The 1953 film Titanic stars a great deal of fantastic actors on a sinking ship. That’s a fantastic analogy for the film itself. Clifton Webb, Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Wagner, Thelma Ritter, Richard Basehart and several other recognizable names and faces show up in this melodrama. At just over an hour and a half, the film spends the first two thirds with a number of personal problems before the ill-fated ship strikes the iceberg.
Most prominent of the storylines is that of Julia Sturges (Stanwyck) attempting to leave her husband (Webb) but he winds up following along all the same. Their daughter winds up meeting a college man, and there’s a priest who has been defrocked due to alcoholism, and a couple of others. It’s a shame, actually, that more attention wasn’t given to some of the other characters. We meet the priest, for example, and barely get to know him before the drama of the sinking begins to take place.
Historical inaccuracies? Of course there are. And at just over 90 minutes there isn’t a heck of a lot of time to go into too much detail about the sinking, but it does move along a heck of a lot faster than with James Cameron’s more recent (bloated) offering.
I don’t know what to say about Titanic. It’s not a bad film, but doesn’t have a heck of a lot going for it. We don’t care if any of the secondary characters make it off the boat because we have little to no connection with them. We know that Mr. Sturges isn’t going to make it. And that’s… it. Predictable? Well, yeah, but that’s not the point, since we already know how the story ends.
Titanic attempts to put some human drama into the proceedings, but ultimately it doesn’t succeed as much as it wants to. This has nothing to do with the cast, all capable and fine in their roles. It’s the script that falls short, really. For lovers of old movies, Titanic is well worth watching.
Special features are plentiful for a film such as this. Two audio commentaries are present, the first by film historian Richard Schickel. The other features actors Robert Wagner and Audrey Dalton, cinematographer Michael D. Lonzo and historian Sylvia Stoddard. Both are interesting in their own way and worth listening to if so inclined. A vintage newsreel and some stills round out the offerings. Honestly, this is the kind of film that usually gets little to nothing in the way of special features, let alone getting released on home video. This was a surprisingly nice package.
I wanted to enjoy Titanic more, but I do wish the script had been different. If a bit more balance had been given to all the characters and perhaps a little less predictability in place it would appeal to more modern viewers. Such as it is, Titanic is enjoyable.