A Night to Remember: The Classic Bestselling Account of the Sinking of the Titanic

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I have read a number of books about Titanic but, for some reason, have never read this classic volume, which was a huge success when published in 1955. The film, of the same name, was released in 1958, featuring Kenneth Moore and adapted by the author of spy novels, Eric Ambler. Moore played Charles Lightoller, second officer, who survived despite his insistence that the lifeboats were for women and young children only and later took part in Dunkirk, so was technically a hero twice in one lifetime. I would like to express my utmost respect to Titanic's heroic crew – Captain Smith, officers Wilde, Murdoch, Lightoller, Pitman, Boxhall, Lowe, and Moody, chief designer Thomas Andrews, wireless operators Phillips and Bride, seamen, masters-at-arms, quartermasters, lookouts, engineers, boilermakers, firemen, coal trimmers, greasers, electricians, victuallers, and musicians. THE OTHER SHIPS JUST didn’t seem to understand. At 1:25 the Olympic asked, “Are you steering south to meet us?” Phillips patiently explained, “We are putting the women off in the boats.” Ken Ringle, "Integrity Goes Down With the Ship; Historical Facts, Including True-Life Gallantry, Lost in Titanic", The Washington Post (22 March 1998), p. G08. Heyer, Paul (2012). Titanic Century: Media, Myth, and the Making of a Cultural Icon. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0-313-39815-5.

James Cameron no solo se basó en este libro para su película, sino que contó con Walter Lord como asesor histórico… motivo por el cual gran número de anécdotas reales que aparecen en el libro las recordarás perfectamente de verlas reflejadas en la película. The secret to Lord's success, according to the New York Herald Tribune 's critic Stanley Walker, was that he used "a kind of literary pointillism, the arrangement of contrasting bits of fact and emotion in such a fashion that a vividly real impression of an event is conveyed to the reader." [6] Walker highlighted the way that Lord had avoided telling the story through the prism of social class, which had been the usual style of previous narratives, and instead successfully depicted the human element of the story by showing how those aboard reacted to the disaster whatever their class. [6]The first adaption for the book was the 1956 episode for the TV show Kraft Television Theatre on March 28 th for NBC; the episode was re-released a month later. The second adaption was the classic British film adaptation of the same name was released on July 3 rd, 1958.

The book received widespread praise from contemporary critics. The New York Times called it "stunning ... one of the most exciting books of this or any other year". [6] The Atlantic Monthly praised the book for doing "a magnificent job of re-creative chronicling, enthralling from the first word to the last." [6] Entertainment Weekly said that it was "seamless and skillful... it's clear why this is many a researcher's Titanic bible", while USA Today described it as "the most riveting narrative of the disaster." [6] Aldridge, Rebecca (2008). The Sinking of the Titanic. New York: Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7910-9643-7. The movie makes a hero of second officer Lightoller, who seems to have launched almost every single lifeboat. Actions that were actually performed by others were attributed to Lightoller. [39] Titanic continues to fascinate us 110 years later. Bill Paxton was right when he said, "I think you leave Titanic, but it never leaves you."Don’t get me wrong. It’s a near-great movie that – leaving aside the tired, mismatched love-story, and the atrocious dialogue – has one of the five-best set-piece action sequences in the long history of Hollywood. Lord was something of a harmless crank with a bit of a fascination with this big honkin' ship that had run into an iceberg a few decades before. He collected all the information on it he could. This being the 1950s, he then topped that off by interviewing many of the survivors of that disaster. (The fact that this was not that long after the Titanic sank, in terms of history, is pointed out by the fact that one of the Titanic stewards Lord interviewed was still working on trans-Atlantic passenger liners at the time the book came out.) 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. Some historical figures have the 'wrong' accent: The portrayal of Thomas Andrews by British actor Michael Goodlife was believable, but the accent should have been not British but Irish. Murdoch's accent should have been Scottish, and so on. [42] Benjamin Guggenheim had a more detailed message: “If anything should happen to me, tell my wife I’ve done my best in doing my duty.”

The book is filled with details I had never known. It seems that the tragedy might have been prevented if just one of several events had played out differently: The film was one of the twenty most popular films of the year in Britain according to Motion Picture Herald, but it was only a modest commercial success due to the size of its original budget and its relative underperformance at the American box office. [47] Issues of class are lightly touched upon and I was somewhat startled to find that Lord himself buys into the gendered values of 1912: that women and children should be saved first, that men should be stoic and self-sacrificing with a stiff upper lip, and that any man who shows fear is somehow a 'coward' and failing in masculinity. It's hard reading/listening to this now not to have more sympathy for people showing fear and desperation in the face of almost certain and terrifying death by drowning. First Officer William Murdoch was one of the most heroic figures of the Titanic. He saved many lives that night. The movie didn't do him justice. Wireless operators and engineers refused to abandon their posts. The band played until the very end. The film was also a masterpiece in that it did not use a fictional plot and primary characters to draw audiences in; instead, it primarily relied upon historical figures and showed them in such a way that audiences cared about what happened to them.' [55] Home video [ edit ]But they were wrong. Things gradually straightened out, and finally Boat C was ready for lowering. Chief Officer Wilde shouted to know who was in command. Hearing him, Captain Smith turned to Quartermaster Rowe—still fiddling with the Morse lamp—and told him to take charge. Rowe jumped in and got ready to lower. Durante muchos años este libro ha sido considerado uno de los mejores trabajos relacionados con el Titanic. De hecho, Walter Lord llegó a asesorar a James Cameron durante el rodaje de su famoso film “Titanic”. La suya es una crónica pormenorizada del hundimiento minuto a minuto, desde el momento en que se avisto el iceberg hasta la llegada de los supervivientes a Nueva York abordo del Carpathia. Instante tras instante Lord va pasando de lugar a lugar del barco, de pasajero a pasajero con gran rapidez y agilidad, haciendo al lector participe con gran efectividad de todo lo que aconteció durante las horas que duro el naufragio . Esto dota a su relato de mucho dinamismo y permite que se consignen gran cantidad de detalles y hechos. Y también capta muy bien la tensión y el horror que fue paulatinamente subiendo de nivel a medida que el barco iba sumergiéndose, como poco a poco sus pasajeros fueron comprendiendo la magnitud de lo que, a primera vista, había parecido un choque sin importancia, y que a más de uno le hizo hasta gracia. Sin que se pierda de vista como muchos de ellos actuaron y se enfrentaron al desastre de forma individual muchos de sus pasajeros, la forma en que se llevó a cabo el salvamento de los pocos vivientes y el esfuerzo heroico de muchas de las personas que ahí estuvieron. Y todo esto con una prosa muy directa por parte de Lord. Va directamente al grano, pero sin perder de vista, ciertos detalles que nos muestra el lado más humano del hundimiento, las diferentes formas en que todos los implicados y actuaron, y que ayudan al lector a situarse dentro del barco y entre tantas personas.