Titanic (1953)

In director Jean Negulesco's 1953 version of Titanic, Clifton Webb plays an affluent man brimming with confidence and as we soon see, a touch of arrogance. He believes their children should continue to be raised in Europe, and his wife (Barbara Stanwyck) believes they should return to America to get a taste of more humble surroundings. The two are at odds with another, and it culminates in the film's best scene, her informing him that their boy is not his son, and then walking off with the door slowly closing. The scene later where she describes how it happened, and the frostiness of his reaction, is sad and chilling. We admire Webb's certainty and his understanding of just what to do in social situations, and we recoil in horror at the coldness of his feelings, and his disdain for the common man. He's an iceberg, on a ship destined to hit an iceberg.Another nice moment is when Barbara Stanwyck reads the poem 'When I Was One-and-Twenty" by A.E. Housman to a young man played by Robert Wagner. Unfortunately, Wagner's character isn't all that likeable. He has a few comments to Stanwyck's daughter (Audrey Dalton) that may make you smile, such as "Never heard it before? Where have you been, locked up in some art gallery? Why, that's the hottest jig the kids do." However, he also has some musical performances between the 60 and 70 minute points of the film (pre-iceberg) that don't have the intended endearing effect, including a cringe-inducing performance of the "Navajo Rag", about how they dance down on the ol' reservation. Richard Basehart is strong in his supporting role of priest who we find out has been defrocked because of his drinking, and his scene with Stanwyck on the deck at night, each lost in their own troubles, is a good one. However, the performance seems a bit wasted, as there's nowhere for the character to go, and the film ends up choosing a path high in schmaltz. Unenviable comparisons to other Titanic movies aside (in particular Cameron's), the film fails most post-iceberg. Some of the right elements are there, including the hubris of a foolhardy increase in speed in order to impress the world in the first place, and the lack of enough lifeboats. The special effects are relatively brief but reasonably good for the time period. And of course, the moment is poignant, being a true story, and fate being so arbitrary. Stanwyck is said to have cried on set imagining the horror. Perhaps one of the ways people have of coping with this is to create heroic characters. In this version, it just gets to be a little much, and the stories between Webb and Stanwyck, their little boy, Basehart, and Wagner all seem false. Similar accusations are leveled at other movies that I sometimes find myself defending, but I can't in this case, or at least, as much. It's an average movie, certainly watchable, but dated and without balance in the fictional part of its story.

I watched this many times on TV as a kid, mainly interested in the exciting final scenes. When I reacquainted myself with it as an adult I realized how much I missed.The obnoxiously pretentious and pontificating character portrayed by Clifton Webb makes Billy Zane's later effort look anemic - and Zane did a great job. Stunning Barbara Stanwick plays the kind of magnetic woman that no man could watch walk away without making a last stand. Robert Wagner exhibits the same irresistible rascally charm he still shows as Dinozzo's dad on NCIS.The scene containing the interchange between the two main stars when Stanwick finally and powerfully plays her "high trump", then turns away to leave an emotionally eviscerated Webb slack-jawed and speechless is a cinematic gem. Each suffer a private Gethsemane in their own way and the sense of loss and bitterness both feel is palpably grim and painful to see. Of course the Titanic does sink and those who die and those who survive are separated with cold, irreversible finality.The special effects are not that special, even by 1950s standards, but that is not what this movie was really about in the first place. Don't expect the 1996 version, this isn't for kids, it's drama played by 2 stars at the top of their game.

Compelling, excellent version of the tragedy. While there was much to like in the more recent version I've always found this one to be the superior of the two. Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck are perfectly cast as a wealthy couple whose marriage is disintegrating. They seem completely natural in their surroundings and their performances could not be bettered. The love story is sweet and unlike the newer version makes sense since both characters are from the same class, the only way in that era that they would mingle, class division was too ingrained at the time for people to move freely about the ship. A dolled up Thelma Ritter is a hoot as the unsinkable Molly Brown even though she is called Maude Young here. Not as technically sophisticated as the James Cameron version but much more emotionally resonant.

I watched the 1953 Version with Babara Stanwyck on You Tube. According to the opening credits all the nautical dialog was supposed to be accurate.In a lot of ways this production is very well done. We have a young Robert Wagner on the ship doing some heroics. The Iceberg hit while not as thrilling a spectacle as later versions, is done accurately. It is as technically correct as there was knowledge of in 1953.There is a lot of music in this one including everyone on board singing "Nearer My God to Thee" as the ship goes down. The whole thing is handled well and not over length. If flows very very well.Thelma Ritter is very good in her supporting role as Maude Young, with her usual brassy type of character.