope to get down the ship's side, as the orchestra performs the Horbury rendition of the hymn, "Nearer, My God, to Thee", while Smith returns to the bridge to go down with his ship. The ship begins its final plunge and Lightoller and many others are swept off. Andrews awaits his fate in the first class smoking room, while passengers, Murphy, Gallagher and Farrel among them, retreat towards the stern as it  rises high into the air. A kindly steward comforts a lost boy separated from his mother. Lucas looks out towards the lifeboats, realising he will never see his family again, while the Clarkes, struggling in the water, are killed by a falling funnel. The passengers pray as the stricken liner rapidly sinks into the icy sea. Many people, including Lucas and Farrel, die of hypothermia. One of the collapsibles is floating overturned. Yates, unwilling to overcrowd the boat, swims away to his death. Lightoller takes charge on the boat as Murphy and Gallagher make it aboard, Murphy swimming about with  the dead body of a child in his arms, possibly the lost boy that was being comforted by the steward on the ship. Chief Baker Charles Joughin, after having given up his space in a lifeboat, and turned to the bottle to ease his ailments, also climbs aboard. The men are eventually saved by another boat. In the boat, a female passenger mentions her baby in a cracking voice, implying she was the lost boy's mother. The "Carpathia" arrives and rescues the survivors. On the ship, Murphy and Gallagher are reunited with the Polish girl and her mother, while  Mrs Farrel and Mrs. Lucas mourn the loss of their husbands. After a group prayer, Lightoller is told by Rostron the numbers of the saved and lost. In all, 1500 people were lost; 705 survived. The "Carpathia" receives a message from the "Californian", which has heard of the disaster, but tells them that anything that was humanly possible has been done. Cast. Cast notes: Original book. The film is based on Walter Lord's book "A Night to Remember" (1955), but in Ray Johnson's documentary "The Making of 'A Night to Remember"' (1993), Lord says that when he wrote  his book, there was no mass interest in the "Titanic", and he was the first writer in four decades to attempt a grand-scale history of the disaster, synthesizing written sources and survivors' firsthand accounts. Lord dated the genesis of his interest in the subject to childhood. So did producer MacQuitty, who had vivid memories of, as a boy of six, watching the launch of the "Titanic" at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast on 31 May 1911 and seeing it depart on its maiden voyage the following year. 1956 television adaptation. The book had previously been adapted as  a live American TV production, screened by NBC and sponsored by Kraft Foods as part of the "Kraft Television Theatre" series on 28 March 1956. It has been described as "the biggest, most lavish, most expensive thing of its kind" attempted up to that point, with 31 sets, 107 actors, 72 speaking parts, and 3,000 gallons of water and costing $95,000 ($ at prices). George Roy Hill directed and Claude Rains narrated – a practice borrowed from radio dramas, which provided a template for many television dramas of the time. It took a similar approach to the book, lacking dominant  characters and switching between a multiplicity of scenes. Rains' narration was used "to bridge the almost limitless number of sequences of life aboard the doomed liner", as a reviewer put it, and closed with his declaration that "never again has Man been so confident. An age had come to an end." The production was a major hit, attracting 28 million viewers, and greatly boosted the book's sales. It was rerun on kinescope on 2 May 1956, five weeks after its first broadcast. Development. The film adaptation came about after its eventual director, Roy Ward Baker, and its producer, Belfast -born William MacQuitty, both acquired copies of the book -– Baker from his favorite bookshop and MacQuitty from his wife – and decided to obtain the film rights. MacQuitty succeeded in raising finance from John Davis at the Rank Organisation, who in the late 1950s were expanding into bigger-budgeted filmmaking. The job of directing was assigned to Roy Baker, who was under contract to Rank, and Baker recommended Ambler be given the job of writing the screenplay. Lord was brought on board the production as a consultant. In addition to basing the script – both in action and dialogue – on Lord's  book, the filmmakers achieved nuanced performances and authentic atmosphere by consulting several actual "Titanic" survivors, who served as technical advisors. Among them were Fourth Officer Joseph Boxhall and passengers Edith Russell and Lawrence Beesley. One day during shooting, Beesley famously gatecrashed the set. He infiltrated the set during the sinking scene, hoping to 'go down with the ship', but was discovered by the director, who ordered him off and vetoed this unscheduled appearance due to actors' union rules. Thus, as Julian Barnes puts it, "for the second time in his life, Beesley left the "Titanic" just before it was due  to go down." Charles Lightoller's widow Sylvia Lightoller was also consulted during production, at one point visiting Pinewood Studios and meeting with Kenneth More, whom she introduced to her children on set. Sylvia commended More for his portrayal of her husband. Helen Melville Smith, Captain Smith's daughter, approved of Laurence Naismith for the role of her father. There were numerous changes made to the real events to increase the drama and appeal, however. For example, there is a limited involvement of American passengers (with the exception of the Strauses, Guggenheim, Molly Brown and Colonel Gracie), and several characters  based on Americans are depicted as being British. When questioned as to why he did this, Roy Baker noted that "it was a British film made by British artists for a British audience". Also, the film diverges from both the book and the NBC TV adaptation in focusing on a central character, Second Officer Charles Lightoller, who does and says some things that other crewmembers are reported to have done and said during the actual disaster. Its conclusion reflects Lord's world-historical theme of a "world changed for ever" with a fictional conversation between Lightoller and Colonel Archibald Gracie , sitting on a lifeboat. Lightoller declares that the disaster is "different ... Because we were so sure. Because even though it's happened, it's still unbelievable. I don't think I'll ever feel sure again. About anything." Rank wanted a star for the part, so it was offered to Kenneth More, who accepted. It was the first movie he made under a new contract with Rank to make seven films in five years at a fee of £40,000 a film (about £ in terms, with a total of £6,600,000 for all seven films). Producer MacQuitty had originally  contracted with Shaw, Savill & Albion Line to use its former flagship to shoot scenes for the film, but the company pulled out of the production at the last minute, citing that they did not want to use one of their liners to recreate the "Titanic" sinking. However, according to MacQuitty, the Shaw Savill Line at the time was managed by Basil Sanderson, son of Harold Sanderson, the White Star Line's director in the U.S. at the time of the sinking. Harold Sanderson would later succeed J. Bruce Ismay as president of the International Mercantile Marine Company, J.P. Morgan's  shipping conglomerate that owned the White Star Line. This connection to White Star, according to MacQuitty, is what actually led the Shaw Savill Line to pull out of the film. MacQuitty eventually got permission from Ship Breaking Industries in Faslane, Scotland to film scenes aboard , a 1920s ocean liner that the company was scrapping. The liner's port side had been demolished, but its starboard was still intact, so MacQuitty got art students to paint the liner the White Star Line colors and used mirrors to recreate scenes that took place on the port side. 30 sets were constructed using  the builders' original plans for "Titanic". Production. Filming began 15 October 1957 at Pinewood Studios. It went until 5 March 1958. Kenneth More recalled the production of the film in his autobiography, published 20 years later in 1978. There was no tank big enough at Pinewood Studios to film the survivors struggling to climb into lifeboats, so it was done in the open-air swimming bath at Ruislip Lido, at 2:00 am on an icy November morning. When the extras refused to jump in, More realised he would have to set an example. He called out: "Come on!" During the  sinking, a steward pauses as he flees through the first-class smoking room to ask ship's designer Thomas Andrews, "Aren't you going to try for it, Mr Andrews?" This sequence was replicated essentially word-for-word in "Titanic" (1997), substituting that film's protagonists Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater instead of the steward. The scene was also repeated in "S.O.S. Titanic" (1979), with a stewardess asking him if he will save himself, pointing out that there would be questions that only he could answer. Four clips from the Nazi propaganda film "Titanic" (1943) were used in "A  Night to Remember"; two of the ship sailing in calm waters during the day, and two of a flooding walkway in the engine room. As Brian Hawkins writes, the British came closest "to the "Titanic" truth in 1958 with their black-and-white production of Walter Lord's novel "A Night to Remember", seamlessly incorporating sequences from director Herbert Selpin's 1943 (Nazi) "Titanic" without giving any screen credits for these incredible scenes." Selpin himself was arrested on instruction from Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels over the course of production in early August 1942 for offering a negative opinion of the  German military while directing this earlier Nazi-era film. He was then found dead in his prison cell. Historical accuracy. The film is regarded as the most historically accurate "Titanic" disaster film, with the exception of not featuring the ship breaking in half. (There was still doubt about the fact she split in two when the book and film were produced. The accepted view at the time and the result of the inquiries was that she sank intact; it was only confirmed that she split after the wreck was found in 1985.) Lightoller's widow Sylvia Lightoller praised the film 's historical accuracy in an interview with "The Guardian", stating "The film is really the truth and has not been embroidered". While some events are based on true history, the characters and the storyline are fictional; the characters of Mr. Murphy, Mr. Gallagher, Mr. Hoyle, and Jay Yates being composites of several men. Murphy, who leads the steerage girls to the lifeboat, is a composite of several Irish emigrants. Hoyle, the gambler who gets into the lifeboat on the starboard side, is a composite of several such figures, men determined to save themselves at all costs. Robbie Lucas and Mrs.  Liz Lucas are composites of several married couples, notably Mr. Lucian P. Smith and Mrs. Eloise Hughes Smith. Lucas even says the words actually spoken by Lucien Smith to his wife: "I never expected to ask you to obey me, but this is one time you must". Mr. Clarke and Mrs. Clarke are composites of several honeymoon couples, notably Mr. John Chapman and Mrs. Sarah Chapman, a pair of newlyweds from second-class who died in the sinking. John Chapman's body was recovered by the cable ship "Mackay-Bennett", and there were no mentions or indications that suggest that  he had been killed by a falling funnel. The involvement of American passengers was either limited or left out (with the exception of the Strauses, Guggenheim, Molly Brown and Colonel Gracie). Several historical figures were renamed or went unnamed to avoid potential legal action. Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon and Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon are depicted as Sir Richard and Lady Richard (Lady Duff's secretary Miss Francatelli is completely omitted) and Bruce Ismay is referred to throughout only as "The Chairman". The film omits several key historical figures, including John Jacob Astor IV, the wealthiest passenger aboard "Titanic", and Stoker  Frederick Barrett, with 2nd Engineer Officer John Henry Hesketh's role being expanded to include duties and actions that were performed by Barrett and others. In reality, the American gambler Jay Yates (played as British by the distinctive British actor Ralph Michael), travelling under the name of J.H. Rogers, was never on board the "Titanic" and the note he was said to have handed to a passenger was a hoax. Yates wrote the note in New York and then had a woman accomplice pose as a survivor and deliver the note to the newspaper. Yates did this in order to  make the police think he was dead. They didn't fall for the ruse, though, and Yates was captured a couple of months after the sinking. (He was wanted on federal charges connected with postal thefts.) Michael performs the real life role of an unknown swimmer who came near the capsized and overcrowded Collapsible B, who survivor fireman Walter Hurst thought was Captain Smith. The film was also clearly intended as a vehicle for its main star, Kenneth More, who played Lightoller. Throughout the sinking, Lightoller is shown personally loading nearly every lifeboat. In reality, many of Lightoller's actions  were performed by other officers. The painting in the first-class smoking room is incorrectly shown as depicting the entrance to New York Harbor, while it actually depicted the entrance to Plymouth Sound, which Titanic had been expected to visit on her return voyage (there was a painting of New York Harbor in this spot on RMS Olympic, a sister ship of "Titanic"). This was an error made by Walter Lord in his research, which he acknowledged in the documentary "The Making of A Night to Remember". The first scene of "A Night to Remember" depicts the christening of the  ship at its launch. However, the "Titanic" was never christened, as it was not the practice of the White Star Line to stand on this sort of ceremony, and this has come down in popular lore as one of the many contributing factors to the ship's "bad luck". Stanley Lord was upset over his negative portrayal by the actor Russell Napier, which depicted him as in his warm cabin in his pyjamas in bed asleep when "Titanic" was sinking. Stanley Lord was sleeping in the chart room with his uniform on at the time of the disaster. Lightoller is  depicted nearly being crushed by the fourth funnel falling in the ship's last moments. It was actually the first funnel that fell near Lightoller. Murphy and Gallagher make it to the overturned Collapsible B with a child in their arms, which they pass to Lightoller. Lightoller takes one look inside the child's hood, realises it is dead and sets it adrift in the ocean. This was inspired by several accounts that Captain Smith reportedly carried a child to the boat, which later died. Along with these accounts being of dubious nature, Lightoller never reported receiving a child on  Collapsible B. Though in the movie, Gallagher survives the sinking, he actually died in real life. Reception. Critical reception. Upon its December 1958 U.S. premiere, Bosley Crowther called the film a "tense, exciting and supremely awesome drama...[that] puts the story of the great disaster in simple human terms and yet brings it all into a drama of monumental unity and scope"; according to Crowther: this remarkable picture is a brilliant and moving account of the behavior of the people on the "Titanic" on that night that should never be forgotten. It is an account of the casualness and flippancy  of most of the people right after the great ship has struck (even though an ominous cascade of water is pouring into her bowels); of the slow accumulation of panic that finally mounts to a human holocaust, of shockingly ugly bits of baseness and of wonderfully brave and noble deeds. The film won numerous awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best English-Language Foreign Film, and received high praise from reviewers on both sides of the Atlantic. Box office. The film was one of the twenty most popular films of the year in Britain according to "Motion Picture Herald , but it was only a modest commercial success due to the size of its original budget and its relative underperformance at the American box office. Kinematograph Weekly" listed it as being "in the money" at the British box office in 1958. By 2001, it had still not made a profit, in part because it was issued as part of a slate of ten films and all of its profits were cross-collateralised. Reputation today. According to Professor Paul Heyer, the film helped to spark the wave of disaster films that included "The Poseidon Adventure" (1972) and "The Towering Inferno" (1974 ). Heyer comments that it "still stands as the definitive cinematic telling of the story and the prototype and finest example of the disaster-film genre." On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a "certified fresh" score of 100% based on 20 reviews, with an average score of 8.71/10. It is considered "the best "Titanic" film before "Titanic" (1997)", "the most "accurate" of all "Titanic" films", and "the definitive "Titanic" tale", especially for its social realism, reflecting, in the words of one critic, "the overwhelming historical evidence that the class rigidity of 1912, for all its defects, produced a genuine sense of  behavioural obligation on the "Titanic" among rich and poor alike; that the greatest number of people aboard faced death or hardship with a stoic and selfless grace that the world has wondered at for most of this century." Home video. "A Night to Remember" was one of the Criterion Collection's early DVD titles in May 1998. A new DVD and a high-definition Blu-ray edition were released on 27 March 2012 to commemorate the centennial of the sinking.