MovieChat Forums > A Night to Remember (1958) Discussion > No Jack Thayer here?

No Jack Thayer here?

posted 8 years ago by Rueiro
3 replies | jump to latest

The wealthy teenager from Pennsylvania became one of the most famous survivors of the sinking. Last week I read the book by Walter Lord on which the film is based, and Jack does appear a number of times during the fatal night: first when he noticed the engines had stopped and went outside to see what was going on, later he got separated from his parents during the ensuing panic scenes, how he and a friend remained on the ship until the very last minute and jumped off, the friend was sucked down and Jack could make it to a boat, where he suffered the torment of the following hours believing his parents to be dead, how he was rescued into the Carpathia and there he amazingly ran into his mother. Jack died in 1945, aged 50. And he wrote a book about his experience on the Titanic.
So I was quite surprised that the character is totally absent from the film.
Nevertheless, this is a great film and infinitely superior to James Cameron's sailing circus. It is outrageous that he stole so many ideas and copied so many scenes from ANTR. He ought to be ashamed of himself.

[–] Clusium 8 years ago

Too bad this person's story didn't make it into ANTR.

Who are you? Who? Who? Who? Who?

[–] ANightToRemember 8 years ago

There's only so many stories to tell, unfortunately. I think they did a great job picking and choosing stories that advanced the human drama and pushed forward the story. Thayer's story is amazing, but he mostly wandered around the sinking ship lost and though he had an amazing escape. Just imagine him as one of the men on the collapsable and you're good as gold. Technically he's there.

[–] palisade-1 8 years ago

Nevertheless, this is a great film and infinitely superior to James Cameron's sailing circus. It is outrageous that he stole so many ideas and copied so many scenes from ANTR. He ought to be ashamed of himself.

I prefer this film to Cameron's as well. However, it is not accurate to say Cameron "stole" ideas and scenes from ANTR. He paid for the rights to use them, and he wrote Bill MacQuitty (the producer of ANTR) a personal letter of thanks. Cameron included several scenes and shots as a direct homage to ANTR which he credits as inspiring him to make a Titanic film of his own, albeit of a totally different kind. Cameron did not want to make a historical film; he wanted to make a romance with the Titanic events as the setting, not the story. In that IMO he succeeded. One reason I greatly prefer ANTR is that it does attempt to be a historical film. It has some composite characters, but they are drawn from real characters on the ship.