A Night to Remember is a 1958 British historical disaster film, directed by Roy Ward Baker. It is adapted from the 1955 book by Walter Lord, about the sinking of the RMS Titanic on 15 April 1912, after it struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage. Written by Eric Ambler, the film depicts the events of the night in a documentary style in considerable detail. It stars Kenneth More as the ship's Second Officer Charles Lightoller and features Michael Goodliffe, Laurence Naismith, Kenneth Griffith, David McCallum and Tucker McGuire.

A Night to Remember was filmed at Pinewood Studios from October 1957 to March 1958. The production team, supervised by producer William MacQuitty, used blueprints of the ship to create authentic sets, while Fourth Officer Joseph Boxhall and ex-Cunard Commodore Harry Grattidge worked as technical advisors on the film. Its estimated budget of up to £600,000 made it the most expensive film made in Britain up to that time. The film's score was written by William Alwyn.

Released on 3 July 1958, A Night to Remember disappointed at the box office. However, the film was widely praised for its sets, soundtrack, cinematography, historical accuracy and performances; it won the 1959 Samuel Goldwyn International Award at the Golden Globe Awards. Among the many films about the Titanic, A Night to Remember is regarded highly by Titanic historians and survivors for its accuracy, despite its modest production values compared with the 1997 film Titanic.

Plot

On 10 April 1912, the luxurious , the largest vessel afloat, and widely believed to be unsinkable, sails from Southampton on her maiden voyage to New York. On 14 April, in the Atlantic, the ship receives a number of ice warnings from steamers, which are relayed to Captain Edward Smith, who orders a lookout. That evening, the spots floating ice in the distance and tries to send a warning via telegraph to Titanic. On Titanic, first class passengers Sir Richard and Lady Richard, and second class passengers the Clarkes, a young newlywed couple, overhear the band, led by Wallace Hartley, play, while steerage passengers Pat Murphy, Martin Gallagher, and James Farrel enjoy a party in third class, where Murphy dances with a young Polish girl. In the telegraph room, operators Jack Phillips and Harold Bride are changing shifts. Phillips receives the warning but fails to decipher it properly due to the massive pile of unsent messages left by Bride. On the Californian, field ice is spotted. The ship stops due to the risk, and a second warning is sent to Titanic. Overworked and irritated, Phillips cuts the message off early. Second Officer Charles Lightoller gives charge of the bridge to First Officer William Murdoch. Titanics passengers begin to settle in for the night, while gamblers Hoyle and Jay Yates stay up.

Suddenly, the lookouts spot an iceberg dead ahead; despite Murdoch's evasive action, the ship collides with it. Captain Smith sends for Thomas Andrews, the ship's builder, to inspect the damage; Andrews determines the ship has suffered a 300-foot gash, opening five of her compartments to the ocean. Andrews informs Smith that the Titanic will sink in one-and-a-half hours, and both realise that the ship lacks sufficient lifeboat capacity for all the passengers. Distress signals are sent out but the Californians wireless operator is off duty. Fifty-eight miles away, the 's wireless operator receives the distress call and alerts Captain Arthur Rostron, who orders his ship to turn around. Unfortunately, it will take about four hours to reach the Titanic. Seeing the Californian on the horizon ten miles away, Titanic begins to signal the ship, but the Californians crew fails to comprehend why a ship within sight is firing rockets. Captain Smith orders Lightoller to start lowering the lifeboats, while the orchestra performs ragtime. In the Grand Staircase, passenger Robbie Lucas is told the truth by Andrews, so he gets his wife and children safely into a boat. Murphy, Gallagher and Farrel help the Polish girl and her mother to the boat deck and get them to a boat. The Richards and Hoyle (whose unease convinced him to leave the poker game and save himself) are admitted to a boat by Murdoch. Yates gives a female passenger a note to send to his sister. Ida and Isidor Straus refuse to be separated, inadvertently setting an example for Mrs Clarke, who decides to stay with her husband until Andrews advises them on how to survive.

As the crew struggles to hold back the third-class passengers, most first- and second-class passengers board lifeboats and row away. As Titanic lists, passengers begin to realise the danger; when the third-class passengers finally storm the deck, chaos ensues. White Star Line Chairman J. Bruce Ismay steps into one of the last lifeboats. Passengers—among them Murphy, Gallagher and Farrel—retreat towards the stern as it rises into the air, while Lightoller and other able seamen struggle to free the two remaining collapsible lifeboats as the Titanics bow submerges. Captain Smith gives the final order through his megaphone, "Abandon ship! Every man for himself!" The Clarkes use a rope to lower themselves over the ship's side as the orchestra performs the hymn, "Nearer, My God, to Thee" and Smith returns to the bridge to go down with his ship. Titanic begins her final plunge; Lightoller and many others are swept off. Andrews awaits his end in the first-class smoking room, while a steward comforts a lost boy. Lucas looks out towards the lifeboats, knowing he will never see his family again, while the Clarkes are killed by a falling funnel. The passengers pray as the stricken liner finally sinks into the ocean.

In the icy water, many passengers die of hypothermia. Lucas's dead body floats by an overturned collapsible, as Yates, unwilling to overcrowd the boat, swims away to his death. Lightoller takes charge on the boat as Murphy and Gallagher make it aboard, although Farrel is lost. Chief Baker (Charles Joughin) after having given up his lifeboat seat and turning to the bottle to ease his ailments, also climbs aboard. The men are saved by another boat. Carpathia arrives to rescue the survivors, as Lightoller tells Colonel Archibald Gracie, "I don't think I'll ever feel sure again, about anything". On the ship, as a group prayer is held, Murphy and Gallagher stand with the Polish girl and her mother, while Mrs Farrel and Mrs Lucas mourn the loss of their husbands. As Carpathia sails by the floating wreckage from the Titanic, Rostron tells Lightoller that 705 were saved and 1,500 lost. Carpathia receives a message from the Californian asking what can be done to help but Rostron sends back that "everything that was humanly possible has been done".

Cast

Cast notes: Kenneth More, Laurence Naismith, Michael Goodliffe, and Russell Napier all featured later in Sink the Bismarck!. Kenneth More, and Jack Watling had previously acted together in Reach for the Sky. Gordon Holdom - baritone, sang the song "Nearer, My God, to Thee" dubbed."Gordon Holdom" on the British Pathé website Bernard Fox, who portrays Lookout Frederick Fleet, would later portray Colonel Archibald Gracie IV in Titanic (1997). Larry Taylor's son, stuntman and actor Rocky Taylor made an uncredited appearance as Bert Cartmell, a 3rd class passenger and Cora's dad in Titanic (1997). Four members of the cast, Peter Burton, Desmond Llewelyn, Geoffrey Bayldon and Alec McCowen, went on to play "Q" in various James Bond movies. In this film, they respectively portrayed a first class steward, a gate steward who prevents the third class passengers from entering the first class deck, SS Californian Wireless Operator Cyril Evans, and RMS Carpathia Wireless Operator Harold Cottam. Two cast members – Llewelyn and Blackman – would later appear in the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger, with Blackman as Pussy Galore. Norman Rossington, who portrays a steward who loses his temper with a non-English speaking passenger during the start of the evacuation, would later portray the Master-at-Arms in S.O.S. Titanic (1979). Jeremy Bulloch, best known for his portrayal of Boba Fett in the Star Wars films The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, makes an uncredited appearance as a boy jumping into the water. Derren Nesbitt and Stratford Johns appear uncredited as survivors on the upturned lifeboat. Frank Lawton, who plays J. Bruce Ismay, previously starred in 1933's Cavalcade, which also prominently featured the Titanic. This is the last movie for Alma Taylor, a very famous actress in Silent film era. David McCallum, who plays Harold Bride, would serve as the narrator for the 1994 A&E documentary mini-series Titanic: Death of a Dream and Titanic: The Legend Lives On. Richard Leech, who portrays First Officer Murdoch, later appeared in the 1982 film Gandhi with Bernard Hill, who would play Captain Edward J. Smith in Titanic (1997).

Production The film is based on Walter Lord's book A Night to Remember (1955). In Ray Johnson's documentary The Making of 'A Night to Remember''' (1993), Lord says that when he wrote his book, there was no mass interest in the Titanic, and he was the first writer in four decades to attempt a grand history of the disaster, synthesising written sources and survivors' first-hand accounts. Lord dated the genesis of his interest in the subject to childhood as did producer MacQuitty, who had vivid memories of, as a boy of six, watching the launch of the Titanic at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast on 31 May 1911 and seeing it depart on its maiden voyage the following April.

The book had been adapted as a live American TV production, screened by NBC and sponsored by Kraft Foods as part of the Kraft Television Theatre series on 28 March 1956. It was described as "the biggest, most lavish, most expensive thing of its kind" attempted up to that point, with 31 sets, 107 actors, 72 speaking parts, and 3,000 gallons of water and costing $95,000 ($ at prices). George Roy Hill directed and Claude Rains narrated – a practice borrowed from radio dramas, which provided a template for many television dramas of the time. It took a similar approach to the book, lacking dominant characters and switching between a multiplicity of scenes. Rains's narration was used "to bridge the almost limitless number of sequences of life aboard the doomed liner", as a reviewer put it and closed with his declaration that "never again has Man been so confident. An age had come to an end." The production was a major hit, attracting 28 million viewers, and greatly boosted the book's sales. It was rerun on kinescope on 2 May 1956, five weeks after its first broadcast.

Development The film adaptation came about after its eventual director, Roy Ward Baker, and its producer, Belfast-born William MacQuitty, both acquired copies of the book – Baker from his favourite bookshop and MacQuitty from his wife – and decided to obtain the film rights. MacQuitty succeeded in raising finance from John Davis at the Rank Organisation, who in the late 1950s were expanding into bigger-budgeted film making. The job of directing was assigned to Roy Baker, who was under contract to Rank, and Baker recommended Ambler be given the job of writing the screenplay. Lord was brought on board as a consultant.