The Second Time Titanic Broke

Here we go…

For all the movies and documentaries that had been made about the Titanic sinking from the time that it happened, until 1996 one very pertinent detail was always left out, and that was the ship breaking in two.

It might sound a little funny now, but up until Dr. Robert Ballard discovered the wreck, every depiction of the Titanic showed the ship sinking in one piece. It didn’t matter if it was A Night To Remember or Night and Ice or the 1953 Barbara Stanwyck film. The ship always went down in one piece, looking relatively neat and orderly, if such a terrible event could ever be neat and orderly, with the ship sliding under the water almost serenely.

Survivors, however, saw it differently. Eva Hart, who was seven at the time, distinctly remembered the ship breaking in two as it sank. Teenager Jack Thayer described what he saw to a man named L.D. Skidman, and Thayer also remembered the Titanic splitting in half, testifying to that fact under oath at one of the inquiries.

Why was this so important? For some reason at the time of the sinking, there were plenty of people who swore up and down that the ship sank in one piece. Any suggestion otherwise seemed offensive, as if it somehow reflected badly on them that the technology they put so much trust in had failed. Or maybe they just didn’t notice. Second Officer Charles Lightoller couldn’t remember the ship breaking in half, but it’s speculated that he may have been underwater when it happened. The White Star Line’s official story was that the ship sank intact.

It would seem that with so many testimonies to the contrary that the historical record would reflect what the passengers said, but the social hierarchy at the time dictated that the words of a First Class passenger, a ship’s officer or the shipping company automatically carried more weight. Survivors were simply told that they hadn’t seen what they had seen.

When Dr. Robert Ballard led the expedition that discovered the wreck in 1985, the world rocked back on its collective heels and survivors who were still living were vindicated after over seven decades of gaslighting.

Naturally, Hollywood had to change the way the wreck was portrayed as well, and the first time the Titanic was shown splitting in half on film was in the 1996 miniseries, The Titanic.

It all starts out with Alice Cleaver (Felicity Waterman) waking up after a nightmare involving a shipwreck and a dead baby. There’s no time to be scared, though, because Alice has a job interview with the Allison family, who are bound for America. Alice is uncomfortable talking about her background, but she gets the job, and the family boards the Titanic.

We see Isabella Paradine (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who’s on her way back to America after the death of her aunt, and she runs into her old flame, Wynn Park (Peter Gallagher). At first Isabella is uncomfortable with Wynn’s stateroom being across the hall from hers, but as she and Wynn talk she succumbs to his charms, and it’s not hard to guess where it all goes. In case things aren’t complicated enough, Isabella’s husband and daughter are waiting for her in New York.

And oh yes, we also see Jamie Perse (Mike Doyle), who steals a ticket from Mr. Dickie (Don McKay), a drunk man in an alley, and boards the Titanic using Mr. Dickie’s name. Jamie has already fallen in with Simon Doonan (Tim Curry), an unsavory type who poses as a crew member so he can sneak into passengers’ rooms and steal them blind.

Jamie’s resolve is tested, however, when he meets Aase Ludvigsen (Sonsee Neu), who is traveling with the Jack family to Minnesota and is a convert to their religion. The series isn’t clear about what religion they are, but since the Jacks are Irish, it might be Catholic. Or Mormon. Who knows?

Of course there are some portrayals of actual historical figures, including Captain E.J. Smith (George C. Scott), Molly Brown (Marilu Henner), Harold Bride (Buddy Pepper) and Madeline Astor (Jann Mortil), and everything clicks along for the most part, with everyone having a good time, but of course, it all leads up to the night of the sinking.

Right before that happens, though, Isabella has scruples about her affair and tries sending a telegram to her husband. Jamie has scruples about hanging out with Simon, who is not only a major creeper, but rapes Aase while she takes a shower.

The Allisons, meanwhile, have serious doubts about Alice, who’s neurotic and too harsh with the children, plus the Astors’ maid thinks she’s the Alice Cleaver who murdered her baby. Bruce Ismay (Roger Rees) keeps poking himself where he’s not wanted, and Harold and his co-worker, Jack Phillips (Matt Hill) work through their backlog of messages while telling the wireless operator on the Californian to pipe down.

When it comes to the actual sinking, the miniseries is fairly accurate although not very. We see the women and children put into the lifeboats. We see the Third Class passengers kept downstairs. We see Mrs. Strauss refusing to be separated from her husband. We see Alice making off with Trevor Allison while his parents look for him frantically. We hear the screams. We see the drowned bodies in the water. It’s as graphic as possible for a TV production.

As for the Titanic splitting, though, the film gives the idea of the ship breaking in two, but the emphasis is more on the horror of the event and people’s reactions to it, which are done very effectively. The most we see are objects falling and a bit of deck breaking. It wouldn’t be until the 1997 James Cameron film that we would get a drawn-out depiction of what the sinking probably would have looked like.

The miniseries itself, up until the sinking, is a typical TV miniseries of the 1990s. It looks mostly very clean and tidy. The CGI isn’t the best, but it was 1996, after all. There’s a certain amount of cheese going on, mostly from First Class passenger Mrs. Foley (Eva Marie Saint), who’s such a diva that she sneaks her Volpino Italiano dog onto a lifeboat. Plus, it’s not hard to root for Isabella and Wynn, because Peter Gallagher and Catherine Zeta-Jones have a very steamy chemistry.

And Tim Curry as Simon Doonan smiles like the Grinch most of the time, especially when he appears to Aanse in the showers. It’s almost too melodramatic. Curry does play a good villain, but he just stops short of twirling his mustache here. His performance still works, though. I hate to say it because we’re talking about a real event, but Simon is the one person who deserved to go down with the ship. Naturally, he sneaks into a lifeboat disguised as a woman and gets knocked overboard, which is a huge relief.

To be sure, there are some inaccuracies. Alice Cleaver is probably the most glaring one, as the Alice Cleaver who sailed on the Titanic is not the same one who murdered her baby. That was Alice Mary Cleaver, who was convicted in 1909 and died of tuberculosis in 1915. Unfortunately for Alice Catherine Cleaver, who went on to marry and live quietly, the two Alices have been conflated in Titanic lore and only just recently seem to have been separated.

Another thing is that the romance between Isabella and Wynn might not have been a shocker in 1912. That was our modern sensibilities talking. During the Edwardian era, it was not uncommon for people of the upper classes to have affairs. Isabella’s guilt had more to do with her character’s personal moral code and not necessarily the general mores of the time period. It was also expected that men would look after unaccompanied women on sea voyages to protect them (Colonel Archibald Gracie was one such gentleman), so no one would have thought twice about Wynn spending time with Isabella.

Molly Brown is another goof, as the series refers to her as “Molly” and not “Margaret,” which is what she was called when she sailed on the Titanic. Marilu Henner plays a great part, though, and is a huge highlight of the series.

The series was also pretty even-handed with J. Bruce Ismay, and doesn’t try to villify him too much. Other versions, such as the James Cameron film, portray Ismay as a huge pest and a coward, probably for dramatic purposes, plus it’s a fact that Ismay’s reputation never recovered after the sinking. Recent scholarship, however, has cast doubt on how much Ismay was actually at fault when it came to the circumstances surrounding the sinking, but since so much time has passed we may never know for sure.

Like every depiction of the sinking, the 1996 Titanic miniseries makes us wish the outcome had been different, and despite its hiccups, it moves the ship’s cultural narrative along, increasing our horror at a terrible event and daring us to look away.

For more of the Titanic in pop culture, here are our Day One, Day Two, and Day Three entries. Thanks for reading, all, and I hope you’re enjoying this blogathon…

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