What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Julian Shellhammer]

Sometime last week it was The Big House (1930) directed by George W. Hill, with Chester Morris, Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone, and Robert Montgomery. There is a rave of mine about this film somewheres back on the thread. Visually gripping wide shots of thousands (?) of convicts marching in silence to and from everywhere, the screen-filling scene of the meal in a huge hall, the claustrophobic solitary confinement cells, and on and on.

 

[Touchofevil]

Kenneth Branagh’s version of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile. I am a big fan of David Suchet’s Poirot and was not able to get into Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express. Yet, I found Death on the Nile be pretty entertaining. I enjoyed Branagh’s version of Poirot as well as the visuals and the story. Now, I figure I need to give Murder on the Orient Express another shot.

 

[Harp]

Still on the prowl for Branagh's Belfast-thought I saw a stream offering several weeks past. Missed.
The guy definitely intrigues ever since Henry. Almost made the Chicago Film Fest last October,
but nada....

 

[Fading Fast]

Bob le Flambeur from 1956, from France


Other than being a bit slow out of the gate, Bob le Flambeur, Bob the Gambler, is an enjoyable and engaging movie trip through some sort of 1950s noirish and neon French world of nightclubs, bars, gambling parlors, luxurious studio apartments and seedy flats, populated by high- and low-end gangsters, gamblers, prostitutes and bar owners all watched at a distance by a smart but somewhat forgiving police.

Did that world ever exist outside of the movies? Elements of it did, but it was never as fully and wonderfully realized in reality as it was on screen in movies such as this. Was there ever as confidently refined, understanding and complex an anti-hero as Bob the gambler in reality? Probably not, but writer and director Jean-Pierre Melville's cinematic noirish and neon world demanded a Bob the gambler to populate it.

If James Bond was French and hadn't become a secret agent, he could have been Bob the gambler. When we meet Bob, played by Roger Duchesne, he's a successful fiftyish-year-old gambler, living in a tastefully luxurious apartment, with an eclectic mix of friends, including the local police inspector whose life Bob might have once saved.

Ruthless when he has to be, Bob is also kind to friends in need even helping out a young prostitute, played by built-for-speed Isabelle Corey, with no place to live. And no, he didn't strike a tacit soft-dollar bargain with her.

Shortly after we meet him, though, Bob's odd but appealing life (if you don't have to really live it) begins to crumble when his luck goes south. Facing bankruptcy, Bob turns to his old occupation, crime, as a way out. A good part of the movie is Bob and a growing team planning a heist of the nearby casino.

All the elements of a heist movie are here - finding a rich backer, hiring the proper experts (the safecracker-practicing scene is outstanding), bribing insiders, choreographing every move and dealing with all the problems, like blabbermouth underlings - but this isn't really a heist movie.

Bob le Flambeur is a character study of a man at a crossroads. Lady luck had always carried Bob through, but she's deserted him for the moment. Facing ruin, Bob doesn't panic, doesn't show any outward change, but like any gambler, he plays the hand he's been dealt and the last card he has is a heist.

Populating Bob's world, in addition to his old friend, but perforce, adversary the police inspector and his streetwalker charge, are a female bar owner who wants to help Bob because he once helped her (played by Simone Paris who deserved more screen time), a young man trying to be the new Bob, but he doesn't have it, and an assortment of demimonde acquaintances and antagonists.

Being a character study and not a true heist movie, Melville's ending is also less about the heist and more about Bob the gambler as several elements of Bob's personality, style, profession and circle of friends collide in a surprising way.

Bob le Flambeur is a gem of a movie where we meet a quietly engaging antihero whose set of values is probably not yours. Yet his fealty to them earns our respect, especially as we see his own brand of integrity help him travel through a captivating neon otherworld of mid-1950s French gangsters, gamblers, hustlers and beautiful women.

 

[ChazfromCali]

Sometime last week it was The Big House (1930) directed by George W. Hill, with Chester Morris, Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone, and Robert Montgomery. There is a rave of mine about this film somewheres back on the thread. Visually gripping wide shots of thousands (?) of convicts marching in silence to and from everywhere, the screen-filling scene of the meal in a huge hall, the claustrophobic solitary confinement cells, and on and on.

I saw this a few weeks ago on TCM. It's quite good.

 

[Harp]

^ Bob just scene kills it with his Gaul poker-faced phiz; just the right amount disdain,
haughty French aristo cigarette at de rigueur held-perched forty-five* tossed on
the chip heap for good measure; all the while he's workin an inside straight with
Lady Luck who just kissed his ass good night. Slickerin owl shit spread over a walnut
banister with an ice cube's chance in hell toward improving any inside baseball
he's holding. I mean this guy is squeezing Steve McQueen's sweatin bullets look
in The Cincinnati Kid Three Cowboys and a Whore like blood from a turnip.

 

[Hercule]

Just last night saw Branaugh's Murder on the Nile. We really enjoyed his Orient Express but felt this one fell a bit flat. 3/10 as far as period pics go in my mind: there were just to many incongruities for the period portrayed. Didn't need the prologue back story about his mustache, which was just stupid in hindsight, and some of the character relationships were annoying. In all though, I've killed 2 hours in worse ways.

Are the Cristie books really as formulaic as the movies suggest? If so why bother? As my son commented when he first learned about MotN, "it just looks like murder on the orient express on a boat.

 

[Touchofevil]

This morning on TCM, Night and the City. I have seen it numerous times but it is a nice little gritty flick with neat exterior shots of the world back then.

 

[Fading Fast]

That Uncertain Feeling from 1941 with Merle Oberon, Melvin Douglas and Burgess Meredith


Merle Oberon plays the wife of a successful insurance salesman, played by Melvin Douglas. She spends her days shopping and going to tea with her also-rich friends and at night she hosts parties in her and Douglas' fancy Park Avenue apartment.

But she's unhappy. When husband Douglas tells her about his day at the office or reminds her about an upcoming business dinner they are hosting together, she's bored and irritated.

Douglas, being a good guy - a bit too into his work, but he's a nice husband - suggests she sees a psychoanalysis. While there, she meets a "not-yet-discovered" pianist, played by Burgess Meredith.

Burgess Meredith - first known to many of us as Rocky Balboa's cranky trainer in the 1970s or as the Penguin from the campy TV Batman series of the 1960s - back in the 1930s, carved out a niche in movies as an anti-social character with a leftist lean. He often played a political gadfly to the establishment, but you can feel his characters' ideology was restrained by the Motion Picture Production Code.

Given their druthers, the writers would have made his character a communist in this one, but instead, he's some kind of squishy "individualist" who is against capitalism and (tossed in for the Code) communism. But in reality, he's set up as an antagonist to Melvin Douglas' businessman (read capitalist) character.

Oberon is taken with Merideth's irritating personality because he's so different from her husband. He's not into business or "money" (he happily takes it from her, though), but is an artist "above" those "common" things.

Oberon invites Meredith into their home where he and Douglas, unsurprisingly, mix like water and oil. Oberon then blows up her marriage asking Douglas for a divorce because she wants to marry Meredith. After fighting it a bit, Douglas makes a cool move and gives her what she wants, figuring it will quickly burn itself out.

Somewhere, there's a book or, maybe even, a field of study on wives of successful businessmen (I'm sure, in today's world, it's true of husbands of successful business women) who somehow disdain the business that pays their bills.

The rest of us simple folk respect that paying the bills for things like, oh, food, shelter, clothing and healthcare is no small deal. Balance and perspective are important, and one doesn't have to slavishly worship work, but paying the bills can only appear unimportant if they are, actually, getting paid by someone.

Yet in the upper echelons of "society" in the 1930s - and in Roman times, and today, and every time in between - a contempt for work, even for "money" (in the abstract, as those who deride money still like spending it) seems to infect some segment of that well-healed group. We'll leave it to the sociologist to tell us why.

Oberon, infected with this anti-money illness and this being a movie made under the Motion Picture Production Code, first divorces her "boring" husband and, then, becomes engaged to Meredith. But once she has what she wants, she begins to see how irritatingly pompous and self centered Meredith is.

(Spoiler alert, but not really) After that realization, Oberon shifts the car into reverse, eats some much deserved humble pie dished out by Douglas and all ends happily. Douglas and she get back together; she's no longer bored by his work and Meredith is booted out of their home and lives.

That Uncertain Feeling is a by-the-numbers kinda romcom that the studios churned out almost effortlessly back then. The Code only allowed it to end one way, but in the real world, many lives have been wrecked when a husband or wife decides that his or her spouse's work is "oh so boring." That Uncertain Feeling, though, delivers the message that going to work to pay the bills is a respectable and necessary part of life.

 

[Harp]

^ Another never-seener. Merle Oberon is a gal I'd like to take to dinner and talk things over with.

As a confirmed Irish bachelor workholic, commodities, stocks, tracks I can sympathize with
Mel, too much of one and not enough the other, but this divorce, remarry stuff nosabbe.
But then, I never could figure out females either. Just crash and burn. Crash and burn.
All I learned about crashing around this town is that the Castle & Elephant pub is a great crashpad.

 

[Edward]

Watched The War Below last week. WW1 tunneler/engineers. Engaging enough, if a little formulaic. A rewatch of "OUTPOST" (modern day mercenaries take on zombie Nazi supersoldiers in a bunker in Eastern Europe) was fun. Roared with laughter at "Hotel Transylvania 2" last night, lovely parodies of the Universal Monsters tropes and some very cute visual gags. This morning was the turn of Jaws 2, the "good sequel". Still holds up well.

 

[basbol13]

War of the Arrows ( Korean 2011)

Two children Nam-yi and Ja-in are being chased by King Injo's guards and saved by their father Choi Pyeong-ryung, an officer of King Gwanghae and a skilled archer. He sends his own children to find a place of refuge with his best friend Kim Mu-seon. As they escape crying, Ja-in begs her brother to go back to their father but their father is killed in front of Nam-yi. Nam-yi, though bitten by the guard dogs, kills them and escapes with Ja-in. Nam-yi becomes the only family Ja-in has. 13 years later Nam-yi is now a skilled archer and hunter. He learns from Mu-seon's son Seo-goon that he and Ja-in plan to get married, with the approval of Mu-seon who is also Ja-in's godfather. During the wedding, Nam-yi is up in the mountains hunting deer. He hears the rumble of the invading forces. When Nam-yi makes it back to the village, he finds his step-father slaughtered and his sister taken away. Nam-yi then sets out to find the Qing army and take out their army with his bow

 

[MisterCairo]

Kenneth Branagh’s version of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile. I am a big fan of David Suchet’s Poirot and was not able to get into Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express. Yet, I found Death on the Nile be pretty entertaining. I enjoyed Branagh’s version of Poirot as well as the visuals and the story. Now, I figure I need to give Murder on the Orient Express another shot.

We just saw this as well and enjoyed it. I did prefer Orient Express in fact!

 

[Fading Fast]

Valley of Decision from 1945 with Gregory Peck, Greer Garson, Gladys Cooper and Donald Crisp


Using the prior hundred or so years of American history for its source material, the 1930s to 1950s was the heyday of the smoke-stack-industry soap-opera story, be it in novel or movie form.

America's economic might back then was often found in big physical plants or mines owned by one or a few families. The surrounding towns were either a literal or de facto "factory town," where almost everyone made their living directly or indirectly from the something-something iron works or motor company or oil business or coal mine, etc.

All the makings of a great story existed in this self-contained construct: a wealthy family, a dictatorial or understanding founder, a second or third generation fighting over the fate of the business, dedicated workers, angry workers, unions, scabs, labor strife, job-killing automation, business-threatening foreign competition, illicit love amongst and between the groups and on and on.

Today's tech-company wealth, with its small, well-paid workforce and, usually, stockholder ownership, combined with the boring "product" of coding, lacks the visual excitement and social/class drama of industrial-era America. Writers and filmmakers of the 1930s through the 1950s didn't miss their era's opportunity to churn out one saponaceous book and movie after another.

Valley of Decision, set in the late 1800s, is a textbook example of this effort. The Scott family owns the local steel mill that employs the town. The founder and owner, Donald Crisp, is a good man who demands much from his workers, but he treats them fairly by the standards of the day. Yet many of the men, looking to unionize, want more.

The second generation of Scotts comprise the flighty son, the dedicated male heir, the venal son and the spoiled daughter. Into this mix walks Greer Garson, a poor Irish girl and daughter of a crippled former mill worker, who becomes the Scott family's maid.

The heir apparent, Gregory Peck, falls for Garson, and she, him, but she tries to keep him at arm's length as she understands what happens to "the help" that sleeps with "the young gentleman." To wit, it wouldn't be he who is sent packing.

As the years go by, the family, especially Peck's mother (played by the always wonderful Gladys Cooper) begins to embrace Garson, but Garon is still skeptical. So with remorse, Garson takes the opportunity to go abroad when the family's daughter marries into English royalty. Being a movie, though, a few years later, Garson's back.

Just when things seem to be aligning for Garson and Scott, labor unrest at the mill reminds everyone of the class divide, especially when a strike turns violent (the fault lies with strikebreakers brought in by the bad-seed son acting against patriarch Crisp's and good-son Peck's orders). In the ensuing melee, Crisp is killed.

Several years later, Peck has married a woman from his class who has come to loathe the mill town (and by proxy her husband, Peck, who loves it) as she now wants to be "in society" and, irrationally, despises the "filthy" thing that makes her wealthy.

When Peck's mother dies, it all comes to head as the boys and the daughter have an open fight about selling the mill. Initially and sadly, only Peck wants to keep the family legacy going. (Spoiler alert) Enter Greer Garson who "shockingly" inherited the mother's shares and combines with Peck to keep the mill in the family.

There are a few other twists along the way and at the end, but you get the idea. It's a good, juicy mid-century soap opera combining the story of America's industrial might with a bunch of family backstabbing, money-grabbing kids and inter-class hanky panky. There are many other movie and novel variations on this story, but Valley of Decision is a good by-the-numbers introduction to the genre.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

The Warren William iteration of Perry Mason in 1935's The Case of the Curious Bride, with Allen Jenkins as Spudsy Drake, Mason's right hand man. Errol Flynn is billed more than half way down the credits, and I don't think he has any lines. Mason takes a break from being a bon vivant to solve a murder case. Michael Curtiz directed at top speed.

Then, it was Too Late for Tears (1949) with Lizabeth Scott, Don DeFore, Dan Duryea, and Arthur Kennedy. Hot cash lands in the life of Scott and Kennedy. It brings out hither-to unknown facets of Scott's character. Brother, what money will make folks do. We enjoyed the tale very much.

Somewhere in there it was The Big Caper (1957) starring Rory Calhoun, Mary Costa, and James Gregory. Minor-league hood Calhoun convinces well-to-do bunco artist to steal the payroll for the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base. This sets up a long con, with Calhoun and Costa posing as nice suburban people to ingratiate themselves with the police, the local business owners, et al, as a pretext to setting up the bank break-in.

There are some really whack characters who populate the story, with Robert Harris as a fire bug, Corey Allen as a Tab Hunter knock-off with deep issues, and Florenz Ames as "Dutch," the old-timer safecracker who wants just one more score before he gets out of the game. Worth a watch? If you like heist movies, and old time movies, sure.

 

[Fading Fast]

L'Eclisse from 1962, and Italian movie with English subtitles


If you put aside the boring artsy pseudo-intellectualism that feels like a The Twilight Zone episode preaching how the threat of nuclear annihilation strips life of meaning and ignore some off-the-shelf leftist anti-capitalism, L'Eclisse (the eclipse) is an engaging movie about, first, two people who shouldn't be in a relationship and, oddly, second, a stock market crash.

Monica Vitti, stunning to look at in a "she's beautiful but in an off" way, in the opening scene, breaks her engagement to an intellectual writer. In her wandering-aimlessly manner - she does everything in an aloof or detached way - Vitti then goes to her very much not-aloof mother who seems to make her living as a customer at the Rome stock exchange.

While everybody is frantically trading stocks or information at the exchange, Vitti floats through it bemused or confused, but not part of it. That's Vitti's thing; she is an observer of life who only engages when someone brings life to her. Of course, she's "above" the crass capitalism of the stock exchange, yet one assumes she's not above money as she wears stylish clothes, lives in a nice apartment and is expensively groomed.

The scenes of trading at the Rome exchange perfectly capture the hectic and often frenzied nature of person-to-person trading on exchange floors and in trading "pits."

It is a much more physical job than commonly thought as a trader needs to be able to bully his or her way into "the crowd," make him or herself heard and be seen, as well as keep track of the many things happening around him or her and, of course, trade and record it all accurately.

You also see, what appears to be, the traders attempting to arbitrage stocks trading on the Milan exchange at different prices. It's a fantastic few scenes that will feel familiar to pre-internet-age traders everywhere.

One young handsome and frenetic trader, Alain Delon, notices Vitti and, after all the usual jockeying and game playing, these two begin dating. It's not so much opposites attracted to each other as two separate worlds standing next to each other, noticing that the other one is pretty and saying, "why not?" Other than they are both good looking, these two seem to have nothing in common.

Then the stock market crashes; Vitti's mother loses a lot of money, while Delon struggles to keep his customers. Yet, Vitti just drifts past it all. She's clearly turned off by her mother's and new boyfriend's passion for money, but is also attracted to it as she keeps returning to both of them.

From there, Vitti and Delon parry and thrust until they go to bed. Odd as it is to us today, that "event" is treated as a big deal and almost the climax of the movie. But L'Eclisse is less a plot-driven movie than a comment on (sigh) the meaninglessness of a life spent in pursuit of money and not intellectual or artistic efforts, especially as the spectre of nuclear annihilation hangs over a still WWII-scarred Rome (yawn).

Thankfully, you can almost ignore all the pretentiousness of L'Eclisse's "meaning of life" messaging, because the stock-market-crash story is engaging, Vitti is insanely beautiful to look at and Delon tries so hard to bed her that you almost come to respect his single-mindedness. It's also fun time travel to post-war Rome filmed in beautifully restored black and white.


N.B. At one point, after giving Delon another textbook-Vitta non-committal answer to the status of their relationship, Delon says to Vitti, "Then, I don't understand you." It's true, he doesn't, but the real question is if there's any real reason to try.

 

[Touchofevil]

On TCM last night, The Great Buster: A Celebration. Unfortunately, I missed the first ha hour or so, but I enjoyed what I saw. I enjoy Buster’s silent movies and have had fun sharing them with my students over the years.

 

[Fading Fast]

A Night to Remember from 1958 with Kenneth More, Honor Blackman and Frank Lawton


The 1997 movie Titanic was a monstrous financial success, but it never made sense to me why director James Cameron chose to focus his movie on a fictional cookiecutter poor-boy-loves-rich-girl story, instead of the story of the dramatic sinking of one of the most famous ships of the 20th century.

That (and a hundred other reasons) is why James Cameron is a wealthy and successful movie maker and I'm, well, not. Still, Cameron's Titanic deemphasized the historical details, leaving the 1958 movie A Night to Remember as the more-traditional historical recounting of the Titanic disaster, but of course, with the limitations of what was known about the sinking at that time.

As a dramatized history, A Night to Remember is impressive in scope as it takes the viewer through the short unhappy life of the Titanic. Everything seems to be here from the men at the bottom who shovel coal into the doomed ship's mammoth boilers (odd, even in 1912, that wasn't automated through conveyors) to the first-class passengers strolling the top deck with cocktails in hand.

While Cameron chose to loudly hammer away at the class distinctions, director Roy Ward Baker, in his 1958 effort, was equally effective, if quieter, in highlighting the different experiences and, ultimately, survival rates of the steerage and second-class passengers versus the first-class ones.

With the ship sinking, we see the first-class passengers get into the inadequate number of lifeboats, while the steerage passengers remain locked below with water rising around them. Sometimes saying less while showing a poignant moment is more effective.

Heroes and villains abound as some of the crew and passengers more than rise to the occasion by selflessly helping others or taking command when most are losing their heads. The captain, in this telling, comes off as neither hero nor villain, but more as a man outmatched by circumstances. He looks almost lost amidst his sinking ship, yet he's still doing his job by rote.

A Night to Remember also captures the nail-biting tension of the Titanic's radio operators frantically trying to raise any ship, especially the tantalizing and mysterious one whose light they see on the horizon. When that doesn't work, the crew fires off flares and even takes a shot at signaling in Morse. All of this is done with less bombast than the 1997 movie, which makes it feel more real and tragic.

Director Baker didn't forget to personalize this overwhelming event as we see the famous elderly couple, the owners of the Macy's department store, the Strauses go down together after the wife refuses to comply with her husband imploring her to get into a lifeboat. The card shark, a perennial cruise-line bete noire, accepts his fate with the sangfroid of a professional gambler who drew a losing hand. One kitchen worker, basically, says "I'm done," and hits the bottle.

In the penultimate scene, one of the ship's officers, who has heroically saved many with his seamanship skills and selfless efforts, delivers the ship's epitaph as he explains why he and everyone else are so stunned:

"But this is different...because we were so sure, because even though it's happened, it's still unbelievable, I don't think I'll ever feel sure again, about anything."

I'd bet, in constant dollars, the 1997 movie version of Titanic meaningfully outearned the 1958 one, but for a dramatized account of the famous sinking, A Night to Remember is still the movie to see.

 

[Zombie_61]

View attachment 420901
A Night to Remember from 1958 with Kenneth More, Honor Blackman and Frank Lawton

The 1997 movie Titanic was a monstrous financial success, but it never made sense to me why director James Cameron chose to focus his movie on a fictional cookiecutter poor-boy-loves-rich-girl story, instead of the story of the dramatic sinking of one of the most famous ships of the 20th century...

James Cameron did it for one reason: money. He reasoned that the younger audience members (i.e., the ones with more disposable income at hand), and particularly the younger female audience members, would be more willing to part with their cash if there were a love story at the center of the story. Initially I agreed with you--the sinking of a luxury liner and the deaths of more than 1,500 passengers isn't dramatic enough? He has to add a phony baloney love story just to get keisters in the seats?

The very first time I saw the movie, he proved me wrong. As I was leaving the theater with my wife and a couple of friends I made a wisecrack about the ship sinking at the end of the movie. Three young girls (who might possibly have been in their early- to mid-20s at the oldest) heard me and yelled at me for ruining the ending of the movie for them. I apologized, and during a subsequent conversation learned that they had no idea that the movie was based on a true historical event, had never even heard of Titanic except for it being the name of the movie, and only wanted to see it so they could look at Leonardo DiCaprio for three hours.

 

[Worf]

View attachment 420901
A Night to Remember from 1958 with Kenneth More, Honor Blackman and Frank Lawton


The 1997 movie Titanic was a monstrous financial success, but it never made sense to me why director James Cameron chose to focus his movie on a fictional cookiecutter poor-boy-loves-rich-girl story, instead of the story of the dramatic sinking of one of the most famous ships of the 20th century.

That (and a hundred other reasons) is why James Cameron is a wealthy and successful movie maker and I'm, well, not. Still, Cameron's Titanic deemphasized the historical details, leaving the 1958 movie A Night to Remember as the more-traditional historical recounting of the Titanic disaster, but of course, with the limitations of what was known about the sinking at that time.

As a dramatized history, A Night to Remember is impressive in scope as it takes the viewer through the short unhappy life of the Titanic. Everything seems to be here from the men at the bottom who shovel coal into the doomed ship's mammoth boilers (odd, even in 1912, that wasn't automated through conveyors) to the first-class passengers strolling the top deck with cocktails in hand.

While Cameron chose to loudly hammer away at the class distinctions, director Roy Ward Baker, in his 1958 effort, was equally effective, if quieter, in highlighting the different experiences and, ultimately, survival rates of the steerage and second-class passengers versus the first-class ones.

With the ship sinking, we see the first-class passengers get into the inadequate number of lifeboats, while the steerage passengers remain locked below with water rising around them. Sometimes saying less while showing a poignant moment is more effective.

Heroes and villains abound as some of the crew and passengers more than rise to the occasion by selflessly helping others or taking command when most are losing their heads. The captain, in this telling, comes off as neither hero nor villain, but more as a man outmatched by circumstances. He looks almost lost amidst his sinking ship, yet he's still doing his job by rote.

A Night to Remember also captures the nail-biting tension of the Titanic's radio operators frantically trying to raise any ship, especially the tantalizing and mysterious one whose light they see on the horizon. When that doesn't work, the crew fires off flares and even takes a shot at signaling in Morse. All of this is done with less bombast than the 1997 movie, which makes it feel more real and tragic.

Director Baker didn't forget to personalize this overwhelming event as we see the famous elderly couple, the owners of the Macy's department store, the Strauses go down together after the wife refuses to comply with her husband imploring her to get into a lifeboat. The card shark, a perennial cruise-line bete noire, accepts his fate with the sangfroid of a professional gambler who drew a losing hand. One kitchen worker, basically, says "I'm done," and hits the bottle.

In the penultimate scene, one of the ship's officers, who has heroically saved many with his seamanship skills and selfless efforts, delivers the ship's epitaph as he explains why he and everyone else are so stunned:

"But this is different...because we were so sure, because even though it's happened, it's still unbelievable, I don't think I'll ever feel sure again, about anything."

I'd bet, in constant dollars, the 1997 movie version of Titanic meaningfully outearned the 1958 one, but for a dramatized account of the famous sinking, A Night to Remember is still the movie to see.

I love "A Night to Remember" and, except for some special effects, prefer it over the Cameron take. It is not my favorite telling of that fateful night however. That honor goes to "Titanic" (1953) which features the sterling performances of Clifford Webb and Barbara Stanwick as a wealthy couple whose marriage is on the rocks. Only the presence of their young son and teenaged daughter keeps these two from taking axes to one another. There's also a minor shipboard romance involving a young Robert Wagner and the teen girl but that's just for window dressing. The twist at the end (I won't ruin it) is a gut punch far beyond either of the other films provide and that to me makes it a cut above.

Worf