Great Summation of this Movie & Why it's GREAT

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Robert T. Paige

Member
Hello again, Donna and Roy-

This probably belongs on the '53 Titanic thread, but as long as we're comparing Titanic movies.....:

I can't find any basis in fact for one of the opening scenes in the '53 Titanic movie for that little episode about the flag that "Captain Henry Evans ['I thought he was dead !']of Benbenecula in the Hebrides" sent to Captain Smith that "flew from the mast of the old Star of Madagascar". Should this just be chalked up to another "blatant historical inaccuracy" ? Or was Jean Negulesco smoking some funny kind of cigarettes ? ;-)
 
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Roy Kristiansen

Member
Sounds a tad fishy to me, Robert. The only Captain Henry Evans I've found so far has been Captain Robert Henry Evans, MBE and Justice of the Peace who died in 1960. There's also a Sergeant Henry Evans and a Private Harry John Evans, both of whom died in 1916 - not uncommon names, though. The only mentions I find of the "Star of Madagascar" are in your 2 posts, so if it was supposed to be a famous old ship, its fame was fleeting (so to speak...).

Roy
 
Inger Sheil

Inger Sheil

Member
But the Housman, boys! The Housman!

- XIII -
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
"Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free."
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
"The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
'Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue."
And I am two-and-twenty
And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.

Fortunately it's not one of my favourite Housman poems, or I might be a bit cranky to have seen it used in the '53 movie. The lads in their hundreds to Ludlow come in for the fair, To an Athlete, Dying Young or The Isle of Portland or...or...well, or any of a dozen others.

Boxhall's niece had very strong views on whether the ship was sunk properly in 1953 - in her view, it most certainly was not.
 
Ryan McKeefery

Ryan McKeefery

Member
Boxhall's niece had very strong views on whether the ship was sunk properly in 1953 - in her view, it most certainly was not.

The challenge...
Name one person who does think it was sunk properly.
 
Dave Gittins

Dave Gittins

Member
Come up and see me some time, Inger, and I'll sing you some of Butterworth's settings of Housman, including the poem you quote.

There's also Vaughan Williams's setting called On Wenlock Edge, but that's for tenor and chamber orchestra.

It's odd how prescient The Lads in Their Hundreds turned out to be. It's a sod of a song to sing though. I can never remember where all the lads came from!
 
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Roy Kristiansen

Member
Hi, Dave!

>>It's a sod of a song to sing though. I can never remember where all the lads came from!

Are you familiar with the Flanders & Swann song, "Slow Train"?

Roy
 
Ryan McKeefery

Ryan McKeefery

Member
It's a sod of a song to sing though. I can never remember where all the lads came from!

Or perhaps, 'Vive la Quinte Brigada'?
If 'tain't where they're from you forget, it's the name of the fellas.
But I expect it would be no problem for Mr. Molony.
 
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Robert T. Paige

Member
Thanks, Roy-

I searched on both "Henry Evans" and "Star of Madagascar" and also came up with nothing.

Probably best to scratch this one off as just another curiosity of the 1953 movie, but one wonders why these things were added ?

Did Molly Brown (Kathy Bates ) really say , "Why do the British have to sound dinner as if it were a Cavalry Charge" ? Or did Cameron just copy this from Richard Sturges' (Clifton Webb's) comment in the 1953 movie ?

O-mission is bad enough but Co-mission is even worse IMHO. ;-) However, that's where the "neighborhood myths" originate !
 
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Robert T. Paige

Member
PS - Roy -

I have heard that dinner wasn't announced by bugle but by a xylophone or some other means.
 
Ryan McKeefery

Ryan McKeefery

Member
No paserau, the pledge that made them fight (or something Spanish like that - I'll tell you in a mo when I'm able to listen to it)!
 
Inger Sheil

Inger Sheil

Member
quote:

Come up and see me some time, Inger, and I'll sing you some of Butterworth's settings of Housman, including the poem you quote.
Click to expand...
Dave, you know I'll hold you to that one when we do eventually cross paths on one side or t'other of this country! I'll even refrain from answering with half of A Shropshire Lad and a good chunk of Last Poems and More Poems.

While Housman himself was often scathing about musical arrangements of his works, their lyricism lends itself far too well to being set to music. And anyway, he was scathing about most things. Particularly typesetters. ("The second edition contains nothing new, except a few misprints"..."Because my hand is particularly good and clear, printers misread it whenever they can".)

At least he allowed his words to be set to music without restriction - as long as they weren't printed on the programs.​
 
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Roy Kristiansen

Member
Hi, Robert!

>>I have heard that dinner wasn't announced by bugle but by a xylophone or some other means.

Perhaps a Theramin, or an Ondes-Martenot, would have been more appropriate?

Regarding borrowing from previous films, I've just finished with the latest version of War of the Worlds, and I noticed considerable cribbing, not from old H.G. (which would have been all right), but from the George Pal film. There's a fine line, it seems to me, between paying homage and cribbing, but once that line is crossed, it becomes quite noticeable and quite irritating.

Roy
 
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Roy Kristiansen

Member
Okay, so I know that my two instruments are anachronistic, but so were Cameron's characters. '-)
 
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