A Night to Remember (1958 film)
A Night to Remember is a 1958 British historical disaster docudrama film based on the eponymous 1955 book by Walter Lord. The film and book recount the final night of RMS Titanic, which sank on her maiden voyage after she struck an iceberg in 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.[4] 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 (£13.1 million adjusted for inflation [2019]) was exceptional and made it the most expensive film ever made in Britain up to that time.[3] The film's score was written by William Alwyn.
This article is about the 1958 film. For the 1956 television play, see A Night to Remember (Kraft Television Theatre).A Night to Remember
A Night to Remember
1955 book
by Walter Lord
- 3 July 1958
123 minutes
United Kingdom
English
Precise figure unknown, but it had failed to make its budget back by 2001
The film disappointed at the box office.[1] However, it received critical acclaim and won the 1959 "Samuel Goldwyn International Award" at the Golden Globe Awards.[5] 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 1997 Hollywood film Titanic.[6][7][8] Retrospective analysis by both critics and regular viewers has been favourable; for example, on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has a score of 100% based on twenty-two critical reviews and a 90% value according to audience responses.[9]
Plot[edit]
In 1912, the luxurious Titanic is the largest vessel afloat and is widely believed to be unsinkable. On 10 April, Titanic sails from Southampton on her maiden voyage to New York. On 14 April, in the Atlantic, the ship receives a number of ice warnings from steamers, which are relayed to Captain Edward Smith, who orders a lookout. That evening, the SS Californian spots floating ice in the distance and tries to send a telegraph message to Titanic.
On Titanic, first class passengers Sir Richard and Lady Richard, and second class passengers the Clarkes, a young newlywed couple, overhear the band, led by Wallace Hartley. The band plays various songs, while steerage passengers Pat Murphy, Martin Gallagher, and James Farrel enjoy a party in third class, where Murphy becomes attracted to a young Polish girl and dances with her.
In the telegraph room, operators Jack Phillips and Harold Bride are changing shifts. Phillips receives an ice warning, but when more messages arrive for him to send out, the warning is lost under them. On the Californian, field ice is spotted. The ship stops due to the risk, and a message is sent to Titanic. Because the Californian is so close, the telegraph message is very loud, and Phillips cuts it off abruptly. Titanic's passengers begin to settle in for the night, while 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, who determines that Titanic will sink within two hours, and both realise that the ship lacks sufficient lifeboat capacity for all the passengers. Distress signals are sent out, but the Californian's radio operator is off duty. 58 miles away, the RMS Carpathia radio operator receives the distress call and alerts Captain Arthur Rostron, who orders Dean to turn around the ship. Unfortunately, it will take around four hours to reach the Titanic.
Seeing the Californian on the horizon 10 miles away, Titanic begins to signal the ship, but the Californian's crew fails to comprehend why a ship within sight is firing rockets, as Captain Smith orders Second Officer Charles Lightoller to start lowering the lifeboats, while the orchestra performs ragtime. In the Grand Staircase, passenger Robbie Lucas is told the truth by Andrews and he gets his wife and children safely into a boat.
Murphy, Gallagher and Farrel help the Polish girl and her mother to the boat deck and get them to a boat. The Richards and Hoyle are admitted to a boat by First Officer William McMaster Murdoch. Yates gives a female passenger a note to send to his sister. Ida and Isidor Straus refuse to be separated, inadvertently setting an example for Mrs Clarke, who decides to stay with her husband until Andrews advises them on how to survive.
As the crew struggles to hold back the third-class passengers, most first- and second-class passengers board lifeboats and row away. As Titanic leans, passengers begin to realise the danger; when the third-class passengers are finally allowed up, chaos ensues. White Star Line Chairman J. Bruce Ismay steps into one of the last lifeboats. Passengers—among them Murphy, Gallagher and Farrel—retreat towards the stern as it rises into the air, while Lightoller and other able seamen struggle to free the two remaining collapsible lifeboats, as the Titanic's bow submerges. Captain Smith gives the final order to abandon ship, and orders every man to save himself.
The Clarkes use a rope to get down the ship's side and the orchestra performs the hymn, "Nearer, My God, to Thee", as Smith returns to the bridge to go down with his ship. Titanic begins its final plunge; Lightoller and many others are swept off. Andrews awaits his fate in the first-class smoking room, while a kindly steward comforts a lost boy separated from his mother. Lucas looks out towards the lifeboats, realising that he will never see his family again, while the Clarkes are killed by a falling funnel. The passengers pray as the stricken liner rapidly sinks into the ocean.
In the freezing water, many die of hypothermia. Lucas's dead body floats by an overturned collapsible, as Yates, unwilling to overcrowd the boat, swims away to his death. Lightoller takes charge on the boat as Murphy and Gallagher make it aboard, although Farrel is lost. Chief Baker Charles Joughin, after having given up his lifeboat seat and turning to the bottle to ease his ailments, also climbs aboard. The men are saved by another boat. The Carpathia arrives to rescue the survivors, as a shaken Lightoller tells Colonel Archibald Gracie, "I don't think I'll ever feel sure again, about anything."
On the ship, as a group prayer is held, Murphy and Gallagher stand with the Polish girl and her mother, while Mrs Farrel and Mrs Lucas and her children mourn the loss of their loved ones. Rostron takes Lightoller on deck as Carpathia sails by the remaining floating wreckage from the Titanic. Rostron informs Lightoller that 705 were saved and 1,500 lost. The Carpathia receives a message from the Californian, which heard of the disaster, but Rostron informs them that "everything that was humanly possible has been done".
Cast notes:
Production[edit]
Original book[edit]
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,[13] and he was the first writer in four decades to attempt a grand-scale history of the disaster, synthesising written sources and survivors' first-hand 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 April.[14]
Release[edit]
The world premiere was on 3 July 1958, at the Odeon Leicester Square. Boxhall and Third Officer Herbert Pitman attended the premier along with survivor Walter Nichols.[24] Titanic survivor Elizabeth Dowdell attended the American premiere in New York on Tuesday 16 December 1958.[46]
Reception[edit]
Critical reception[edit]
After its December 1958 US 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:[47]
Home video[edit]
A Night to Remember was released by the Criterion Collection on DVD in May 1998.[57] Initial versions of the DVD omitted Lightoller finding the child to be dead and putting it in the water. A new DVD and a high-definition Blu-ray edition were released on 27 March 2012 to commemorate the centennial of the sinking.