This film starts off with an introduction of certain key individuals who experienced the sinking of the RMS Titanic like "J. Bruce Ismay" (Ian Holm), "John Jacob Astor" (David Janssen), "Captain Edward J. Smith" (Harry Andrews), "Molly Brown" (Cloris Leachman) and the designer of the ship "Thomas Andrews" (Geoffrey Whitehead). Along with these people the film also includes fictional characters to add to the drama involved. From that point, the film then follows the passenger liner from its port in Southampton, England to Queenstown, Ireland and from there into the North Atlantic where disaster awaits. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that initially there were two versions of this film released with a long version lasting over two hours and a shorter one lasting 109 minutes. Having not seen the longer version I cannot comment on it but I found the shorter version to be a solid film none-the-less with decent performances all around. Admittedly, I would have preferred a film devoid of the fictional characters and more devoted to actual historical people and events--but even so this movie wasn't too bad overall. It did, however, have one major flaw related to the music played by the band at the end which the survivors recount as being either "Nearer, My God, to Thee" or "Autumn" rather than the lively blues or jazz ensemble depicted here. But other than that I thought it was a pretty good film by and large and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.
Review of S.O.S. Titanic
