A Night To Remember (1958) - Factually faithful, but not visually accurate

Before James Cameron blew people away with his 1997 romance epic, the best loved telling of the Titanic tragedy was 1958's A Night To Remember. And many people still highly praise the film for how it depicts the tragedy, and the people involved.

Unlike Cameron's film, Roy Ward Baker chooses to select a group of real people aboard the ship, and bring their stories to the screen, instead of creating a fictionalised narrative to be the backbone. And this is the film's strongest aspect. The audience genuinely feels like they're experiencing the interactions between the real people aboard the ship, because the film acts as if the audience are a witness to these events. As grand and epic Cameron's film was, the audience was still a spectator to the events unfolding, looking in from outside the world of the narrative.

The effects in this film have aged really well in some respects, but sadly not in others. The scale prop used was brilliantly utilised, but was let down during the sinking shots due to the speed these shots were filmed at. Filming a miniature scene involving water is always tricky as it's hard to hide the scale. This can also be seen in shots where miniature lifeboats were placed around the sinking model. The scale boats bob about the tank like toy boats. Thankfully, this is not common in all shots, and the inclusion of oars moving on the miniatures adds an extra level of detail to these props.

Something that hasn't aged perfectly since release is how the historical accuracies regarding the sinking are demonstrated. At the time of release, it was common for the public to believe the ship sank intact, despite the claims of some survivors that the ship broke apart during the final plunge. It wasn't till 1985 that the breakup was confirmed to have happened. Now we can't hold this against the film considering hardly anyone believed the breakup happened. But in hindsight, none of the Titanic films get the sinking 100% right, mainly down to many theories and ideas sprouting up every couple of years. Cameron's film comes the closest due to the inclusion of the breakup, something none of the other films can claim.

This film reflects the idea seen in other disaster films of the time such as Leslie Norman's Dunkirk, which came out 4 months prior to this film in March 1958. Rather than putting loads of emphasis on the effects driven spectacle, the team let the human drama and emotion keep the audience's attention. The spectacle is definitely a part of the film's appeal, but like many classic films, it was the narrative and characters that drew in the crowds. And despite some very 50s effects and newer discoveries making the film inaccurate, A Night To Remember is still a classic British drama!

SCORES

Story - 4/5

Characters - 4/5

Production - 3/5

Acting - 5/5

Music - 5/5

Overall - 8.4/10