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Starring Kenneth More. This may seem strange to read, but A Night To Remember was the most influential film of 1997. Strange, because this film was released 39 years previously, in 1958, but, nevertheless, true. In the matter of two hours it took to screen A Night To Remember, the poor screenwriting and focus of James Cameron's Titanic were revealed. Like everyone else not living in a) Khazikstan or b) the jungles of Zaire, I saw Titanic when it was released in December of '97. I was positively dumbfounded by the sets and special effects. My mouth hung open for the last hour of the film, and all I could think was "My God, Leonardo DiCaprio is so hot," just like everyone else in the theater, or something else about the unparalleled art and production design. Everything about Titanic worked; I didn't think it possible that anyone could ever make a better film than Titanic. But I was wrong. Not only was there a better film made than Titanic, but Cameron's movie wasn't even the best motion picture about the sinking of the Titanic. That is an award that goes to the British release, A Night To Remember. Based off of Walter Lord's book of the same name, A Night To Remember delves into two areas that Cameron's script never began to investigate: what the other ships in the vicinity of the Titanic were doing the night of April the 14th, and what stoic efforts were taken by the crew after the ship had sunk to preserve order. As I mentioned previously, I was awed by the fantastic sets they had created for Titanic--you spend $200 million to make a single movie and it'd better look good--but in retrospect, it seems as if the art and set designers of A Night To Remember had done the same thing, 39 years before. If I was awed by Titanic, I was downright shocked by A Night To Remember. The budget for this film was no where near the budget of Titanic--show me a budget that is--and yet time and time again, I felt as if I was watching Cameron's 90% scale model of the ship, shot in black and white film. The camera angles and on-screen action were identical at times, a trait especially evident when the Titanic scrapes the evil iceberg in question, damaging its hull and allowing water into its forward compartments. Instead of just following the story of two principal individuals on board, ala Titanic, director Roy Ward Baker follows the actions of numerous people traveling across the Atlantic, allowing the viewer to understand the pain and devastation from the point of view of all the different classes, races, and ranks of those people on board. A Night To Remember gives much greater insight to the events surrounding the night the Titanic sunk, takes the viewer on board the other ships nearby, and does a stellar job focusing on the chaos in the water after the ship submerged completely. James Cameron's Titanic is probably the most technologically advanced film that has ever been made. Its special effects will bring Hollywood cinema into the next century, but as a movie, pales in comparison with the more thorough, historically accurate, and complete tale of the Titanic disaster, A Night To Remember. After screening this film, only one thought remained in my head: L.A. Confidential was the best motion picture of 1997.
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