Product Details

• Actors: David Janssen, Cloris Leachman, Susan Saint James, David Warner, Ian Holm
• Directors: William Hale (II)
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Questar Video
• VHS Release Date: August 1, 1990
• Run Time: 109 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00000DM1K
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #14,236 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

If, somehow, the three and a quarter hours of on-ship intrigue and spectacular suffering of James Cameron's Oscar-winning Titanic wasn't enough for you, here's a TV movie that treads much the same water, though without the bombast of Cameron's epic. S.O.S. Titanic boasts a good-by-TV-standards cast--David Janssen, Susan St. James, Cloris Leachman, David Warner (who booked passage a second time, in Cameron's version), and early appearances by such esteemed performers as Ian Holm and Helen Mirren. It follows the voyage of the ship in a day-by-day diary through the eyes of a number of the passengers and crew members until the fateful night, then provides a brief denouement as the survivors come to terms with what has happened to them.

A number of budding romances are explored in this film, suggesting the Titanic was the original Love Boat. Janssen, in a subplot quaint by today's standards, plays a wealthy man who has become something of a pariah because he has divorced and remarried a younger woman. Warner and St. James play prim academics who awkwardly stumble into a friendship; it's intriguing until their final scene together, in which they serve as an ersatz Greek chorus ludicrously commenting on the outcome. There are relationships burgeoning down in steerage, as well, where the hearty poor Irish kick up a party atmosphere just as they did, again, in Cameron's version. Leachman chews scenery as the Unsinkable Molly Brown; Holm (with a more youthful voice that sounds as if the soundtrack is being played too fast) is the callous owner of the ship, and Mirren is an Irish maid observing key moments in the saga.

The melodrama here isn't as purple as in Cameron's film, and the sundry relationships are built and connected intelligently. More impressively, a lot of the mayhem behind the sinking is nearly as effective as the celebrated megaflick on a fraction of the budget. The best news is, it's a full 90 minutes shorter than Cameron's film. --David Kronke

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Below Average DVD of Above Average TV Movie, May 24, 2002

By	Eric Paddon (Morristown, NJ) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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!

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It Is Edited!, May 28, 2004

By	Richard J. Fuller (Terry, MS United States) - See all my reviews

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.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars S.O.S. Titanic, January 15, 2004

By	Clob Lane (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews

Although a TV movie and looking very much like it, this Titanic picture is quite entertaining and leaves the audience with an accurate emotional impact of the tragedy. The acting, especially from Cloris Leachman as Molly Brown, is most excellent. The script is nicely paced and organized to create high sympathy for the likeable people who died in the sinking of the unsinkable ship. One of the most heartbreaking sequences is when the crying baby is sitting on the wet floor of the Titanic while it's sinking. High quality entertainment.