I’ve been watching the movie “A Night to Remember” on TCM. I saw it once many years ago and I’d forgotten what a good movie it is.
It was just about as scary and sad as they could make a movie back then, quite realistic.
I notice that the band did play, and one man sang “Nearer My God to Thee” but not the tune I’m familiar with. And they have some scenes I’m sure James Cameron was thinking of, of things falling off of shelves, and sliding down the promenade.
Anyone else been watching?
Oh, and the ship doesn’t break in half, but that wasn’t known to have happened back when the film was made.
If it wasn’t for the book that movie was based on, the Titanic would have been completely forgotten. It was pretty obscure already when Walter Lord wrote it.
I saw this movie when it first came out, when I was 13. It had a permanent chilling effect on me, more than any other disaster movie . . . partly because it’s in black-and-white, giving it a kind of dark film noir feel. Also because there are no romantic subplots to dilute the tragedy.
Yes, I’m watching it now. Still more chilling than the others.
Obviously, the special effects were nowhere near as good as Cameron’s, and but on almost every other level, A Night to Remember was a better movie than Titanic.
I read somewhere that in A Night To Remember, a couple of little girls get into a lifeboat and they have this toy pig. The pig in the movie is the toy pig that the girls who got the boat brought with them and they are in that scene as well as adults.
It’s going to be playing at The Portage Theater in Chicago tonight (Sunday April 15). I’ve never seen it. I don’t have TCM and I’d love to go, but I can’t. If anyone else in Chicago is interested in seeing it on the BIG screen, it’s only $5 and I think it starts at 7:30pm.
I found it at a garage sale on VHS about a month ago, and watched it about 1 week ago. I had seen it as a 12 year old, and remembered it as being great. My memory served me quite well. It is a fantastic movie. Better than the Cameron travesty. It also had Honor (sp?) Blackman in it (Pussy Galore). She was a total, killer babe.
I remember watching this several times as a youngster in the 1960’s - it was a favorite of ours for family movie night on network TV. That must have been when black-and-white films were OK on national TV.
I remember having a 4-inch long plastic model of the Titanic and after watching the movie, I remember sitting for a hour in the bathtub sinking the darn thing.
All the scenes in the movie were for the most part based on fact. The pig did make an appearance in the life boat!
I watched the movie (TCM) last night snuggled in bed with my daughter, 16. She stayed awake I fell asleep, also read the VF piece this month, a night to remember indeed.
I think the impact it had on me at the age of 13 was partially the fact that I saw it in on the big screen. I was also very much afraid of water at that time.
I was able to go after all and thought it was pretty amazing. It was quite overwhelming to see on a HUGE theater screen. I can see why it’s so well-regarded, a classic. It was riveting, moving, and fascinating.
I LOVE the 1997 Titanic (it’s not a “travesty” to me at all), and now I’m glad I’ve seen this too. They’re both exceptional films.
I’d seen ANTR a few times on TV in the past and when I saw Titanic in 1997, I thought except for the romantic subplot, they might as well have been the same movie.
I’m gonna disagree. This Wiki linkmakes the point that it immediately became a public fixation (and lists some of the evidence including no less than three films about the sinking that came out before Lord’s book).
I just found out that a neighbor in my town is closely related to young JM Thayer, a then-17-year-old survivor who was cited in the book a bit. The neighbor shared Thayer’s original statement with the local town paper. It was only after reading it and then doing a bit of Googling that I realized it was Thayer’s mother who ended up being written to - courted? - a lot by the ostracized Cunard Line owner, J. Bruce Ismay.
