What's special about ANTR? The answer to your question, Sandy, is ... 1958. Well, maybe not so precise as that - any time in the mid to late '50s would do. This was, quite simply, the ideal time to make a film about the Titanic. The key members of your production team would all have grown up in prewar Britain, in a world which hadn't moved very far from the standards, values, behaviour and speech patterns of the Edwardian age. Some would be old enough even to have lived through that period, like producer Bill McQuitty who had been present at the launch of the Titanic, and the production designer who could make good use of memories of his own Edwardian youth. You'd have Titanic survivors on set as advisers. The legacy of the fairly recent World War would provide you with actors to play officers and seamen who had actually
been officers and seamen. You could create a screenplay from the combined efforts of
Walter Lord (who had traveled on the Olympic) and Eric Ambler, noted for his realistic portrayals of ordinary people in extraordinary situations in postwar classics like
The Cruel Sea. These people weren't just making a film about a byegone age, they were the products of that byegone age. And that, rather than having every set, prop and costume spot on, is the source of ANTR's (apparent) authenticity. Though there are many departures from absolute historical accuracy, most things
seem right. In short, for many of us the scenarios, the people and the period setting are more believable than those of any other Titanic film - though not necessarily more entertaining.
One might argue that these advantages would have been even more apparent in a film made earlier - the 1920s or 1930s perhaps. But no, because in that period the British film industry didn't have the resources to create halfway decent sets, props and special effects. And worse than that, it was still in the grip of a Victorian tradition of melodrama, so no matter that those involved would have experienced the Edwardian age in reality - they didn't know how to
portray it as reality. A viewing of the 1929 film
Atlantic will make that point clear. By the 1940s there was a new trend for realism, but at that time, unlike the Nazis, we Brits couldn't afford to spend millions on making feature films. There was, however, a new style of gritty, stiff upper lip realism in the low key films made to show Britain and the World how ordinary people were coping with the war and the sacrifices it demanded. These paved the way forward, and by 1958 Pinewood was ready to compete with Hollywood by releasing the most costly production ever made in Britain -
A Night to Remember.
By the 1960's it would have been too late. A 1968 ANTR would have been a Technicolor epic made with the support of Hollywood dollars. There would have been pressure to inject more excitement, more romance, more appeal for American teen audiences. Michael Caine would have replaced Kenneth More as Lightoller. Captain Smith would have been Charlton Heston. The authentic Edwardians who made the '58 ANTR would have been in retirement, and contemporary distortions of the portrayal of Edwardian society would have shifted from the not dissimilar 1950s into the radically different 1960s.
Now, of course, we have the resources to do things a lot better in many respects. Better sets, better props, better effects. Arguably better talent in front of and behind the cameras too (if not in the writing!) What we don't have, and never will have again, is that direct link to the past that the ANTR team had back in 1958. The 1912 of ANTR has a lot of the 1950s in it, but in so many ways that decade (along with those of us in the UK who lived in it) was not
very far removed from the Edwardian age, while more recent films have been made by people who, whatever their levels of talent and sincerity, must find it a lot harder to look back that far and see things clearly.
So there you have it, Sandy. 1958. That's the key.
