Titanic (TV miniseries)

For other uses, see Titanic (disambiguation).

Titanic
Directed by	Robert Lieberman
Produced by	Harold Lee Tichenor Rocky Lang
Written by	Ross LaManna Joyce Eliason
Starring	Peter Gallagher George C. Scott Catherine Zeta-Jones Eva Marie Saint Tim Curry Harley Jane Kozak Marilu Henner
Music by	Lennie Niehaus
Cinematography	David Hennings
Editing by	Tod Feuerman
Distributed by	RHI Entertainment
Release date(s)	November 17, 1996
Running time	173 min.
Country	Canada/United States
Language	English
Budget	$13,000,000 (estimated)

Titanic is a made-for-TV movie that premiered on CBS in 1996. Titanic follows several characters on board the RMS Titanic when she sinks on her maiden voyage in 1912. The miniseries was directed by Robert Lieberman. The original music score was composed by Lennie Niehaus.

Plot summary

Titanic has three different storylines. Mrs. Isabella Paradine is traveling on the Titanic to join her husband. On the Titanic, she meets Wynn Park, her former lover. She falls in love with him again, and the two of them spend time together. Wynn and Isabella have sex in her cabin and she sends her husband a wireless saying they cannot be together anymore (despite their daughter). When the ship starts sinking, Isabella must reluctantly leave Wynn. Later on board the RMS Carpathia she is grief stricken when she finds Wynn's lifeless body on a lifeboat and learns he has died of hypothermia, but luckily she is reunited with her family when the Carpathia reaches New York.

Also in first class is the Allison family, a real family who traveled on the Titanic, returning home to Montreal with their two small children and new nurse, Alice Cleaver. They notice something wrong with her; a maid asks her if she had been in Cairo the previous month but soon realizes that she remembers her from the highly-publicized trial where Alice was accused of throwing her baby off a train. When the Titanic starts sinking, Alice Cleaver panics and quickly boards a lifeboat with Trevor, the Allisons' infant son. The parents are unaware that the baby is safe and refuse to leave without him, which in the end costs them their lives. They die in the sinking.

In third class, Jamie Pierce steals a ticket to get on board. He manages to become friends with one of the crewmen, Simon Doonan, who is a robber. Jamie falls in love with Osa Ludvigsen and they spend time on board together. However, Osa is raped in a shower by Doonan and is no longer able to trust anyone. When the ship hits the iceberg, Jamie cannot convince Osa to get into a lifeboat. Because of her rape, she doesn't want to live and claims God doesn't exist. Jamie mangages to get her into Isabella's boat, #14 which also has Doonan, disguised as a woman. Jamie is knocked overboard when a seaman knocks him off the boat deck and onto a lifeboat being lowered in which saves Jamie, but in the result he breaks his arm. However after the ship sinks, Osa is knocked off the lifeboat by Doonan, when Osa wants to fight him for raping her. He throws her off the boat and holds all the passengers in the boat hostage. Officer Lowe, who is in charge, hits Doonan in the head with a row in which Doonan snaps his neck, falls in the ocean, and dies. Osa is taken to the medical treatment in the Carpathia, where she is reunited with Jamie. In the end, upon arriving in New York, the two plan to start a new life together.

Cast

Actor	Role
Peter Gallagher	Wynn Park
George C. Scott	Capt. Edward Smith
Catherine Zeta-Jones	Isabella Paradine
Eva Marie Saint	Hazel Foley
Tim Curry	Simon Doonan
Roger Rees	J. Bruce Ismay
Harley Jane Kozak	Bess Allison
Marilu Henner	Margaret "Molly" Brown
Mike Doyle	Jamie Perse
Sonsee Neu	Aase Ludvigsen
Felicity Waterman	Alice Cleaver
Malcolm Stewart	First Officer William Murdoch
Kevin McNulty	Second Officer Charles Lightoller
Kavan Smith	Fifth Officer Harold Lowe
Terence Kelly	Capt. Arthur Rostron
Scott Hylands	John Jacob Astor IV
Jane Mortil	Madeleine Astor
Tamsin Kelsey	Clarinda Jack
Eric Keenleyside	"Black" Billy Jack
Kevin Conway	Hudson J. Allison
Barry Pepper	Assistant Marconi Operator Harold Bride

Historical Inaccuracies

• When Isabella Paradine asks for a change of cabin, the steward says everything is booked solid. In fact it wasn't; first class was less than half full.
• Smith says to Ismay that the ship has precisely the number of lifeboats required by the British Board of Trade regulations. In fact it had 4 collapsible lifeboats in addition to the 16 boats that were required.
• The first class dining room was located on D-deck after the reception area. This film depicts the room on A-deck right below the Grand Staircase.
• Isabella Paradine is shown walking up a wooden staircase into a sort of cafe. There was no such staircase on the ship.
• Alice Cleaver, the Allisons' nanny, had a roommate with her in her cabin, the Allisons maid Sarah Daniels, and did not sleep with the Allison children. Daniels, who is not portrayed at all in the film, went upon deck after the collision and was hauled into a lifeboat and thus was not able to warn the family of the impending danger.
• Molly Brown along with John and Madeline Astor, are shown going to dinner in the dining room after the ship has departed Southampton, England. However, the Astors with Brown as their guest, boarded the Titanic in Cherbourg, France not Southampton. Additionally the ship docked in France at dinner time meaning the Astors and Brown would have been in the process of boarding the ship at the time dinner was being served.
• The Titanic's lookouts did indeed have to work without binoculars, but not because they had been taken to the bridge for use there.
• Molly Brown makes a remark to Captain Smith about his retirement in 3 days, and he accepts this, but Smith was to have retired only after the return trip to England.
• The distress rockets are shown burning as simple white balls.
• Alice Cleaver was indeed the nurse to Mr. and Mrs. Allison, however, she was not a murderess. The nurse to the Allisons was named Alice Catherine Cleaver, and has often been confused with the alleged child-killer, Alice Mary Cleaver.
• In a scene coming very close after the one in which Titanic collides with the iceberg, Captain Smith is seen with a blueprint rolled out on a table, explaining the nature of the ship's damage - and how long she would remain afloat - to White Star Line Director Bruce Ismay and the senior officers. According to eyewitness testimony, though, it was Titanic designer Thomas Andrews of Harland & Wolff Shipyards, not Captain Smith, who presented this assessment to the Captain, senior officers, and Bruce Ismay. Indeed, the character of Thomas Andrews, who played a key role in the events that night, does not seem to be portrayed in the movie at all.
• There is a mention of a brig in the film, but in truth, there was no prison of any kind on board the ship. Furthermore, the word brig is a naval term and would not be used on a civilian vessel.
• Titanic had a glass dome over the Grand Staircase. It is not seen in the movie, in its place is a rose dom with a chandelier.
• Mrs. Miller refers to John Jacob Astor as the richest man in the world, which was not the case, he was clamed the richest man on the ship on the Titanic.
• Sunrise on April 14 at a latitude near 40 degrees north would be before 5:30 am local solar time. It is shown as occurring at 7:00 am, impossible by any reasonable clock setting. (Daylight Saving Time was not in use in 1912.)
• The Southampton crowd is seen waving off the Titanic from the starboard side, when in fact they did so from the port side.
• The term "see-through" was not used for fabrics until about 1950.
• Mr. Dickie says he saw Mary Pickford in a "moving picture" at a fair, in a box that he put his eye to. The Kinetoscope, which he is describing had been superseded by projection in the eighteen-nineties. Cinemas as nickelodeons were pervasive by 1912, so that movies were no longer a mysterious innovation that passengers on the Titanic would not have heard of.
• In one scene, a third-class passenger uses a shower in one of the public bathrooms. However, it is highly unlikely that these showers would have existed anywhere in the 1900's, much less on board the Titanic.
• After arriving in New York, there is a scene on balcony / walkway where the corner of the American flag shows. The flag has a field of stars staggered like in today's 50-star flag. The flag in 1912 would have been stars in a field of blue in straight rows.

Reception

Titanic received mostly negative reviews. The New York Daily News commented on the fact that the acting was substandard and the ship's operators and owner are portrayed "about as sympathetically as those connected with the Exxon Valdez." The Seattle Post-Intelligencer also referenced the "embarrassingly bad acting" and out of place scenes. The film garnered mostly negative and positive reviews from critics. It is a "Certified Fresh" film on Rotten Tomatoes, with 69% overall approval from critics.

The film however bears some resemblances to the 1997 theatrical film of the same name in that the female leads, played by Catherine Zeta-Jones and Kate Winslet, respectively, are at odds with the privileged lifestyles they're living. Also, a historical personality, First Officer William McMaster Murdoch commits suicide in both films, an event which cannot be proven.

Awards

Titanic received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Drama Miniseries or a Special. It was also nominated for Outstanding Costume Design for a Miniseries or a Special.

Year	Category	Nominee(s)	Result
1997	Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Drama Miniseries or a Special	David Husby, David E. Fluhr, Adam Jenkins, Don Digirolamo	Won
	Outstanding Costume Design for a Miniseries or a Special	Joe I. Tompkins, Jori Woodman	Nominated

External links

• Titanic (TV miniseries) at the Internet Movie Database
• Titanic (TV miniseries) at Allmovie