Titanic --- 1940's German Propaganda on the big-screen

In the midst of Germany trying to take over the world, a German film-maker named Herbert Selpin put together a film about the ill-fated Titanic with his slant on what might have happened. The film was shrouded in controversy, and when it was finished, even Berlin didn't want it to be shown. Rumor has it that they felt its scenes of panic should not be seen, which in turn caused the Director who started with the film to complain, and because he was upset about certain aspects of the story (as well as the ban) he openly criticized both his co-writer and the German Navy. Selpin was then arrested by the Gestapo (basically the secret police of the Nazis) and wound up dead in his cell. A second director took over to finish the story, but Titanic wouldn't be seen on German soil under after World War II had finished.

The 1943 version of Titanic was one of the first feature-length films to tackle the story of the ships first journey, and attempted to tell what could be viewed as a very slanted version of the story. The first journey of the ship took place in 1912, and it was believed that the ship would be unsinkable. This was a fact that both passengers and the company that built the ship (White Star Line) sold in order to not only have a great story to tell, but to convince themselves that this was a ship to usher in a new way of the world. Not only that, but the Titanic was fashioned with engines to help it beat speed records across the Atlantic Ocean. The ship would leave from England on its way to New York City, but it is believed that through carelessness on the part of the captain, possibly spurred on by a company president that wanted the ship to beat speed records, that the ship hit an iceberg.

The story was more than just the sinking though, but involved showing how everyone on board acted and presented themselves up to and during the sinking of the ship. The presentation was more focused on how greed controlled many of the people on board, and that they valued their control of the stock markets more than the lives on people on the ship. Time and time again, the first officer warns about the risks of traveling fast through icy waters, but is put down in the name of money and the potential for the ship to succeed in its goal. The first officer is made to be German in this enactment, and of course the rich men and women on the boat are made to be British. The manipulation of the White Star Line stock by many people on board controls their attention, and it is that greed and need to be right that blinds them from what is about to happen.

If you have seen one film about Titanic, you know how the story is going to end, and there isn't much of a surprise as to how this one is going to play out in the end. But this one really did set the stage for how films about the movie would play-out in the future, and even James Cameron took musical cues from how this story was portrayed. For an American audience, this film was a little tough to follow, because it was presented in German, while using American sub-titles. At times the story seems more like Wall Street than an action film on a boat, but there were some redeeming qualities such as how well sweeping scenes were done on the ship. There are rough spots, as is to be expected from a 1943 film, and they don't get everything factually correct, at times only because the Titanic still hadn't been found when this was filmed. Though black and white, I still found myself captivated by this version of Titanic, and felt that it was a pretty well done film, even if it was presented with a huge slant against the wealthy.