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Message: [QUOTE="Bob Cruise, post: 150381, member: 198008"] Okay - everyone keeps bashing this movie, but I think we do need to give credit where credit is due. One must remember both the genesis and historical context of this film. It's taken from a play, Ernest Raymond's "The Berg". Watching the film, it's obvious that all the soapy sub-plots were what drove the piece on-stage (no way could a stage piece show the actual ship sinking). Thus, the ending is a blackout. I guess the director - Ewald Andre Dupont - felt the dramatic stage finish would work for a movie (hey - remember he was in virgin territory as far as disaster movies go/went). It's to the director's credit that he interspersed the drawing room drama with scenes elsewhere on the ship (crew, dancing crowds, lifesboats leaving, etc.) in order to make the story more "filmic". Now that's innovation! (Not to mention entertainment.) Also, the contemporary setting gives a good indication of the feelings toward Titanic in '29. At that point in time, the disaster was but 17 years old, with most of the survivors still alive. Yet for all the infamy associated with the event, a world war had taken place in the meantime. Why would a ship struck by an iceberg weigh heavier in the mind than the deliberately-torpedoed Lusitania? Obviously, the director felt a contemporary spin had to be put to the story in order for it to have an impact. Furthermore, perhaps the movie would have had more of following had not something else occurred later in '29: Black Tuesday, followed by the Great Crash. When that happened, sinking stocks immediately replaced any notion of sinking ships. Watch carefully. It's obvious that both Cameraon and McQuitty owe some of their camera angles to Dupont's 1929 vision: the attempts to convey the size of the ship, the motors working frantically to steer the ship clear of the iceberg, furniture floating, people falling into the water, etc. That being said, if we are to understand that directors often "rip-off" the ideas of other directors, one can't help but wonder if Dupont himself had seen the now-lost Titanic movies made back in 1912. Hmmm... Now - can someone answer me this? Why - if "Atlantic" truly was a British/German production - does the AMERICAN version of "Nearer My God To Thee" end up being sung??? [/QUOTE]

Verification: In which year did the Titanic sail?