Titanic (1953)

(On TV, January 2020) Most movies are released, seen, discussed and then slowly fade away from memory. A few have the arguably worse fate of permanently being overshadowed by a sequel or remake. While the 1953 version of Titanic wasn’t necessarily remade by the blockbusting 1997 version, there’s only so many ways you can tell the same story, and so both movies will remain forever linked. It’s certainly not the only “earlier version” of the Titanic story (Wikipedia helpfully lists at least three more of those films made prior to 1953), but it’s the one with the most star power, what with Barbara Stanwyck and a very young Robert Wagner in the cast. It’s also one with the bigger budgets, although that money did not stretch to cover historical accuracy—there are significant issues here in terms of factual history, which is highlighted by some generic subplots running through the film in typical Hollywood fashion. The drama is staid, but it does have its moments. Special effects are fair for the time, which may not pass muster today. Considering the film’s context, unflattering comparisons with the 1997 version may not wrong, but they may be misguided—this was blockbuster filmmaking in the early 1950s, and you can almost feel the wheels turning toward the kind of wide-scale spectacle that would be popular toward the end of the decade. A better comparison is with the near-contemporary but superior 1958 film A Night to Remember.