MovieChat Forums > A Night to Remember (1958) Discussion > Awesome movie! better than Cameron!

Awesome movie! better than Cameron!

posted 12 years ago by sedativchunk
2 replies | jump to latest

I just watched this tonight. Since the 97 Titanic movie I've grown up on, I've been interested in Titanic. I've watched a dozen other boat movies, the Brittanic, Lousitania, Raise the Titanic, I've saved this one for last.

I have to say I held my standards low for this being an old movie, but surprisingly it was amazingly good! This movie got everything right. No corny fake romantic story line. All a real account of what really happened. The special FX are very convincing for an old film. The sets, uniforms, everything was so good. This movie makes sense of so many things James Cameron abandoned. It shows how they got multiple ice berg warnings, how the ship stayed lit for so long. How the other ships in the area reacted and communicated with Titanic. Cameron said he wanted to focus just on Titanic and what was going on with the ship but important elements to why the ship sank were left out.

I'm not going to shun James Cameron. I love the 97 Titanic movie, it's one of my favorites. But after 14 years, you get tired of seeing Jack and Rose and their ridiculous story line. The SILLIEST part about it all. Everyone thinks of them as the ultimate romantic couple destined to meet by faith. Uh people, they spent a couple days together on a boat!!! They weren't in love, they hardly knew each other. What I do give Cameron credit for is he really does love Titanic. He got original underwater footage of the ship, he made everything extremely accurate. Uniforms, the sets, the staircase, the gym, storage, every room was accurate down to the wood things were made out of. Hell he built a whole second mock Titanic for the movie he made it very visually impressive!

But this orignal movie from the 50's. It's just great. If you want to enjoy Titanic without the romantic plot, this movie will cut it. Kinda funny I was going to say this movie deserves a blu ray release but it got one! I'm going to pick it up, this movie deserves to be remastered and storred forever digitally. 10/10 rating.

[–] hobnob53 12 years ago

Glad you finally saw and liked this film. A lot of us grew up on this so-called "old movie" (I guess that makes a lot of us "old"), and have held it in high regard for many years.

I'm also impressed that you dislike the contrived romance in Cameron's film. The 1997 movie had stunning visuals but a lousy, inane script, and of course didn't concentrate on the real people who were aboard the ship. But many people under 30 just viscerally hate "older films" simply because they don't have modern effects or are -- horror of horrors -- in black & white.

If you like this film you should at some point read Walter Lord's book on which it's based, if you haven't already.

Have you seen two other films called Titanic -- one from Hollywood in 1953, also with fictional characters and a romance, many inaccuracies, but a very good cast; and the really bizarre one, made in Nazi Germany in 1943 as a piece of anti-British propaganda, but from which A Night to Remember actually copped some effects scenes? Hardly accurate, but fascinating from an historical perspective. Both are on DVD.

Meanwhile, welcome aboard the vast group of people who understand that ANTR is the unsurpassed Titanic film.

[–] 12 years ago

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