65 years of A Night to Remember

On July 3, 1958, "A Night to Remember" premiered at the Odeon Cinema in Leicester Square, London. Film directed by Roy Ward Baker.

The history of the creation of the film began, one might say, in 1926. That year, a 9-year-old boy named Walter Lord was sailing on the Olympic ship. Perhaps not everyone knows that the Titanic was not a unique ship. He had a "twin brother" - the same Olympic on which Walter sailed. The boy was literally stunned by the information that 14 years earlier, exactly the same giant ship sank after colliding with an iceberg. The shock was so strong that he devoted the rest of his life to collecting documents and materials about the sinking of the Titanic. Almost 30 years later, the collected materials formed the basis of the documentary novel "A Night to Remember". In addition to the collected documents, materials and other material evidence, the testimonies of 64 passengers of the Titanic, survivors of the disaster, whom Walter Lord managed to find, were used to create the novel.

Walter Lord's novel "A Night to Remember" was published in 1955, became an instant bestseller and remained the leader in the number of copies sold for 8 months. One of the copies of the novel was given to her husband in 1956 by the wife of the famous and successful British producer of the film company The Rank Organization, William McQuitty. This gift was not at all accidental: at the age of 6, McQuitty witnessed the descent of the Titanic into the water. And just like for Walter Lord, for him the shock of his life was the news that this colossus sank. McQuitty realized that he had got his hands on the material that allows him to create the most adequate and reliable cinematic presentation of the history of the Titanic.

The desire to create such a reliable film was fueled by the fact that shortly before the publication of Lord's book, in 1953, the 20th Century Fox film company released Jean Negulesco's film "Titanic", which, according to historians and experts, was literally replete with historical inaccuracies. (However, Hollywood's negligence regarding historical details is well known. I have repeatedly drawn attention to this, in particular: in publications about the films "Gladiator", "Braveheart", "Jurassic Park".)

To implement the conceived project, McQuitty attracted the British director Roy Baker, who also worked at The Rank Organization. A budget of $1.68 million (equivalent to the current $18 million) was allocated to create the film. For an ordinary movie, such a budget would be quite sufficient. But it's too small for such an epic narrative. For comparison: the film "Cat on a Hot Roof" released in the same year, quite a chamber film, had a budget of $ 2.3 million, the already mentioned film by Jean Negulesco had a budget of $ 1.8 million. Nevertheless, the film crew managed to create not just a convincing, but an outstanding production design. The creators of the film sought not to impress the viewer with special effects, but to ensure complete authenticity. And they succeeded to the fullest.

To ensure reliability, Joseph Boxhall, who served on the Titanic as the fourth officer, was brought in as a technical consultant. Kenneth More, who played the main character of the picture - the second officer Charles Lightoller - was advised by the son of this officer, and the widow of this officer was present at the shooting (Lightoller himself died in 1952 at the age of 78). By the way, Charles Lightoller, having survived the tragedy of the Titanic and saved several hundred of its passengers, was noted for his service in the British Navy fleet in both the First and Second World Wars. During the Second World War, he distinguished himself by saving many people in Dunkirk, and also sank the German submarine UB-110. However, the Germans after the war charged him with shooting sailors who escaped after the sinking of this boat. Neither he nor the leadership of the Royal Navy admitted these charges.

But there were other accusations against this officer, more significant for the purposes of this publication. It was well shown in the film, and so it was in fact, that Charles Lightoller scrupulously followed the instructions and orders of the captain. But because of the noise, the order to put women and children in the boats FIRST of all he heard as "ONLY women and children." It is believed that because of this, some of the boats were launched underloaded. It is believed that about 200 more people could have been saved. On the other hand, it was largely due to the discipline and high organization of this officer that it was possible to avoid extreme panic and chaos when loading lifeboats and thereby save more than 700 people. After all, if the number of lifeboats on the Titanic matched the number of passengers, many more people could have been saved. Perhaps even everyone.

By the way, the lack of lifeboats as the cause of the death of many passengers was predicted many years before the ill-fated voyage of the Titanic. On March 22, 1886, the famous writer William Thomas Stead published an article titled "How the Mail Ship Went Down in the Mid-Atlantic", in which he described the collision of a steamer with another ship and the death of many people precisely because of the lack of lifeboats. Stead wrote: "This is what can and will happen if the liners are sent to sea without enough lifeboats." And this man ended up on the Titanic! According to eyewitnesses, he calmly accepted the inevitable, continuing to read the book during the disaster.

The fact that the maximum degree of reliability of the image of the events of the April night of 1912 was achieved during the filming of the film is indicated by such an example. A certain Lawrence Beasley, a surviving second-class passenger, was present on the set. At the moment when the scene of the flooding was being filmed, he literally mentally transferred to that ill-fated April night of 1912 and rushed to rescue the extras. With great difficulty Roy Baker managed to keep him.

Film critics unanimously devoted exclusively laudatory reviews to Baker's film. Even Bosley Crowther, usually very picky even sarcastic, in his 1958 review awarded the film the most flattering epithets. In this review, he, in particular, noted:

"Based on material assembled in a recent book of the same name by Walter Lord, with certain additions, subtractions and reinforcements of some dramatic points, it puts the story of the great disaster in simple human terms and yet brings it all into a drama of monumental unity and scope...this remarkable picture is a brilliant and moving account of the behavior of the people on the Titanic on that night that should never be forgotten. It is an account of the casualness and flippancy of most of the people right after the great ship has struck (even though an ominous cascade of water is pouring into her bowels); of the slow accumulation of panic that finally mounts to a human holocaust, of shockingly ugly bits of baseness and of wonderfully brave and noble deeds."

In early 1959, Roy Baker's "A Night to Remember" was awarded the American Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film in English. And the American Film Academy, unlike the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, did not mark this film with a single nomination. The British Film Academy nominated Baker's picture for its BAFTA award in the Best Screenplay category, but the matter was limited to the nomination. In the same 1959, the film "A Night to Remember" participated in the international film festival in Mar del Plata (Argentina) and was nominated for the main prize of the festival. But the jury considered Ingmar Bergman's "Smultronstället (Wild Strawberries)" to be more worthy of this award.

Roy Baker's film "A Night to Remember" is not the only film production dedicated to this great tragedy. Several films on this topic were made before him, and after. But even taking into account the fact that new data were obtained as a result of a deep-sea dive to the site of the Titanic's sinking in 1985, Baker's film continues to be rated as the most reliable film about this event. American film critic Paul Tatara in his review from 2006 noted:

"Baker's film is the one to turn to for the real lowdown on exactly what happened to the doomed luxury liner on that fateful night. Baker avoids fictional characters altogether, choosing instead to follow the trajectories of a broad range of real-life passengers. He juggles an enormous amount of information, but presents it with absolute clarity."

More than 6 decades after the release of the Roy Ward Baker film "A Night to Remember" on the screens, despite the fact that during this time, thanks to technological progress, many discoveries have been made regarding the Titanic disaster, despite the fact that other, much more expensive films were made, ordinary moviegoers continue to rate the film very highly. 69% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users rated the film from 8 to 10. Taking into account this indicator and the above, the rating of Roy Ward Baker's film "A Night to Remember" according to FilmGourmand was 8,475, which ensured it 332nd Rank in the Golden Thousand .