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A Night to Remember - Criterion Collection

A Night to Remember - Criterion Collection

List Price: $39.95
Your Price: $35.96
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Title's An Understatement...
Review: because the sinking of the Titanic has proved to hold the interest of the world for nearly 90 years after that fateful night in April 1912.

I don't know if I can say I've seen "all" the Titanic movies, but I have seen Leonardo Di Caprion's version, Catherine Zita-Jones' version, Clifton Webb's version, and this one, which was the first one I ever saw, years ago, as a little child. Hands down, this British version is the best.

It's not that the others are stinkers; in fact, that would lessen the victory. After all, Leonardo's has some great special effects, Catherine was a pretty passenger, and Clifton Webb handled disaster very well. But this one has the hallmark of accuracy to it. When you've finished watching it, you KNOW the story of the Titanic well enough to perpetuate its memory to your own children's children. It captures the despair of the passengers who realize what's really happening, and faithfully recounts the different vignettes of self-sacrifice which characterize this tragedy in particular. Unlike the other three movies, "A Night to Remember" doesn't have to invent people for you to identify with; the real stories are far better than any invention and far more poignant.

Watch the others for entertainment, but watch "A Night to Remember" for edification.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Night to Remember
Review: Great movie, no nudity, no fictional characters. This film has touching scenes that portray the facts of the tragedy of the sinking of the Titanic. We watched it with our kids, which is something we could not do with James Cameron's "Titanic".

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Not the best, just different
Review: James Cameron's "Titanic" was a film about love. He had the Titanic disaster as his backdrop, much like "Gone With The Wind," and many could say "Gettsyburg was a better on the subject of the Civil War.

"A Night to Remember" is a great docu-drama about the Titanic's sinking. It's not about a love story. It's about the disaster itself.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Titanic's disaster in detail... without a love story
Review: The movie is black and white, which offsets the majesty of James Cameron's high-tech, highly commercialized wonder of cinema. But this was made back when technicolor wasn't quite as lavish as that golden-age look of B&W. Acting is superb. But everything about this docu-drama indicates a less than imaginitive story, but the structure of it would make historian believe.

Excellent to the least, not as noteworthy as the '97 film but thumbs up, it trully deserves.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: THE BEST FILM EVER MADE ABOUT THE TITANIC TRAGEDY
Review: If you are interested in seeing the TRUE story of the Titanic, GET THIS MOVIE. It is by far the best film ever made about the Titanic's last voyage. Unlike the silly soap-opera versions that have trivialized the Titanic tragedy in recent years with their obsessive focus on fictitious and irrelevant characters, this movie tells the story as it should be told, and does it in remarkable detail and with astonishing accuracy. Taken from the book of the same name by Walter Lord--a brilliant author with an awesome talent for re-creating actual events--the movie is authentic down to even the very smallest detail. Every scene, every incident, every action, every person is drawn directly from life. The characters portrayed are real, their actual names are used, and their actions and even the dialogue they speak is reproduced faithfully from survivors' accounts of what was said and done. Courage, cowardice, mistakes, heroic efforts, triumphs and tragedies small and large--they are all here, not imaginary or smarmy or silly, but poignantly and often painfully real. Not only are the incidents, people, and dialogue true to the actual event, but in addition the sets are astoundingly detailed recreations of the Titanic; those familiar with the physical layout of the Titanic will be amazed at the faithfulness of the film to the actual ship. Above, all, although the film is always entertaining, it also deeply and profoundly, one might almost say reverently, brings home to the viewer the true significance of the Titanic disaster in both human and historical terms. This is, to the greatest extent humanly and technically possible, the way it was, and no one who admires courage or feels pity or appreciates the irony and sadness of the Titanic's last hours will remain unmoved. A brilliant film, perhaps one of the best ever made on any subject, and far and way the best about the Titanic.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Real Titanic
Review: Well how does one compare an actor like Di Caprio to the late Great Kenneth More. Like comparing Mozart to Sid Vicious isnt it?! This is a sharp reminder of what a great script and a cast of credible actors were able to produce all those years ago. The special effects may not be what Cameron was able to produce, but that matters not. Its a simple tale of honour and courage in the face of certain death. People may laugh at the very Englishness of it, and the band played on, and so it did, the English way, Kenneth More's way. The old fashioned beliefs and sentiments shown in this film may be unfashionable today, but the world is a poorer place without them. You must remember that 1912 was a time when Queen Victoria had not been long dead, and the Victorian Values that Britain once held so dear had not been fully eroded. Compare that way of life to todays money obsessed commercial cynicism, and you have the difference between the two films. "A Night To Remember" has what "Titanic" never will have, namely class, truth and above all integrity.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Titanic disaster vividly depicted
Review: Before James Cameron's "Titanic", this film was regarded as the best film re-creation of the Titanic disaster. It still holds up well in many respects. It does not rely on any fictional character or storyline to hold the viewer's interest. Like the book of the same name on which it is based, its focus is simply on the matter-of-factly recounting of the sinking of the ship. The film covers many of the tragic circumstances that led to the ship's demise, most of them are all but ignored in Cameron's film, such as the dreadful fact that due to telegram miscommunications, a boat within sight of the Titanic failed to rescue one single life.

Leutenant Lightoller, briefly seen in Cameron's film, is billed as the main character in this film, but no extensive portrayal is given to any character. The real star is the ship itself. One gets a more complete picture of the tragedy itself in this film than in Cameron's film, which is dominated in the first 2 hours with its romantic plot.

Certain things in the film are outdated. Expectedly, the special effects scarcely look convincing after one has seen Cameron's film. Some closeups of the ship are clearly shot with a miniature model. The shots of the iceberg also look scarcely menacing or convincing. Also, it was discovered in the 90s that the ship might have broken in two pieces while it was sinking (Cameron's film shows this). In this film, the ship sinks in one piece.

The supplements of the DVD version include a fairly interesting audio commentary track done by two Titanic researchers, a 1-hour "making-of" documentary containing interviews of the film's producer William MacQuitty and the book's author Walter Lord, and a theatrical trailer. No mention to Cameron's film is made in the audio commentary or the documentary since they were both made before 1997. The DVD's picture quality is pristine-looking. The Dolby Digital mono audio is clear and sharp.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: And the band played on...
Review: Kenneth Moore and the rest of the Titanic's crew are brilliant in "A Night to Remember." This B/W telling of the story of the Titanic is great. The special effects are somewhat dated, but they do not hinder the telling of the story. The acting is good, it is a telling of the story of the British superliner's death told by the British.

I particularly enjoy the aspect of the movie that includes the designer of the Titanic, who was on board at the time of the calamity.

The typical British stiff upper lip comes into play time and time again, while, when the ship is starting to drop down, the band literally played on. I also enjoyed the bit parts that made the story come together -- like the steward who, though drunk, roamed the ship throwing deck chairs overboard to people in the water.

Though a dramatic telling of this event, there is enough information included to suggest that this might be better labelled a docu-drama.

An excellent movie -- the best telling of the sinking of the Titanic that I have seen.

5 stars

Alan Holyoak

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This is the quintessential Titanic Movie
Review: Forget watching "Titanic". If you want the real story, this is it. Forget James Camerons story. It's nothing but a cartoon. This tells the story in what is almost "real time". It is a fairly long movie but it covers the full story. The black and white give it a stark realism that is fantastic. Unlike Cameron's version, (where he leaves out the fact that a potential rescue ship was close enough to been seen from the Titanic and failed to comprehend the distress that the ship was in). Cameron found that the love story angle of his version wouldn't allow for the time it would take to present this part of the story, so he left it out. So much for the realism of his version. (The carpets on the set were identical to those on the ship, but that's where his attention to detail ends). What "A Night to Remember" lacks in production quality it makes up for in accuracy and detail of the facts.

Spend the time and the money to watch this version. It's worth the time if you want to learn the full story. Great movie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Best Movie Production about The Titanic
Review: This is the only 5-star movie in our Titanic collection (although not a movie, the A&E documentary series is equally good). The official telling of the Titanic, this one by the British Film Board. This movie (somewhat documentary in style) chronicles not only the people on board, but the specific details of what was happening before and as the ship sank. The script includes facts not included in any other feature film. The effects are excellent. Unlike Hollywood releases of "Titanic" in 1953, 1979, 1996 and 1997, this film does the finest job of telling the story. We own the VHS version (apparently out-of-print), so I cannot comment on any special features the DVD may offer. But if anything, you're enjoyment of the film could only be improved in DVD format.


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