A Night to Remember

Kenneth More - Herbert Lightoller
Honor Blackman - Mrs. Lucas
Anthony Bushell - Capt. Rostron
Ronald Allen - Clarke
Jane Downs - Mrs. Lightoller
Robert Ayres - Peuchen
Jill Dixon - Mrs. Clarke
James Dyrenforth - Col. Gracie
Michael Goodliffe - Thomas Andrews
Kenneth Griffith - Phillips

Enthralling true-life drama based on Walter Lord’s best-seller A Night to Remember that meticulously chronicles the sinking of the Titanic. Despite lacking the romantic factor of James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster, this definitive earlier re-telling is certainly a more gripping and accurate portrayal of human tragedy; any inaccuracies can be put down to a lack of knowledge at the time of production. Roy Ward Baker’s snappy direction gives the film a documentary feel and Eric Ambler’s taut script, which boasts over two hundred speaking parts, captures the tension superbly.

April 14th 1912. The giant liner Titanic, acclaimed as 'unsinkable', leaves Southampton on her maiden voyage across the Atlantic to New York. Carrying over 2000 passengers, a series of human errors lead the ship to strike an iceberg off Newfoundland, ripping a 300-foot-gash below sea level. Amongst the ships passengers are the boat’s designer Thomas Andrews (Michael Goodliffe), White Star Line chairman Bruce Ismay (Frank Lawton), and "Unsinkable" Molly Brown (Tucker McGuire). The Titanic’s fraught wireless operators, Jack and Bride (Kenneth Griffith and David McCallum), desperately try to summon help. Captain Smith (Laurence Naismith) orders distress rockets to be launched, but a nearby ship, the Californian, dismisses them as fireworks. Less than three hours later, the ship is abandoned. Despite the efforts of Second Officer Lightoller (Kenneth More) in marshalling lifeboats, and Captain Rostron (Anthony Bushell) of the Carpathia rushing to the scene, only 705 are saved due to a lack of lifeboats and the freezing Atlantic conditions.