A Night To Remember (1958/Criterion Blu-ray)/Titanic: The Complete Story (History Channel/A&E DVDs)/Titanic: The Definitive Documentary
Collection (Mill Creek DVDs)
Picture:
B/C/C Sound: B-/C+/C Extras: B/C-/D Films: B/B/B-
With
James Cameron’s 1997 megahit Titanic
being issued in 3D theatrically and on the 100th Anniversary of its
disastrous maiden voyage, some timely home video releases accompany both.
Roy Ward
Baker is one of the most successful British filmmakers of all time, a journeyman
with an amazing career and his 1958 hit A
Night To Remember is one of the few films on the subject to hold up so long
after it was made and long after Cameron’s film became such a huge hit. One reason is that it is about many specific
persons, so well researched and the disaster is more a British affair than an
American or Canadian one. Also, it has
an exceptional cast of actors, including up and coming faces, including Kenneth
More, Honor Blackman, David McCallum, Michael Goodliffe, Alec McGowen, Andrew
Keir, Gerald Harper, and Lawrence Naismith among them, along with uncredited
turns by Desmond Llewellyn, Bernard Fox, Jeremy Bulloch and even Sean Connery.
The film
also is well shot, has a certain kind of atmosphere about it and a pace that
makes you believe what is going on. Part
of the credit goes to the Eric Ambler (Journey
Into Fear, Topkapi) screenplay,
based on Walter Lord’s book (Lord may have worked on the screenplay too). Editor Sidney Hayers would soon become a very
effective director in his own right as well, so you have so much talent coming
together to make the film in a way that makes it effective that it is one of
the reasons it remains an all-time British classic.
Sure, the
model work and some visual effects have dated, but they were more state of the
art in their time and you have to expect something not to hold after 54+ years,
but costumes and production design are a plus and so much so that it offers
cinematic space that even Cameron stayed away from. Of course, some of the technical details have
been about the disaster have been updated since this was released, yet that
never seems to matter as much as you watch and how well this holds up in most
respects. In high definition on Blu-ray,
you can see just how well.
Extras
include another nicely illustrated booklet on the film including informative
text (and a long essay by Michael Sragow) as is usually the case with
Criterion, while the Blu-ray a trailer, 1993 Making Of documentary on
the film, 1962 Swedish TV show with interviews of the survivors running about a
half-hour, archival interview with Titanic survivor Eva Hart, 50-minutes BBC
documentary The Iceberg That Sank The Titanic and feature length audio
commentary track with Don Lynch and Author Ken Marschalt, who also illustrated
his book Titanic: An Illustrated History.
When
Cameron’s film was a huge him, a slew of books and video programs on the
subject arrived all over the place and now, some of these programs are also
coming to DVD. Titanic: The Complete Story has three programs examining the event:
Death Of Dream, The Legend Lives On and Titanic’s
Achilles Heel. They are newer, good,
interesting and watchable enough, but some of their style and some visuals date
them. Otherwise, this is a good enough
compilation for those interested. A Text
timeline is the only extra.
That
leaves Titanic: The Definitive
Documentary Collection, which is a compilation that offers five programs: Echoes Of The Titanic, Titanic Remembered, The Story Of Captain Smith & The Titanic, End Of An Era and (listed as a bonus for some reason save that the
first four are from the same producers) Titanic
Survivors. They are seemingly more
dated than the A&E shows, but not by much.
It is also a solid compilation, though it seems a bit rougher. There are no extras.
The 1080p
1.66 X 1 black and white digital High Definition image transfer comes from the
original 35mm camera negative and this is a serious improvement over all
previous copies I have ever seen, with better gray scale and detail throughout. The print can show its age in parts, but this
is an upgrade that adds detail and depth missing from all previous releases
including older Criterion editions. Director
of Photography Geoffrey Unsworth, B.S.C. (2001:
A Space Odyssey, Superman: The Movie,
Zardoz) does some of his most
interesting, memorable work here and Blu-ray really delivers it. At times, you would never believe the film is
as old as it is.
The 1.33
X 1 image on the DVD sets are soft, but all are produced on professional analog
video, save Titanic’s Achilles Heel,
presented here letterboxed at 1.78 X 1 and is either early HD or just improved
definition video. Makes me wish some new
shows were made using key parts of these shows, but some valuable footage is on
video for good. The PCM 1.0 lossless Mono
sound is also good for its age, coming from a 35mm optical sound master source
that show the film’s age a bit more, but is as good as this film is likely ever
going to sound. The lossy Dolby Digital
2.0 sound on the DVD sets are barley stereo on each program, if that and the
Mill Creek set is even a little weaker and more compressed, leading one to
believe its materials are a few generations down.
For more
on Cameron’s Titanic, try this link
to the 3-DVD set, which as of this posting is the best version of the film on
home vide overall as a Blu-ray has not been issued yet:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2913/Titanic+-+Special+Collector%27s+Editi
- Nicholas Sheffo
