Spoonatects Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

pointyfilippa The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

JohnHowardReid BACKGROUND: "Titanic" was a pet project of Nazi Germany's evil propaganda minister, Dr. Goebbels. In the true story of the 15 April 1912 tragedy in which 1,503 people lost their lives, Goebbels saw a grand opportunity to denounce British opportunism, stupidity and greed. Goebbels had the script written by a fanatical Nazi, Zerlett- Olfenius. Direction was entrusted to Herbert Selpin who had successfully handled movie versions of other maritime disasters, despite the fact that Goebbels was well aware that Selpin had little love for the Nazi regime. However, Zerlett-Olfenius was entrusted with shooting the second unit work on location in the port of Gdynia in Poland. In May 1942, whilst Selpin shot the interiors in Berlin, Zerlett-Olfenius was detailed to direct the matching exteriors in Gdynia. When no footage at all arrived from Gdynia, the frustrated Selpin journeyed to that port to investigate. He confronted Zerlett- Olfenius and the two men had a bitter quarrel during which Selpin made many insulting references to the German armed forces. Zerlett- Olfenius reported Selpin to the Gestapo. Selpin was arrested and thrown into jail on a charge of treason. Unwilling to delay shooting and bring the matter to trial, the evil Goebbels ordered the prison guards to murder Selpin in his cell on the night of 31 July 1942. The propaganda minister then gave out that the treasonable Selpin had admitted his guilt by committing suicide. Werner Klinger was contracted to complete the film.However, Selpin had the last laugh after all. When Goebbels viewed the completed picture, he had enough wit to realize that its propaganda effects would be the exact opposite of what he and Zerlett-Olfenius had intended. Not only were the scenes of panic among the passengers uncomfortably akin to the contemporary reactions of German civilians under Allied bombing raids, but the instigator of the whole tragedy, Ismay, was shown to be a corrupt, self-seeking leader, reckless of people's lives in his own lust for power, money and "glory". A Hitler figure, in other words. "Titanic" was shown in Paris (in order to recoup at least part of its enormous cost), but in Germany it was not released at all until 1950.COMMENT:There are a number of movies dealing with the Titanic tragedy, but for sheer entertainment zing and gusto, this version is hard to beat. Not only are special effects absolutely marvelous and the scenes of shipboard panic and mayhem absolutely riveting, but the sets are superb, the costumes startling, and the acting dazzlingly charismatic. Nielsen hugs audience sympathy as the harassed Petersen, Miss Schmitz (despite a long dark wig that is a trifle disconcerting) transforms realistically from riches-into- rescuer, while the stunningly-gowned Heiberg limns the most decorative of high-class vamps and the evil-visaged Wernicke makes a human figure of the luckless Captain Smith. And a special clap to Jolly Marée who performs the sexiest dance number by which all others will now be measured.Selpin's driving, pacey direction, boosted by Behn-Grund's splendid camera-work nails home every hideously fascinating detail of this most terrible of maritime tragedies.

melvelvit-1 The Teutonic TITANIC's been called everything from "artistically terrible" to "morbidly compelling" and with good reason. It's also talky (or, in this case, subtitle-y) and doesn't really kick in until the final minutes but considering the anti-British agenda, the doomed ship was merely a medium for the message anyway. Not only is the film of historical importance as a pluperfect example of Nazi agitprop, the backstory's as tragic as the events unfolding on screen:Third Reich Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels heartily endorsed the project because he thought the tragic tale was "a classic case of British incompetency" but, ironically, after its completion he banned the film in Germany, thinking the scenes of panic and despair hit too close to home for a beleaguered populace in a time of heavy Allied bombing. The director, Herbert Selpin, was overheard making a crack about the German navy and promptly hauled off by the Gestapo who put him in prison; he was later found hanging in his cell, a "suicide", of course. Troubled star Sybille Schmitz was also the real-life inspiration for Rainer Warner Fassbinder's VERONIKA VOSS but the darkest of all fates awaited the S.S. Cap Arcona, a one-time luxury liner used in the filming. In May, 1945, the Cap Arcona, commandeered by the German navy, was ferrying prisoners of war in the Baltic when it was sunk by the RAF. "Pilots of the attacking force stated that they were unaware that the ships were laden with prisoners who had survived the camps... The RAF commanders ordering the strike reportedly thought that the ships carried escaping SS officers." More than 5,000 lost their lives that night (five times Titanic's death toll and the second worst maritime disaster in history) and it's said that survivors in the water were picked off by Nazi snipers as they tried to swim ashore. As late as 1971, skulls and bones were still washing up on beaches. After WWII, TITANIC was considered one of the "spoils of war" and American and British filmmakers were free to use footage from it whenever they wanted. Snippets show up in 1958's A NIGHT TO REMEMBER as well as a slew of U.S. television shows in the 50s & 60s. The panic, terror, and grisly particulars of the sinking of the Cap Arcona are as dramatic as any Titanic re-telling:"Equipped with lifejackets from locked storage compartments, most of the SS guards were able to jump overboard from the Cap Arcona, and there appear to be rumors that despite the water temperature of only 7°C, they were busy shooting any prisoners who tried to escape. German trawlers sent to rescue Cap Arcona's crew members and guards managed to save 16 sailors, 400 SS men, and 20 SS women. Most of the prisoners who tried to board the trawlers were beaten back, while those who reached shore were shot down. The prisoners that managed to swim ashore were mainly gunned by the SS. Only 350 of the 4,500 former concentration camp inmates who had been aboard the Cap Arcona survived. RAF Pilot Allan Wyse of No. 193 Squadron later recalled, "We used our cannon fire at the chaps in the water . . . we shot them up with 20mm cannons in the water. Horrible thing, but we were told to do it and we did it. That's war." Severely damaged and set on fire, the Cap Arcona eventually capsized. The death toll was estimated at 5,000 people."One last thing about the Cap Arcona catastrophe -quite a few of those concentration camp survivors were captured American soldiers which makes this the most horrific case of "friendly fire" ever.

frannywentzel It's amazing how easily this film - with an anti-capitalist message straight out of a Michael Moore 'documentary' - could pass for some of the virulent anti-American agit-prop currently being churned out with little regard for profitability or market demand by 'liberal' Hollywood in the run-up to the 2008 US presidential elections.In this film the stock of the White Star Line is being devalued by the board of directors at the behest of J Bruce Ismay with the idea that the stock price will go back up when the Titanic completes her maiden voyage in record time. This plan is somehow being thwarted by John Jacob Astor who hopes to cause White Star Line prices to drop so low that he can buy the company out from under Ismay.How this would work I'm a little hazy on but the whole scheme would be moot as the White Star Line was a wholly owned subsidiary of the International Merchantile Marine Conglomerate set up by Wall Street financier JP Morgan and wasn't a public company anymore.Never mind that the White Star Line had long abandoned speed for comfort in its shipbuilding policy and that the Titanic could never hope to win the Blue Riband.This is Socialist (of the Nationalist kind) propaganda so a little suspension of disbelief is to expected from the Lumpen Proletariat and the film gets it's point across effectively with an agreeable amount of plot intricacy with a jewel theft and hints of a previous romance on the part of the German Petersen and a female passenger thrown into the mix. Some snippets of steerage life are shown with a remarkable scene involving a rather sensual Gypsy dancer - hey weren't the Nazis trying to wipe them out too?The special effects were reasonably decent and thanks to German war policy the filmmakers had their pick of idled German ocean liners using the ill-fated Cap Arcona - whose sinking a couple years later would kill over three times as many people as died on Titanic. A minor sop to historical accuracy is noted in that there was a ship sighted near the Titanic that failed to answer the Titanic's distress rockets - otherwise this film shows only minimal regard for true events.There is a little bit of the Nazi affection for schmaltz in the scene where the wireless operator frees his canary as the ship is about to make her final plunge but this is otherwise a reasonably well made piece in the service of its central idea - that Capitalist greed and not a hunk of ice was what doomed the Titanic.Something not lost on the East German government, which found this Nazi film in full 'agreeance' with their agenda. I can just imagine this being remade in Hollywood with a Muslim (or Venezuelan) as the heroic First Officer. Or Al Gore would appear on the iceberg claiming it was all the fault of global warming caused by Big Coal

MARIO GAUCI I've long known of this movie but I only now got to watch it and what a welcome surprise it turned out to be! Once one gets past the oddity factor of having a German hero and hearing these "Britons" talking in German, the end result is a very interesting version of the Titanic disaster: my rating veered between ***1/2 and *** all the way through the film and, though it definitely has its faults, I decided to go with the higher rating because of its undeniable artistic qualities – not to mention the singular and decidedly fresh viewpoint offered for this oft-filmed ship-set drama.The characterizations offer a microcosmic dog-eat-dog world in which various financiers (and other upper-crust members of British society) teeter on the edge of bankruptcy and are further tensed up by petty jealousies, a theft of jewelry and, finally, the sinking of the ship itself; the stock market element (a major plot point) recalls another disaster film, THE END OF THE WORLD (1916), which I've just watched. Still, the most interesting character is perhaps the female lead played by the beautiful and tragic Sybille Schmitz – she had appeared in Carl Dreyer's VAMPYR (1931), and her life story would eventually be fictionalized in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's VERONIKA VOSS (1982).To get now to the cons I mentioned earlier: the ship only sinks at the very last minute (although, while one shouldn't expect much spectacle, the special effects are very well handled for the period) and the courtroom epilogue is somewhat anti-climactic as it reveals that many of the despicable protagonists survived the tragedy (which was perhaps a mistake). The overt critique of the British as snobbish, egocentric and money-grubbing (and especially the concluding statement) seems fairly hilarious now - but one wonders if it was actually so unrealistic given the unmitigated and misguided optimism that was clearly felt by all back in the day, with respect to the entire Titanic venture! It's been quite a while since I watched A NIGHT TO REMEMBER (1958) and I've yet to check out the 1953 glossy Hollywood version; still, even in comparison with the latest 'definitive' (though actually overblown and exceedingly commercial) version, the 1943 film practically covers all the various angles – including the plight of the second-class voyagers, the robbery and even the impossible central romance – in less than half the running-time! Alarmingly, director Herbert Selpin was arrested (and subsequently executed) by the Gestapo sometime during production and Werner Klinger (who went on to dabble in Edgar Wallace Krimis and the revamped DR. MABUSE films of the 1960s) stepped in - but the results are quite seamless! Ironically, while the film was intended by the Nazi regime as anti-British propaganda, TITANIC was eventually banned in its native country because of the intensity of its scenes of panic and terror!