Titanic (1953 film)

Not to be confused with other movies with the same title.

Titanic
Titanic film poster
Directed by	Jean Negulesco
Written by	Charles Brackett Richard L. Breen Walter Reisch
Produced by	Charles Brackett
Starring	Clifton Webb Barbara Stanwyck Robert Wagner Audrey Dalton Harper Carter Thelma Ritter Brian Aherne Richard Basehart
Cinematography	Joseph MacDonald
Edited by	Louis R. Loeffler
Music by	Sol Kaplan
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	April 16, 1953
Running time	98 min.
Country	United States
Language	English

Titanic is a Template:Fy 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 reconciling with his family. Richard and Julia have a heated confrontation about the ultimate custody of their children.

While Julia realizes that Annette is mature enough to make her own decisions, and therefore, her own way in the world, she realizes that Norman is still a boy and insists on maintaining custody of him. 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, concerned about his father's whereabouts, gives up his seat in a lifeboat so that he can find him. 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 explodes several times, rises into the air and sinks. Richard and Norman both drown in the process, along with the other passengers who died in the sinking.

Also aboard is a twenty-year-old Purdue tennis player, Gifford Rogers (Robert Wagner), who falls in love with Annette Sturgess, ends up in the water and is picked up by a passing lifeboat. While the suspended priest, George S. Healey (Richard Basehart), who has become an alcoholic, dies in a boiler room explosion.

Cast

• Clifton Webb as Richard Ward Sturges
• Barbara Stanwyck as Julia Sturges
• Robert Wagner as Gifford "Giff" Rogers
• Audrey Dalton as Annette Sturges
• Harper Carter as Norman Sturges
• Thelma Ritter as Maude Young
• Brian Aherne as Capt. Edward John Smith
• Richard Basehart as George S. Headley
• Allyn Joslyn as Earl Meeker
• James Todd as Sandy Comstock
• Frances Bergen as Madeleine Astor
• William Johnstone as John Jacob Astor
• Christopher Severn as Flag messenger
• James O'Hara as Devlin (lookout)
• Charles B. Fitzsimons as Chief Officer Wilde (as Charles FitzSimons)
• Barry Bernard as First Officer Murdoch
• Edmund Purdom as Second Officer Lightoller
• Guy Standing Jr. as George D. Widener
• Helen Van Tuyl as Ida Straus (as Hellen Van Tuyl)
• Roy Gordon as Isador Straus
• Marta Mitrovich as Mrs. Jean Uzcadum
• Ivis Goulding as Emma (1st Class Stewardess)
• Dennis Frazer as Bride (wireless operator) (as Dennis Fraser)
• Ron Hagerthy as unnamed college student
• Ashley Cowan as Phillips (wireless operator)

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 23:40. In the film, it collides at 23:35
• 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). It was also nominated for the Directors Guild of America Award.

External links

• Titanic at IMDb
• Titanic at AllMovie
• Titanic at the TCM Movie Database
• Titanic at Rotten Tomatoes
• Titanic at AllMovie