Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Libramedi Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

justincward A TV movie to start with - but a 'British' TV movie from EMI in 1979, when offices still had typing pools and the Walkman was in development. Being British doesn't necessarily make it better than the Cameron film, but for a TV movie budget you get most of the A and B list of recent Hollywood Brits, familiar faces from TV giving it the full stiff upper, excellent costume and sets and an earnest attention to factual accuracy - the only serious mistake is to show the date as April 12th. How did they manage that? Expect static, horizontal camera angles, obvious matte paintings and rear projection, somewhat uninspired though atmospheric music, and note how Ian Holm's and David Warner's, ETC acting didn't change over the rest of their careers.What may surprise you is the tension, and the effective depiction of people in a dreadful situation that will keep you watching, even if there is little more emotional involvement than in a drama-documentary or an episode of 'Kojak'.That's what this is - a big-budget TV docudrama. And a really good one. Just not a cinema-filler. Punching above its weight on a Seven.

Michael_Elliott S.O.S. Titanic (1979) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Decent telling of the April 14, 1912 tragedy with the main focus being on school teacher Lawrence Beesley (David Warner) and the fictional character Leigh Goodwin (Susan Saint James). Also included is David Janssen as John Jacob Astor, Cloris Leachman as Molly Brown, Ian Holm as J. Bruce Ismay, Helen Mirren as Mary Sloan and Harry Andrews as Captain Edward Smith. This film was originally shown over two nights on ABC with a running time of 150-minutes but the version I watched was the one released theatrically in Europe and running at 102-minutes. From what I've read the full version has never been released and all releases outside that original airing is the shorter cut. I have no idea if the longer version is better but I'm going to guess that the love story between Beesley and Goodwin was expanded. Their love story here is pretty hit and miss as it jumps all over the place and the conclusion also doesn't make too much sense. Those two characters get most of the screen time early on with the others getting bits and pieces here and there. The Molly Brown character is mainly used for comic relief but I found Leachman to be too over-the-top. I think Warner comes off the best here as he is very believable in the role and you just can't help but really like the guy. Holm is cold like a snake as Isley and Mirren does a pretty good job in her few scenes. I think the biggest problem is that none of the characters are written too well and many of them come off pretty one-dimensional. Perhaps this wouldn't be a problem in the longer version but none of them are overly entertaining here. I also wasn't too impressed with the direction, which seemed way too laid back for my blood. There's really no drama in any of the personal stories and even the sinking never reaches the type of drama that it should. With that said, the movie is still somewhat entertaining simply because of the subject matter. I really enjoyed the look of the picture and I found the sets to be extremely well done. I also found the sinking to be pretty good even though they do show the boat going down in one piece, which was thought to have been what happened at the time. The special effects are pretty good even though they never try to be too impressive and for the most part we see them from far shots. I've read mixed things about the extended version so perhaps it's a much better movie that fixes some of the problems I had with this version.

wadesisson SOS Titanic offers a very powerful look at the famed ocean liner and her doomed passengers. My only caution to present-day viewers is that the current DVD offers a shortened view of the original film. When this made-for-TV movie was released in 1979, it was about 30 minutes longer than the DVD you can buy or rent today. The original version was much better and more recent edits have taken away the great flow of the story as originally aired. If you remember this movie from the 70s and 80s, you will likely be disappointed by the DVD. It is hoped that a future DVD will address this and bring back SOS Titanic in its full, un-edited glory.

cskocik I have mixed feelings about S.O.S. Titanic. On the one hand, I remember seeing it when I was about nine years old and being stunned. On the other, I watch it now and wonder why they bothered to make the movie. First of all, I have the shortened version, which I understand is far less effective than the full three-hour version, so my comments might not apply to the full version. But it seems to me A Night to Remember is the definitive movie about the Titanic, and this one seems like a brief and half-hearted recap of that much better movie. We see only the most cursory glimpses of various characters and how they came to abandon ship. I think the entire sinking ends up taking half an hour of screen time, even less than the Barbara Stanwyk movie. The attention to detail is impressive, but it seems to me you'd have to already know a lot about the Titanic in order to pick up on it -- for example, Lightoller jumping into the wave as it overtakes the boat deck. I agree with whoever said that the characters were not well-researched, with the notable exceptions of Lawrence Beesley, Thomas Andrews, and J. Bruce Ismay (the casting of Ian Holm was a stroke of genius!), and I simply can't accept Harry Andrews as the soft-spoken Captain Smith, or Cloris Leachman as Molly Brown, or David Janssen in a compelling but inaccurate performance as J.J. Astor. Still, all told, I'd take this movie over James Cameron's bloated epic. The music, as someone else pointed out, is outstanding, really underscoring the magnitude of the tragedy and somehow making it feel like you're drowning as you listen to it. Philip Stone is almost as good as Anthony Bushell as Captain Rostron. The stories are real, for the most part, even if some of them are clumped together into composite stories. The characters really existed. The script treats the story with the appropriate reverence, as opposed to Cameron's action movie treatment and offensive ridiculing of some of the heroes of that night. But still, I don't see any real value in this movie, when you can get everything it offers, and much more, from A Night to Remember.