- Not to be confused with other movies with the same title.
Titanic is a 1953 American drama film directed by Jean Negulesco. Its plot is centered around an estranged couple sailing on the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic, which took place in April 1912.
Plot summary
Mrs. Julia Sturges (Barbara Stanwyck), who is at the time estranged from her husband Richard (Clifton Webb), is traveling in First Class on the RMS Titanic. Determined to remove her children from her husband Richard's "high society" world in Europe, Julia secretly takes their two children, seventeen-year-old Annette (Audrey Dalton) and ten-year-old Norman (Harper Carter), on the Titanic and plans to raise them in her hometown of Mackinac, Michigan. However, after he learns of her plans, Richard buys a steerage ticket aboard the vessel in hopes of intercepting them and taking the children back to Europe. Richard and Julia have a heated confrontation about the ultimate custody of their children.
Other passengers include a wealthy woman of working class origins based on Molly Brown, Maude Young (Thelma Ritter), a social-climbing snob, Earl Meeker (Allyn Joslyn), a twenty-year-old Purdue tennis player, Gifford Rogers (Robert Wagner), who falls in love with Annette Sturgess, and a priest who has been suspended for alcoholism, George S. Headley (Richard Basehart).
Julia realizes that Annette is mature enough to make her own decisions, and therefore may choose to return to Europe with her father, but insists on maintaining custody of Norman. This angers Richard and later, prior to dining at the captain's table, he aggressively confronts Julia. She then reveals to him that Norman is not his biological child, but rather the result of a one-night stand she had after leaving a party where she was being belittled in the days before Richard had 'made [her] over into [his] image.' He agrees to relinquish custody of Norman (but promises to take care of him and Julia financially), being cold and distant to him from this point on until the ship strikes the iceberg.
Richard and Julia have a tearful reconciliation on the boat deck as he is putting Julia and the children in a lifeboat. Later, Norman gives up his seat in the full lifeboat so that a woman can be accommodated and goes looking for his father. They reunite as the Titanic is in her final moments. 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 and that he feels 'tall as a mountain' standing by the boy's side. Then they join the rest of the passengers and crew in singing the hymn "Nearer, my God, to Thee" before the ship's boilers explode several times and the ship sinks. Richard and Norman both drown in the process, along with the other passengers who died in the sinking.
Giff Rogers falls into the ocean while trying to free a stuck lifeboat fall and is rescued by Julia and Annette. He survives.
Meeker disguises himself as a woman and gains admittance to a lifeboat. He also survives, although Young recognizes him and calls him out in front of the other people in the lifeboat.
George Headley pulls himself together as the ship is sinking and goes below to rescue (or provide last rites for) crewmen who have been trapped in the engine room, Headley's decision leads to this final exchange between the priest and a crewman who has reached the deck:
Fleeing crewman: "For God's sake man, don't go in there!"
Headley: For God's sake, man, I am going in there!"
Cast
Historical Inaccuracies
- The RMS Titanic was not out of room on any classes.
- Tickets to the ship were impossible to transfer. Thus, Richard getting the ticket from another passenger could not have happened.
- The ice warning first received was not delivered to the bridge.
- There was no shuffleboard on RMS Titanic.
- The ship did not have an alarm.
- The ship's interior is very inaccurately depicted.
- The boilers on board did not allegedly explode, as they do several times in the film.
- None of the passengers and crew sung "Nearer My God to Thee" during the ship's final moments. The band played the song as the passengers and crew were panicking.
- In reality, RMS Titanic collided with the iceberg at 11:40 PM. In the film, it collides at 11:35 PM.
- Titanic's crewmembers did not wear British Naval Uniforms.
- There was no horn in the band.
- The cabin of John Jacob Astor IV cabin was not A54, but C62-64.
- An ensign is seen on the stern's flagstaff as it goes under, even though it was only flown during the daylight.
- The Sturges family is supposedly from Mackinac. It should be pronounced "Mak-i-naw", not "Mak-i-nak."
- The RMS Titanic struck the iceburg on April 14th, not April 15th
- None of the First or Second Class Children died in the sinking apart from one young First Class Baby Girl who died with her parents
Reception
The film was a smash hit, touching and terrifying moviegoers worldwide. It also helped spawn new interest in the Titanic sinking which increased phenomenally with the 1955 release of Walter Lord's bestselling nonfiction account of the disaster, A Night to Remember. The film currently has an 88% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Awards and nominations
The film won the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay, and was nominated for the Award for Best Art Direction - Set Decoration (Lyle R. Wheeler, Maurice Ransford, Stuart A. Reiss).[1] It was also nominated for the Directors Guild of America Award.
References
External links
