The Now and Then Blogathon – (Then) – A Night to Remember (1958)

This is my first of four entries (2 pairs) for this great Blogathon idea by Catherine of Thoughts All Sorts and Gill of Real Weegie Midget Reviews.

Tnx for letting me take part Ladies!

“[after the “Californian” still hasn’t taken any apparent notice of the distress rockets being fired] What’s the matter with him, is he *blind*?” – Joseph Boxhall

Number of Times Seen – 1 (12 Nov 2017)

Brief Synopsis – Retelling of the events leading up to and including the sinking of the fabled ship Titanic in 1912 as seen through the eyes of the passengers and crew.

My Take on it – Being a fan of the history of the sinking of the Titanic, I’m actually surprised that I never really took the time to see this film beforehand.

Last week, I listened to the 3 part podcast by Dana Buckler of How is this Movie Podcast all about the history of the Titanic and the many films made about the disaster.

You can listen to all 3 here, here and here

This gave me the brilliant idea to watch this film for the first time and compare it to one of my all time favorite film Titanic (1997) by James Cameron.

Being that I’ve seen Titanic (1997) so many times, I was able to spot so many correlations between this film and that one.

The characters, situations and sometimes even dialogue is many times almost identical.

They do a really nice job depicting what happened on that fateful voyage and the fact that it was less than 50 years after the event, they were able to get first hand information from numerous survivors who experienced the sinking which is virtually impossible now that it has been 105 years since the sinking.

I assumed that since the wreckage hadn’t been discovered when this film cam out, there would be issues with the way it was presented, but in reality, it doesn’t affect the storyline at all.

I liked the way that they didn’t ignore the whole part of the Californian in the story and I still wonder why Cameron left it out of his version.

The main problem that I had with this film is the fact that the characters all seem too distanced from the viewer and we don’t feel any kind of connection to any of them.

There are so many characters depicted here and it’s pretty difficult to feel that any of them are developed well enough for us to care about them which is part of what made Cameron’s version so amazing to watch.

Bottom Line – Nice depiction of what happened on the doomed ocean liner and the fact that it was only 40+ years after the events helped with the use of information from real life survivors. The fact that no one knew where the ship was at the time doesn’t affect it too the way it is told at all. It’s so easy to see the correlations between this and Titanic (1997) which was made 40 years later. The problem with this film is the fact that the characters feel too distanced from the viewer and it lacks a strong connection to them. Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – It was only after seeing this film that James Cameron decided to make Titanic (1997). In fact, Cameron was so taken by this film that he lifted ideas, plot lines, conversations and characters, including a minor character similar to the one played by Leonardo DiCaprio. (From IMDB)

Rating – Globe Worthy