Features: DVD, Commentary, Documentary, Trailers
On April 14, 1912, at 11:30 p.m., the “unsinkable” Titanic struck an iceberg. In less than three hours, she had plunged to the bottom of the sea, taking with her 1,500 of her 2,200 passengers. A Night to Remember depicts the ship’s final hours in an unforgettable rendering of Walter Lord’s book of the same name. Now, aficionados of this terrific film can compare it to the facts with Criterion’s special edition, which features screen-specific commentary by Titanic experts Don Lynch and Ken Marschall.Click here for more Criterion favorites!
Editor's Note
Directed by Hammer horror director Roy Ward Baker, this is another version of the tale of the doomed maiden voyage of the Titanic, told in a semi-documentary style through the eyes of the ship's second officer, Herbert Lightoller, whose duties provided him with a unique perspective of the everyday goings-on aboard the huge ocean liner. An excellent cast (selected for their resemblances to photos of the real passengers) conveys the courage, greed, fear, hope and despair of the real-life passengers. Based on the novel by Walter Lord.
Plot Summary
A highly detailed, documentary-style dramatization of the infamous maiden voyage of the Titanic. From the attendant excitement of the ship's departure, the narrative proceeds inexorably to the vessel's sudden collision with an iceberg in the frozen waters of the North Atlantic, then painfully recounts the mad scramble for survival that followed. We witness its maiden voyage across the Atlantic and watch as the British liner with 2200 people on board is gashed along 300 feet of its hull by an iceberg. As it starts to sink, the new invention of radio is used to try and summon help, although this is disastrously ignored by the closest vessel. With lifeboat places for only 1200 people, it is not only women and children first, but also First Class before Steerage. Over 1,300 passengers and crew members perished in the tragedy.|Based on Walter Lord's book of the same name.
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Features | American and British theatrical trailers | | Pristine transfer, with digitally restored image and sound | | Audio commentary by Don Lynch, author, and Ken Marschall, illustrator, of Titanic—An Illustrated History | | 60-minute documentary: The Making of A Night to Remember, featuring producer William MacQuitty's rare behind-the-scenes footage |
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