English?

"Apparently this film received little release in Germany despite its heroic efforts to expose the brutish British and their criminal disregard for human life."

Yes, as you have referenced, the German first officer with help from "Sigrid Olinsky", were the ones who 'saved the day'....there she is loading the lifeboats!!!!

If I am not mistaken, in this film they also missed the famous First Class staircase which would have been available in any number of photos. Maybe they didn't, and the angle used just made it look 'funny'.

I have heard a lot of the footage was used afterwards, but as you say, it doesn't seem like very much as it turns out....

I have been told I need to read 'The Night Lives On' the sequel by Walter Lord as my information and knowledge with regard to the Titanic is a bit dated. To tell the truth, when they found the Titanic, for some reason I seemed to lose a lot of interest (????) so I have skipped it.

Urania to Terpsichore: "You're so quiet. Musing????"

Yes, "The Night Lives On" is a very good book. Not only does Lord update his findings to reflect later discoveries, he also corrects several errors he made in the first book. One that intrigued me was the final tune the band played. He said he didn't think it was "Nearer My God to Thee" but a hymn called "Autumn", while noting survivors' testimony that the band played only ragtime. It turns out from subsequent research that while it might indeed have been a tune called "Autumn", this referred not to the hymn but to a popular ragtime song of the period, and has amended his findings accordingly. There are a lot of other such items, of course including the definitive answer to the dispute as to whether the ship broke in two as it sank.

Still, even that book has long since been superceded by subsequent research and new information, and of course our ability to see and investigate the Titanic's remains has increased exponentially since its discovery in 1985. But it's worth a look.

I frankly was also really impressed with James Cameron's documentary about exploring the shipwreck, a few years after he made his own TITANIC. The picture quality and extent of their exploration were simply astounding. The DVD has the full 90-minute film, as opposed to the 60-minute theatrical release from IMAX, and though I dislike him I have to say the film is riveting. So to speak.

Did you ever read the Acknowledgements in "A Night to Remember"? I always remembered one: "Helen Hernandez of Twentieth Century Fox has been a gold mine of useful leads." I always assumed that was in connection with Fox's 1953 film TITANIC, in that their research department had contacted many survivors for their accounts. This is correct, but I learned years later that Ms. Hernandez was the assistant to producer/writer Charles Brackett, who co-wrote that film. She had worked with Brackett at Paramount when he was teamed with Billy Wilder, and after that duo split up Brackett soon left for Fox, taking HH with him. I always wondered, however, why Lord in his acknowledgement of her help, never mentioned the 1953 film.

Interesting that you mention the staircase in the '43 film, because that was the most glaring set error that leapt out at me too. I think they just had to make do with sets they had on hand and couldn't bother with accuracy. (What? Inaccurate Nazis? Shocking! Where is Herr Petersen when we need him to expose more lies?! Oh, I forgot...he was a typical honest German. They only expose everybody else's lies. Especially when they're true.)

Yes am captivated by the "Autumn" controversy....as far as I understand it the Hymn isn't called "Autumn" which makes it further suspect....

With regard to a hymn, we wouldn't say...."The orchestra played "Finlandia" but "Be Still My Soul" The band in this film was another matter....

No, had never noticed the Helen Hernandez acknowledgement....but will look for my "The Night Lives On".

I did get to see the Titaic exhibition when in Philadelphia, and against the "Don't Touch!!!!" regulations, almost did reach for the boiler.... Still, it didn't move me like I thought it would, not to say it wasn't good mind you. Maybe my fixation just faded with time....

"It's a quarter moon in a ten cent town"

Selpin was not hanged. He probably commited suicide. In opposite to what you may believe, the propaganda-minister couldn't just order a citizen to be executed on the spot. He would have been charged at a court. And it is not even sure, that he would have been put to death. In opposite to the *beep* in the Englisch Wikipedia, the German Wikipedia doesn't mention this legend about Selpin being executed but states correctly that until today it is not known if it was suicide or murder. However among historians most believe in suicide. It is not exactly uncommon for prisoners who expect a death sentence to commit suicide, isn't it?

Oh yes and I nearly forgot;
Quote
"I just love that phony German First Officer. "As the only German officer on board, I would watch what you say, Herr Petersen!" Ah, typical Teutonic subtlety."

Yes and the US-movies about the war (and further on) are renown for their fair and unbiased portrayal of the Germans. Ah typical American (and British) fairplay.

Who said Selpin was hanged? Yes, he "committed suicide", probably for the reasons you cite...or, if he was murdered, then what major difference does the manner of his execution make?

All countries produce propaganda, especially duirng wartime, and propaganda is, by definition, slanted and careless of the facts.

But even during the war, the portrayals of Germans by American and British filmmakers was nothing akin to the barbaric propaganda so often put out by the Nazi regime. (Die Ewige Jude, for example -- sorry if my German is a bit incorrect.) Allied portrayals were often silly and one-dimensional, but were devoid of the racism and murderous tone inherent in most such German films.

He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.

Oh yes? Have you ever seen US-newsreel from the war? Or read some US-newspaper from this era where the extermination of the Japanese people, the WHOLE Japanese people was discussed seriously? They were exactly as racist as you call the German movies. The Japanese where always called the "monkeys" or the "monkey-people", where described as ape-like subhumans who are not real humans. There was absolutely no difference to the portrayal of the Jews in German movies. Not to mention the portrayal of the Germans as brutal and evil-to-the-bone subhumans even AFTER the war had ended in numerous examples of biased Hollywood-trash.

The extermination of the German race was also discussed by some people during the war. Racist statements about Japanese were indeed common here at the time, aggravated by their attack on Pearl Harbor. And the government interned loyal American citizens of Japanese descent in camps, a blot on American history.

But in case it escaped your notice, the big difference was that however some people may have talked, the Americans didn't try to exterminate the Japanese (or Germans), and such talk was largely confined to the fringes of society. The Germans did try to exterminate Jews -- and other races they considered sub-human (Slavs, gypsies, others)...and came damn close to succeeding. For example, the Jewish population of Poland fell from 3,000,000 in 1939 to 6000 by 1945. What, did they all move to Sweden? The Nazi movement was explicitly and openly racist, advocated the murder of those it considered to be racially inferior, or at a minimum their enslavement to serve the Master Race. Of course, American and British wartime films made a lot of simplistic, even racist, attacks on our enemies. But that was talk. German propaganda reflected Nazi policies, which had real and deadly consequences to millions of real people.

And the concentration camps we put Japanese in had no gas chambers or crematoria.

It's also worth comparing the conduct of Americans and the Western Allies in occupied Germany after the war, with the occupation tactics of the Germans in the nations they conquered. The Allies didn't loot the country, shoot civilians, send citizens to concentration camps, steal the nation's resources, ship its men to work in their own factories, execute hostages or any of the other measures routinely part of every German occupation. We helped rebuild Germany and make it a democratic society. What positive thing did the Nazis ever do in the countries they invaded?

As far as postwar movies went, you obviously aren't well informed on their attitudes towards Germans. Many films depicted Germans in, if not a sympathetic light, then as rounded characters, not one-dimensional monsters. But the fact is that there were thousands, hundreds of thousands, of brutal, evil Germans, in and out of the military, during the war, so such depictions are neither unfair nor untrue. In 1945 and for several decades more, the only thing millions of Germans regretted about the war was that they didn't win it.

All countries have blots on their histories. America has a reprehensible history of racism against blacks and Indians and has had other ethnic issues across most of its past. None of this is justified or covered up. But neither were such things glorified as part of our culture or politics, or part of a systematic program to murder entire races. That's a somewhat significant difference.

(It may interest you to know that German prisoners held in the U.S. were usually allowed to work outside their prison camps, and in the camps located in the American South, they were allowed to go into local bars and stores -- something denied to black American citizens in the same places. We alllowed enemy soldiers of a country that declared war on us and was killing our soldiers to use American shops that we denied to U.S. citizens who were black. Now that was shameful -- on both counts.)

This reminds me a bit of the Monty Python, Dinsdale sketch, where Dinsdale is denying all these heinous acts, nailing one's head to a table et al., until informed "the Police have video tapes of you actually doing that'. His reply, "Well yes we did that". You have to see it, but anyway I just saw a picture on the History Channel during a special about the Titanic, due to today's date no doubt; 14 Apr 2012, but it clearly showed this gentleman hanging, suspended by his suspenders oddly enough, from a plumbing line running up the wall of his cell.
Now I suppose this may have been staged but to cover up what? The picture itself was pretty gruesome and if it was offered as a cover up for some other act, that other act must been especially nasty wouldn't you think?
In any event, that's all I got. Bear in mind this is all single source stuff at this point for me, except for the Monty Python stuff that is. I need to do some additional research before I say anymore. Rich in New Mexico.