The ship looks a lot like the Norway which was one of the last cruise steamships. Interesting that it had a boiler explosion a few years back and 8 crew members died. We were supposed to get on that boat for a cruise the day of the explosion. I would like to know if anyone knows if the ship in movie was The Norway.
shareThe SS Norway was built in 1961 for the French Line as the SS France. NCL bought her in 1979 and renamed her SS Norway. She was screpped in 2006. Funny, we were aboard a RCCL ship during the '80s in the Caribbean when word was received that the Norway had lost all power and was adrift. Could be the same boiler event you describe.
shareThis was not the same event as the boilers blew, I think while in harbor with passengers aboard in Miami. It was over Memorial Day weekend, probably in 2004 or 2005. There were no passengers killed, just crew members. I think the ship went to Germany after that, maybe being towed, but it was finally scrapped. Such a shame as I have heard it was a lovely old ship and we had the penthouse suite booked for that week in the Western Caribbean. Nadine
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Since nobody else answered the OP's question directly, the answer is no, this was not the Norway, the former France, which as noted below was not completed until 1961, the year after The Last Voyage was filmed.
But there is a connection of sorts: the ship used in the film was the Ile de France, one of the world's most famous liners, which had just been retired by the French Line and had been sold to a Japanese firm to be scrapped for its steel. Producer-director Andrew Stone rented the vessel for filming prior to its being scrapped, so its partial destruction for the movie didn't matter. After filming was completed in 1959, the ship was sent on to its purchasers and scrapped. This also explains why the fictional ship was in the Pacific (the Ile had served exclusively in the North Atlantic), and the presence of so many Japanese extras aboard her in the movie.
The Ile had played a critical part in rescuing survivors from the sinking liner Andrea Doria in 1956, even though it meant turning back to New York and a delay in its sailing schedule of several days, at great cost to the French Line. But that was the law of the sea, and the ship got enormously good press for its heroism in that crisis.
The France was the French Line's successor vessel for the Ile, but as the transatlantic passenger vessel trade declined over the 1960s, it was eventually sold and refitted as a cruise ship, renamed the Norway. I used to see the Norway off the coast of St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands, a stark contrast to the nondescript ships specifically designed for the modern cruise trade. Sad to hear (from another poster here) that the ship has been scrapped.
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Correct. The French Line realized that passenger trade across the Atlantic would decline as jet travel came in, so replaced both the Ile and Liberte with just one ship, the France. Cunard planned the same thing, with its two Queens replaced by the QE2. Unfortunately both firms underestimated the rate of decline in transatlantic liner passenger travel and the old ships went out sooner, and the new ones served less time, than originally anticipated.
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I'm with you. It would have been great. Even being on the Andrea Doria!
Speaking of which, in On the Waterfront, when Marlon Brando looks out from his rooftop (near the end of the film) across the Hudson, an ocean liner is seen heading down the river on its way out to sea. That liner, amazingly, is the Doria.
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Yes, and the ex-Stockholm was even owned by the ex-East German government for a time, used as a cruise ship for deserving, quota-fulfilling, loyal party workers, off on a joyous, sun-splashed, policed holiday.
Yet, it's also interesting to reflect that while virtually all the ships of that last great age of real ocean liners have been scrapped (the Queen Mary being one of the few exceptions, though it's just a floating hotel now), the Andrea Doria still exists as I write these lines -- disintegrating, rusting, collapsing, barnacle-encrusted -- but still there, 250 feet below the surface (and about 250 miles from where I sit), while almost all her contemporaries have vanished. Right now, fish swim about her in the nighttime darkness, as the currents flow through her. We seldom think of such "lost" things, like sunken ships, still existing as we speak of them -- out of sight, out of mind. But they are lying there at this very moment.
The SS United States, the American flagship and the fastest liner ever built , still exist and has been docked in Philadelphia for many years now. There have been many owners and many unfulfilled plans to return her to service. She was recently sold to a preservation group with the hopes that she may someday be restored and turned into a hotel/convention center/casino. More information can be found at: ssunitedstatesconservancy.org
shareYes, and a sad tale that is. The United States last saw service in 1969 -- 41 years ago -- and has been batted back and forth, across the ocean and back, from one owner to another, each with all sorts of plans and schemes for her -- none of which has ever been fulfilled. I hope this latest preservation effort works, but unfortunately the portents are not good. Meanwhile, while people dither and sell and re-sell the ship, she continues to disintegrate, her hull rusting, her fittings and innards either stripped or deteriorating, making the cost of restoring her vastly more expensive with every passing year. Though I'd dearly love to see her somehow saved, perhaps the most humane thing to do would be to grant her a dignified end and have her scrapped -- the traditional, and honorable, fate of most of the great liners.
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I think you're right, obie. For a long time I've thought the only use for the United States would be as a floating hotel or museum, similar to the Queen Mary or Intrepid. I'd like to see it preserved, even in such a manner, but I doubt anyone envisions her returning to the role of an active liner.
[An aside: my father's nickname was Obie. We may have the same last name! Like the man who created the effects for King Kong?]
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Willis O'Brien -- nicknamed "Obie" (a common nickname once for people with that last name). No relation.
shareThe thing is with building a new ship is that there is no class, style or grace to them.
Spend the money and get a real liner like the United States running again.
“You’re not the tooth faerie are you?”
“No, she’s real. Don’t be a plank!”
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Unfortunately most of the money is now made cruising the Caribbean and air conditioned ships are required. The old liners were built for the North Atlantic crossings and were not fitted with a/c. I believe that the QE2 was retro fitted with a/c after she started cruising. I was at school in Portsmouth when the QE2 was making her first sea trials off the coast and I once herad her calling the shore on the fish-phone short wave radio
Mark
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The QE2 was completely air conditioned when built in the late 1960s. The ship was designed to spend 1/2 the year on the N Atlantic and the rest of the year cruising the World. The original Queen Elizabeth of 1940 was fitted w/partial a/c in 1965 when it was converted into a part-time cruise ship.
share"The thing is with building a new ship is that there is no class, style or grace to them."
Modern cruise ships are built to maximize interior volume for passenger cabins and amenities, which is why most of them look like hotels plopped on top of boat hulls.
"All the universe or nothingness. Which shall it be, Passworthy? Which shall it be?"