A Night To Remember / The Making Of A Night To Remember [DVD] [1958]

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Two years after 20th Century Fox released its melodramatic disaster film Titanic in 1953, Walter Lord's meticulously researched book A Night to Remember surprised its publishers by becoming a phenomenal bestseller. Lord had an intuition that readers craved the reality of the Titanic disaster and not the romantically mythologised translations (like Fox's film, starring Barbara Stanwyck), which relied on fictional characters to "enhance" the world's worst maritime disaster. Lord's book proved that the truth was far more compelling than fiction, outlining the many "if onlys" (if only the iceberg had been spotted a few minutes earlier, etc.) that lent sombre irony to the loss of 1,500 Titanic passengers. Three years after Lord's book appeared, it was brought to the screen with the kind of riveting authenticity that Lord had insisted upon in his own research. The 1958 British production of A Night to Remember remains a definitive dramatization of the disaster, adhering to the known facts of the time and achieving a documentary-like immediacy that matches (and in some ways surpasses) the James Cameron epic released 39 years later. The film erroneously perpetuates the once-common belief that the Titanic sunk in one piece (instead of breaking in half as its bow began to plunge), but many other misconceptions are accurately corrected, and the intelligent screenplay by thriller master Eric Ambler is a model of factual suspense. By making Titanic the star of the film, director Roy Baker emphasises the excessive confidence of the booming industrial age and creates an intense you-are-there realism that pays tribute to Walter Lord's tenacious quest for truth. --Jeff Shannon

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The story of the Titanic has been visited, to differing degrees, on the small and big screen many times. But there’s a strong and compelling argument that 1958’s A Night To Remember, based on Walter Lord’s novel, is the best of the lot. For several reasons.

What most sets A Night To Remember apart is the sheer humanity of it. Approached in a documentary style, and with the story told mainly from the perspective of Kenneth More’s Charles Lightoller, it’s less epic in physical scale than, for instance, 1997’s Oscar-magnet Titanic. Yet there’s a core of authenticity here that’s never been beaten, on big screen or small.

A Night To Remember may not be the most obvious candidate for a Blu-ray upgrade, though, primarily due to the age of the film itself. Commendably, then, real effort has been put in to justifying it. The film has benefitted from a beautiful remaster, which has spruced up the picture and audio quality, and unleashed surprising levels of detail. It’s a respectful piece of work, and that so much attention has been lavished on an older production is very welcome. It’s an example others should follow.

It might lack the big special effects budget, then, and it might also have been a little shyer in attracting awards, but A Night To Remember is a conscientious, quality piece of film making, that stands up extremely well, aided by a solid Blu-ray release. --Jon Foster