TITANIC (1943)
Directed by: Werner Klingler & Herbert Selpin.
Produced by: Willy Reiber.
Written by: Herbert Selpin & Walter Zerlett-Olfenius.
Director of Photography: Friedl Behn-Grund.
Edited by: Friedel Buckow.
Music by: Werner Eisbrenner.
Released by: Kino International.
Language: German with English subtitles.
Country of Origin: Germany. 85 min. Not Rated.
With: E.F. Fürbringer & Otto Wernicke.
DVD Features: Original 1912 newsreel. White Star promotional film, with a tour of the Olympic, Titanic's sister ship. Trailer. Photos. Pressbook.

Corrupt board members manipulate the stock market for personal enrichment, endangering the public in the process. A theme for contemporary America, no? But this is a 1943 film about the sinking of the Titanic 30 years earlier. And what's more, it's a product of Nazi Germany.

The story is, by now, as familiar as they come, thanks in part to many screen retellings - most recently, of course, James Cameron's bloated sob-fest. Unlike Cameron's version, this film is direct and concise, narrowing its focus mostly to the story of the ship itself, and the corporate greed that destroyed it. If Cameron's version used the doomed cruiser as a vehicle for a love story, this version sails into the board room: The cost of constructing the ship was enough to drive stock in White Star Lines so low that its board members purchased shares in the hopes that a successful - and speedy - first voyage would drive the price back up, making them all wealthy. The primary villain here is White Star President Bruce Ismay, played as somewhat of a caricature by E.F. Fürbringer. His ignominy is complemented by the wealthy, frivolous, and jewel-bedecked British and American passengers who stroll the ship's upper decks. Any film with such villainy requires a correspondingly noble hero, and this role is filled, naturally, by the doomed ship's sole German crew member. (The other decent, righteous characters in the film are invariably German.) These performances are functional, at best, and irredeemably hammy, at worst.

It's easy to hate this film, with its obvious nationalist agenda, its hypocrisy, and its Nazi pedigree. Most sickening is the way it excoriates the English for being careless with life. But trying to leave aside, for a moment, the film's political origins, what remains is a crisp, efficient version of the well-known story, with an interesting emphasis on corporate and capitalist guilt. There's nothing superlative or excellent here, but it does provide another side to the disaster, a side worth remembering. And you have to wonder whether there might not have been another subtext: Director Herbert Selpin was arrested by the Gestapo for making anti-military remarks (and subsequently committed "suicide"). It's tempting to imagine that the idea of people blindly following an authority with little regard for life might have been intended to criticize more than English or American greed.

DVD Extras: Aside from the press clippings and stills gallery, the film has a few interesting extras. An early promotional film for the Titanic's sister ship, the Olympic, gives us a direct window into what the Titanic itself might actually have been like. Also included is an early newsreel of the Titanic disaster. This is mostly staged aboard the Olympic, thus becoming, in effect, the earliest adaptation of the story. These sepia-toned films make for sharp, melancholy viewing. We'll never watch the real thing, but this could be as close as we'll get. Then there is the original trailer for the film (which remains untranslated), and this reminds us of what's really missing from the DVD package: historical context for the film itself. (The press clippings alone give an extremely spare and static account). For American (or British) audiences, other versions could have served as vehicles for the newsreel and the promotional film. Most viewers will be drawn to this film because of its origins, and the DVD package is mostly silent about the film's background - you get more information from the DVD's back cover than you do from the extras. Even a single, solitary film historian, droning in front of a bookcase, would have done nicely. Arthur Vaughan
August 10, 2004