Rating: 
Summary: A good film that was the first Titanic movie I ever saw
Review: I've been a Titanic enthusiast for years, and this was the first Titanic-related film that I ever saw. I'm very glad to see that it has been released on DVD, which I purchased a few weeks ago. I really like the music without voices feature, as the music used in the film is gorgeous at times. If ANYONE can name that slow Irish tune that Gerard McSorley ("Martin Gallagher") and Antoinette O'Reilly ("Irish Beauty") dance their first dance to (April 13), please e-mail me the name of it!! Although not 100% accurate on facts or people, it is still worth the watch. One downside to this DVD has already been pointed out by a previous poster, and that is the fact that several minutes of several scenes have been cut out. There is a scene with those boot cleaners that is axed, as well as a rather stirring dance in steerage on the last night, with the song "The Irish Washerwoman." There are other missing scenes, as well, but those are the main ones that come to mind. Maybe TCM will air the full movie someday, since it used to air all the time on TBS years ago. Anyway, this DVD is worth buying overall!
Rating:
Summary: "S.O.S. TITANIC" (UK/USA 1979)
Review: If you've seen "Titanic" (1953), "A Night To Remember" (1958) and "Titanic" (1997), but not "S.O.S. Titanic" (1979), you are likely to be disappointed with the latter, but not eveybody is. It is true, "S.O.S. Titanic" is not very accurate in its historical representations of the Titanic story, but the effects (especially the sinking models of the ship) are very good indeed. In my view, the characters are well developed, although (with the exception of the costumes) it feels as though you are looking at life in the late seventies and not 1912. It was the first Titanic movie to be filmed in colour, and I think the producers did a good job: after all, "S.O.S. Titanic" is only a made-for-TV movie. Stars include: David Janssen, David Warner, Cloris Leachman, Susan Saint James, Ian Holm and Helen Mirren. Not at all bad, but not in an accurate, historical sense.
Rating: 
Summary: I just watched the DVD. Cameron must want this supressed.
Review: My wife and I were probably among the very few who had little good to say about Cameron's mega-blockbuster. But many large successes often are inspired by less lofty examples. I was shocked at how much of what seemed to make Cameron's version was already present in this one (even a cast member).Ok, the plot is one we all know; big ship sails, has argument with iceberg, sinks. No one will be surprised by that. Cameron tried to make his version as historically accurate as possible, right down to menus and china patterns. This movie does not make that claim and might be better for it. Instead of flashy special effects and painfully correct sets that seem contrary to creating a new survivor, this film concentrates on the lives of the passengers. David Warner (a manservant in Cameron's version) is a teacher who takes a fancy to an American school teacher. Oddly enough, tone of the most repeated themes is central to Cameron's version, the differentiation of class. Let's see, we have the wonderful Irish party down below, the poor boy falling for the rich girl with the big hat (hats being one of the few things I liked about Cameron's version), she takes a liking to him, etc. etc. There was one disturbing scene that brought home the tragedy far more powerfully than anything Cameron did. While people are beginning to panic in the halls as water begins to rise, the camera focuses on a crying baby sitting in the water. Now, as a parent I cannot believe any parent would lose their baby like this, it was amazingly powerful. If you want historical accuracy ad-nauseam, check out the over-long Cameron epic. If you want to be interested in the cast and get a feel for the class interactions at a time before they fell apart, then SOS Titanic is the movie to watch.
Rating:
Summary: Not so bad
Review: Oh come on! It's not THAT bad! I first saw this movie years ago way before the Cameron film was even thought of. For it's time it wasn't all that bad. I agree that the storylines of the characters were kind of corny, especially between Lawrence Beesley and his second class female shipboard friend (Susan St.James). I almost felt embarassed for them. A few inacuracies, but still gets to the point. I used to like this one when I was a kid and was home from school with a cold. It still comes out when I'm sick. It's fun to watch and brings back childhood memories.
Rating:
Summary: What a good old movie!
Review: Oh, come on. Not everything on tv is factual. This one should not be graded on historical value, but on the entertainment value. This movie piqued my interest about the Titanic. The "unsinkable" Molly Brown, John Jacob Astor and his young bride, Captain Smith, - all of these characters were first introduced to me in this movie. The music is forboding, the backdrops were beautiful, and the romance of the ship is captured in this movie. Also, they did show how the third class passengers were treated during that period of time. With the multiple characters and plots, it is easy to pick a favorite character. I would suggest this movie to anyone who loves the Titanic.
Rating:
Summary: What a good old movie!
Review: Oh, come on. Not everything on tv is factual. This one should not be graded on historical value, but on the entertainment value. This movie piqued my interest about the Titanic. The "unsinkable" Molly Brown, John Jacob Astor and his young bride, Captain Smith, - all of these characters were first introduced to me in this movie. The music is forboding, the backdrops were beautiful, and the romance of the ship is captured in this movie. Also, they did show how the third class passengers were treated during that period of time. With the multiple characters and plots, it is easy to pick a favorite character. I would suggest this movie to anyone who loves the Titanic.
Rating:
Summary: It Is Edited!
Review: This movie conveys the feel of ocean travel more than any of the others, including A Night To Remember, which was about the most British feeling movie. S.O.S. Titanic gives more spotlight to steerage than any of the others, and endless scenes that are absent of music, other than what would have been the tunes of the time, also makes this one effective. But scenes are cut! Scenes removed are: *The opening scene of the Carpathian rescue (several of these scenes are spliced onto the end)
*The delightful sauna scene -- "I'll give you, 'Sheharrazade'!"
*Yes, the boot shine lads are deleted!
*Mrs. Harris' fall down the stairs and her standing ovation when she next enters with a cast on her arm (for the record, this did indeed happen, her fall and the cast. I don't know about the ovation). *The steerage sing along of "Isn't she grand, boys? Isn't she grand?" *Beesley observes the snoozing librarian and quips "there I sit thirty or forty years on." *When Beesley jumps to the lifeboat, Fred Barrett asks him why he has his night clothes still with him in his hand, and Beesley laughingly replied "I don't know. I don't know." *The sinking was longer (I recorded it off onto an audiotape years ago and still have it) *Mrs. Astor's weeping scene was longer. It's cut here. Thankfully we do get to see young Mr. Long and his companion, I believe, Jack Thayer, who had both been spying on the ladies sauna, when they jump off the ship. We also see our boot shine lads debating prayer. "YOu a Catholic? Me neither. What difference does it make now?" It seems like there was also a longer stretch of a steerage dance that was removed. The movie is inaccurate in stating that Fireman Fred Barrett perished. It was Fred Barrett who was manning the lifeboat that Laurence Beesley leapt into. If ever the complete version is released, I would be very interested in obtaining it. As it is, it had been so long since I had seen this movie, I didnt care. The re-editing job was done wrong or the original movie was done wrong, as we see Helen Mirren observe Ian Holm as he enters the lifeboat, she is already aboard, then we get Mirren talking to architect Thomas Andrews. It really does look like there has been a severe re-editing job. The scenes of the overturned lifeboats should have occurred after the ship sank, not just before. This is also when David Warner is trying to bring someone into their lifeboat. For some reason, this is pieced together as taking place just before the sinking.
Rating: 
Summary: An abomination to the Titanic sinking
Review: This movie was horrible right from the beginning! All the acting was terrible and the actors didn't even portray the people they were supposed to represent. As for historical accuracy, they said the Titanic sank on the 12th! The "authentic recreation" couldn't have been more fake. It was painfully obvious that they filmed on the Queen Mary. They even go as low to as show the orange and black funnels of the Queen Mary as opposed to the buff and black funnels of the Titanic. The special effects were terrible and very closely resemble that of "Meteor" which came out that same year. This movie should have never been made and is an abomination to the tragedy.
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