VCR/TIVO alert: On TCM 2:00am EST German 'Titanic', 'Night To Remember'

[edbermac]

We've pretty much all seen ANTR, but if you can check out 'Titanic' 1943, a German version which I saw last year.

The plot from Wiki:

The movie opens with a proclamation to the White Star stock holders that their stocks are currently falling. The president of White Star promises to reveal a secret during the maiden voyage of the Titanic that will change the fate of the stocks. He alone knows that the ship can break the world record in speed and that, he thinks, will raise the stock value. He and the board of the White Star plan to lower the stocks by selling even their own stocks in order to buy them back at a lower price. They plan to buy them back just before the news about the record speed of the ship will be published to the press.

The issue of capitalism and the stock market plays a dominant role throughout the movie. The hero of the film is played by the fictional German First Officer Peterson on the ill-fated voyage of the British ocean liner RMS Titanic in 1912. He begs the ship's rich and snobbish owners to slow down the ship's speed, but they refuse and the Titanic hits an iceberg and sinks. The rich are shown as sleazy cowards, while Officer Peterson and a handful of German passengers in steerage are shown as brave and kind. Peterson manages to rescue many passengers, convince his lover to get into a lifeboat (in a scene which was famously echoed in the 1997 film) and saves a young girl, who was obviously left to die in her cabin by an uncaring, callous British capitalist mother. The film makes the allegory of the Titanic's loss specifically about British avarice rather than, as most Titanic retellings do, about general human arrogance and presumption.

This film does include all the "classic" trappings of a Titanic film. The numerous subplots include greed, arrogance, star-crossed lovers, young love, old flames meeting again on the doomed ship and has an emotional scene where a wife refuses to leave her husband on the doomed liner. Ironically, the real-life couple on which this scene was based were Jewish, a fact which was not set forth in this 1943 German film.

It was reported that the original director angered some top Nazis with cost overruns and was killed by the Gestapo!

As a historical retelling it leaves a lot to be desired. Titanic was built for comfort, not speed. And a German First Officer on a British ship??

As a propaganda piece though it's quite fascinating.