24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Below Average DVD of Above Average TV Movie, May 24, 2002
This review is from: S.O.S. Titanic (DVD)
"S.O.S Titanic", originally an ABC TV-movie from 1979, is not a prefect telling of the Titanic story but ranks far better than any other Titanic drama save "A Night To Remember" (and it is light years better than Cameron's putrid work!). The only problem is that this DVD gives us the edited version that was released theatrically in Europe and which runs more than 40 minutes shorter than what American TV audiences saw. At a three hour running time on TV, "S.O.S Titanic" could afford to spotlight many of the intriuging characters and subplots associated with the Titanic, but with 40 minutes lost in this presentation we get a much more rushed look at things that seem very incomplete at times. Why Image Entertainment didn't try to get the original TV cut for release is beyond me.
There are some good performances in the presentation that haven't been topped in other productions. Ian Holm is particularly excellent as the often villainized J.Bruce Ismay, this time playing him more as a real three-dimensional figure. David Warner (who was sadly wasted 17 years later in a thankless one-dimensional role in Cameron's movie) is also the very embodiment of Lawrence Beesley, giving for the first and only time in a Titanic drama, the voice to the neglected Second Class perspective. Some Titanic buffs have objected to the not-quite romantic relationship he has with the fictional character played by Susan Saint James, but I had no problem with it because the purpose of her character was to give Beesley someone to talk to and express orally his observations about the Titanic that he would set down in his book after the sinking. All of the things they talk about are in fact taken directly from Beesley's book.
Pick it up if you're interested in completing your Titanic collection, but keep hoping that a cable channel will replay the full original version some day and tape that!
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
It Is Edited!, May 28, 2004
This review is from: S.O.S. Titanic (DVD)
This movie conveys the feel of ocean travel more than any of the others, including A Night To Remember, which was about the most British feeling movie.
S.O.S. Titanic gives more spotlight to steerage than any of the others, and endless scenes that are absent of music, other than what would have been the tunes of the time, also makes this one effective.
But scenes are cut! Scenes removed are:
*The opening scene of the Carpathian rescue (several of these scenes are spliced onto the end)
*The delightful sauna scene -- "I'll give you, 'Sheharrazade'!"
*Yes, the boot shine lads are deleted!
*Mrs. Harris' fall down the stairs and her standing ovation when she next enters with a cast on her arm (for the record, this did indeed happen, her fall and the cast. I don't know about the ovation).
*The steerage sing along of "Isn't she grand, boys? Isn't she grand?"
*Beesley observes the snoozing librarian and quips "there I sit thirty or forty years on."
*When Beesley jumps to the lifeboat, Fred Barrett asks him why he has his night clothes still with him in his hand, and Beesley laughingly replied "I don't know. I don't know."
*The sinking was longer (I recorded it off onto an audiotape years ago and still have it)
*Mrs. Astor's weeping scene was longer. It's cut here.
Thankfully we do get to see young Mr. Long and his companion, I believe, Jack Thayer, who had both been spying on the ladies sauna, when they jump off the ship.
We also see our boot shine lads debating prayer. "YOu a Catholic? Me neither. What difference does it make now?"
It seems like there was also a longer stretch of a steerage dance that was removed.
The movie is inaccurate in stating that Fireman Fred Barrett perished. It was Fred Barrett who was manning the lifeboat that Laurence Beesley leapt into.
If ever the complete version is released, I would be very interested in obtaining it. As it is, it had been so long since I had seen this movie, I didnt care.
The re-editing job was done wrong or the original movie was done wrong, as we see Helen Mirren observe Ian Holm as he enters the lifeboat, she is already aboard, then we get Mirren talking to architect Thomas Andrews.
It really does look like there has been a severe re-editing job. The scenes of the overturned lifeboats should have occurred after the ship sank, not just before. This is also when David Warner is trying to bring someone into their lifeboat.
For some reason, this is pieced together as taking place just before the sinking.
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