Titanic on Film

Grossing over $1.8 billion, James Cameron’s 1997 movie Titanic had an enormous impact on
popular culture. With a script largely comprised of non-historical figures,
Cameron’s Titanic was more fiction
than fact. Through his lead characters’ love story, Cameron did manage to spark
a passionate popular interest in the Ship and her demise.

As ubiquitous as Cameron’s Titanic
is, other cinematic versions of Titanic
are less known, but compelling nonetheless.

The first Titanic film was a
German silent feature called In Nacht und Eis ("In
Night and Ice"). Filming started on In
Nacht und Eis the summer after the springtime shipwreck. The movie premiered
in the winter of 1912.




Historically, this first Titanic
film is incredible to watch, as the clothing and style are not based on
reproductions, but are completely authentic of the period.

Thirty-one years later, Herbert Selpin and Werner Von Klingler
directed the first movie named after the Ship. Selphin and von Klingler’s 1943 Titanic was a Nazi propaganda film made
during World War II in Berlin.  The
film painted the British and Americans on board as seedy capitalists, and
lionized German men as brave, valiant, and trustworthy.

While directing the Nazi version, co-director Selphin ran into massive
political trouble. He was overheard insulting some of the German Kriegsmarine
officers hired as on-set maritime consultants. The Kriegsmarine officers were frequently
harassing actresses working on the film, and Selphin found this behavior
inappropriate. Selphin was reported to the Gestapo for his remarks about the
officers, arrested, questioned by Joseph Goebbels (who controlled German media
at the time), and put in jail. Selphin was found hanging in his jail cell. His
death was ruled a suicide.

 Von Klinger finished as a stand-in director, but the film never made
it with the German public: Goebbels banned Titanic
during the Allied raids for inciting panic during war time.

 Next in Titanic’s cinematic history is 1958’s A Night To Remember, a docu-drama lauded for its historical
accuracy. Filmed in the United Kingdom A
Night To Remember won the 1959 Samuel Goldwyn International Award at the
Golden Globes. The set was based on blueprints from the RMS Titanic, and, although some of the
details weren’t correct, it is still often regarded as the most historically
accurate telling of Titanic’s
sinking.

Read more on our Stories from the Titanic blog...