Accuracy

[Jim Kalafus]

and a final thought....

As much as I detest the Praying Christian Stock Characters sequence, I not only loathe the Comic Drunk Interludes on artistic levels, but I also find it offensive for a number of reasons.

It is the only "What The F Where They Thinking?" moment in the film. I might not like the way the Christian Prayer sequence was handled, but at least I understand for what the film maker was aiming. I cannot comprehend what idea was percolating when they took Joughin's incredible- in the true sense of the word ie. lacking credibility- story and melded it to the most annoying of B Movie stock charaters- the recurring comic drunk. It's like the introduction of a flatulence sequence to Pride and Prejudice; a gross violation of tone, above and beyond the fact that there is nothing inherently funny about drunks. It adds nothing to the movie and serves only as a dead weight to slow the momentum and skew the balance carefully established by the other scenes and recurring characters. Comic drunks ALWAYS have that effect- I sorely wish that someone had machine gunned the "I want my drink" C.D. who appears, like a reccuring cold sore, all through the opening sequences of Some Like It Hot- but in this film it is particularly egregious.

What effect were they hoping to achieve, and what audience reaction did they hope to foster by including this stock character? "Ha ha he's such a loveable drunken clown!" "Ho ho the praying immigrants all died but the comic drunk not only survived but did a perfectly timed hiccup allowing Lightoller to do a double take!" "He he he severe drunks tend to reflexively urinate on, and soil, themselves when exposed to extremes of heat and cold wo ho ho glad I'm not on that collapsible with HIM!"

 

[Stanley C Jenkins]

Hello Jim,

I see your point, but cannot quite understand the intensity of your dislike for the prayer sequence. Most commentators seems to think that it “works” on an artistic level, while in what might be termed “psychological” terms it could be argued that there comes a point at which death is inevitable and, at that moment of quiet acceptance, those clinging to the upturned poop deck — or at least some of them — may well have turned to their God. Seconds later, as the ship began her final plunge, the moment of serenity must have been replaced by panic.

There is ample evidence to suggest that otherwise non-religious people suddenly “found religion” during and after the sinking. Colonel Archibald Gracie, for example, later related how: “We prayed through all the weary night and there was never a moment when our prayers did not rise above the waves. Men who seemed long ago to have forgotten how to address their Creator recalled the prayers of their childhood and murmured them over and over again. Together we said the Lords Prayer again and again”. In this context, surely the introduction of the prayer sequence accords with the reality of the situation?

In mentioning the prayer sequence I was trying to bring in some different aspects of A Night to Remember, such as my view that it is very much in the tradition of 1950s British war movies, which provides a partial explanation for the use of black and white at a time when colour film was readily available. This was, at least in part, because it enabled the film-makers to utilise old newsreel shots in their productions, although I suspect that they were reluctant to use colour film in war films (because of the blood).

I have also been looking again at some contemporary reviews to see what the critics thought of A Night to Remember back in 1958. In general, they appear to have viewed it pretty much as we do today — as a sombre semi-documentary drama which treats an event of mass destruction with in an understated, restrained, but strangely moving way. The Times review ended with the following words: “The strength of this film lies in the acute sense of participation which it arouses in its audience, and the mounting tension which it creates. Mr Kenneth More leads a strong cast whose performances are kept subordinate to the central character in the narrative, which is the Titanic herself, and the crowd scenes in the final, dreadful phase of mounting panic and terror, have been filmed with horrifying realism”. The prayer scene was clearly not regarded as in any way incongruous.

 

[Jim Kalafus]

>I see your point, but cannot quite understand the intensity of your dislike for the prayer sequence.

Hi, Stanley: My dislike for the scene, as I said, is on a purely aesthetic level. It is not the inclusion of prayer, but the fact that in the established framework of the film ( and the other shots in that sequence) it is, as I said, rather like the introduction of a scat passage to la Habanera. In Titanic '53 it would have blended, in ANTR it didn't. Let me list:

General shot of passengers struggling to remain upright.

*Shot showing screaming woman at prone angle on deck.

*Shot showing prone man stamping on the hand of another man

*Sound of panic dubbed on to soundtrack throughout. "Keep off this child..." etc.

Then, passengers standing uprtight, no screams on soundtrack, all evidence of panic entirely gone, AND a sappy muzak version of Nearer My God To Thee on soundtrack as photogenic extras pray beatifically.

Followed by a cut back to realistic sound and dischord.

There is pathos and there is bathos. That scene is a prime example of the latter.


Back when Cameron's Titanic came out, I watched ANTR with a friend of mine who had NO background in the Titanic. A virgin Titanic experience, as it were. ANYWAY, the only disparaging remark during the entire running time came with "A prayer...we ought to say a prayer." With no prompting from me, I might add, yet for all the reasons I mentioned before. A day or two later we had a roaring good time ripping apart Cameron's Titanic at the local multiplex.

>There is ample evidence to suggest that otherwise non-religious people suddenly “found religion” during and after the sinking.

Not really ample. I cannot recall a single survivor from boats A or B who claimed to have been non-religious, or who identified another survivor as having been a non-religous sort, who suddenly found his voice in prayer and later saw fit to write or testify about it.

>Men who seemed long ago to have forgotten how to address their Creator recalled the prayers of their childhood and murmured them over and over again.

This is the sort of overwraught cornpone one finds in virtually EVERY Victorian/Edwardian shipwreck account written for public consumption. Yes, people prayed, but when one breaks down this passage as a historian, one must ask:

~"men who seem to have forgotten..ETC"
How would Gracie KNOW that? None of those aboard the ship with whom he had a prior relationship made it aboard Collapsible B. Did the men aboard Boat B first rebel against praying, declaring themselves agnostic, and then soften as the evening progressed? Did they discuss religion among themselves? If not, upon what evidence would Gracie make this assumption?

~"recalled the prayers of their childhood"

"Gentle Jesus meek and Mild?" "I pray the Lord my soul to keep?" What exactly WERE the prayers of their childhoods and, again, how would Gracie know that?

and then the assign this the importance, as evidence, one gives ANY account in which the author is giving his audience what he knows they want by the shovelful. In fact, this passage is as trite and unconvincing as the sequence in the film! I do believe that there WAS prayer

>Seconds later, as the ship began her final plunge, the moment of serenity must have been replaced by panic.

Actually, no. There is a great deal of material regarding how people's minds and bodies work in these situations. People who had a handhold on something would be reflexively trying to "hold the ship up" exterting upward pressure with their arms. Pulses would race, and Adrenaline would cause people to develop "tunnel vision," with complex thoughts reduced to one fixed idea~ for instance, a mother with a child would lose all thought other than the immediate one of calming her offspring. Praying would be done robotically. It is all part of the protective screen one's mind throws up in these situations....people who've survived shipwrecks and plane crashes tend to agree that at the moment of absolute zero hope, fear suddenly departs and one goes into an odd autopilot mode.

 

[Jason Schleisman]

>>>There is a great deal of material regarding how people's minds and bodies work in these situations.

I can think of certain situations in both my life and those of my family (where I happened to be present) when either something truly awful was just about to take place, or was in progress. It was no beautific vision I can tell you. It was more along the lines of "Oh God!", "Holy Mary Mother of God!", "Jesus no!" and other religious exclamations, ~uttered out of true religious fervor~ but sounding more like panicked profanity because it WAS exclaimed under the duress of true human panic mode.

Likewise, fast prayers uttered under one's breath, while one's body is in action mode and actually thinking about and doing something else (like trying to save oneself), is something I've noted in a number of situations. I don't think I have ever seen or heard of anyone "going down" with absolute resignation and serenity -and a lovely prayer on their lips- unless you can count Ingrid Bergman in Joan of Arc or 'Thomas Moore' in A Man For All Seasons. And we really cannot count them becawze....they....are....movies....

 

[Jim Kalafus]

>I don't think I have ever seen or heard of anyone "going down" with absolute resignation and serenity

Most people DO go into this situation calmly, if they see death coming. But, as I said before, it is not a rational calm-by-choice, but more of calm-because-the-mind-has-partially shut down. But the calmness, or lack thereof, with which men and women go down, is very much situationally dependent.

In the case of a fast moving disaster, like the Lusitania or the Hartford Circus Fire, where people kept moving, and focused, right up until the moment they died, the phenomenon of "autopilot" rarely happens. But in slower cases- like Titanic- where the reality of one's impending death has time to sink in, those without some 'focusing' activity generally end up in the rigid muscled, mind locked on a single thought, beyond fear state.

So, given that there was realistic footage of people struggling to remain upright, etc, random shots of terrified people "fixed" on prayer would have been more consistent and less...Hollywood Schlock.

 

[Anthony Cunningham]

I have to agree with Jim about some of the scenes in ANTR.

I think the film is generally excellent and I've always admired the scope of the script. Given that the film was made in the late '50s it succeeds admirably in portraying the general flavour of the disaster.

However, there are a few scenes which make me cringe: the overdubbing of the little boy crying for his mother near the end "Mummy, mummy where are you?' (seemingly done by a woman) and the sermon Lightholler gives in the lifeboat discussed above. Also, the actress playing Edith Russell has a clipped British accent which seems at odds with her real, rather mannish voice.

I don't find the collective prayer said by the passengers as the ship founders offensive but I take Jim's point that it jars slightly with the general tone of the rest of the film.

I've always rather liked George Rose's drunken baker - although I think the amount of screen time given to his 'antics' is rather excessive.

It's still extraordinary to me to think that Joseph Boxhall, Lawrence Beasley and Edith Russell visited the set and got involved. Real shivers done the spine stuff!