Yeah, it must be size.

As for Wagner, no, no love at all. Now that I think of it, he did cross my mind for my earlier list of what Wolcott called “Hollywooden” but I left him off, in part because I want to go easy on the legends still with us, even if they are far from favorites of mine. One thing that always befuddled me about Wagner, though, was the incredible ability he had to get the greatest of Hollywood’s female stars to do these usually bad late-period TV movies with him. Did he have an incredible collection of naked photos, or what?

I grew up on the two 50s Titanic movies, and now I am almost ready finally to sit down and force myself to watch the Cameron flick, which I have been snobbishly avoiding for a decade now.

Oh, but how about a tiny bit of love for Robert Wagner. “Prince Valiant”? “A Kiss Before Dying”? “Fine Young Cannibals” (so bad it’s good)? “The Pink Panther”? The Austin Powers movies? Um, “Hart to Hart”? Okay, so he’s no Monty Clift or James Dean, nor even a Michael Parks. But if there hadn’t been a Bob Wagner then we would have had to invent one.

I agree with your points about the big stuff–and thank you for reminding me of that superb pullback shot. With the exception of Zane and Fisher (both given impossible parts) I don’t think the acting’s bad at all. In acting class at dear old Stella Adler they would talk about how an actor has to “give it away;” well, Leo in particular hasn’t given it away at all since his very open, joyous performance in Titanic. And Kate has to play a modern gal in period dress and acquits herself very well, I think.

We agree, however, about Kathy Bates. If she has given a bad performance I haven’t seen it.

As for Celine Dion, she’s heard only over the closing credits, thank GOD. Caterwauling is le mot juste. Sometimes I wonder if Dion doesn’t deserve a large share of blame for the poor regard the movie is held in. The song was so massive and it’s indefensibly bad, and despite the fact that the caterwauling is never heard during the running time it’s the first thing people remember. Cameron didn’t want a song in the movie at first and he should have stuck by that, I think.

That said, I think Cameron was at his best in the big stuff: the real time sinking (realizing the time lapse on lower deck sets as waters rose), the little asides (the musicians, especially, were effectively moving) noticed in passing, the dramatic pullback shot when the flare shot up into the sky… and there was nothing around them, for miles. That’s when I knew they were doomed.

All that, wrapped in surely the worst script imaginable, with the least period relevant dialogue, a preposterous romance, and especially atrocious acting (and I include Kate Winslet, who was vastly superior to the material, but simply knuckled under), except for Kathy Bates, who I suspect can actually do no wrong. Oh and that dreadful score, and that caterwauling Dion woman.

It’s okay; now that the moment has passed (I take my cold comforts in knowing that while it swept the Oscars, no actor was honored), and it’s a cable and TV staple, I can watch the pieces that work and ignore the ones that don’t. Must check out the others, though. Maybe that will help.

A Night to Remember is one of my own cherished films. I cry and cry on every viewing. One really fun fact about it for me is that Roy Baker directed seven of the 1965 b&w Emma Peel episodes of The Avengers, including my all time favorite “Silent Dust” and second greatest “The Girl from Auntie.”

My other connection to the film is that I live by Straus Park, and the poignant memorial to the couple, called Memory. It’s a beautiful bronze sculpture of a larger-than-life size reclining woman, looking into a pool of water. The inscription is from from 2 Samuel 1:23 “Lovely and pleasant they were in their lives, and in death they were not divided.” There is a great photo of it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isidor_Straus

But as for Cameron, I must strongly disagree. Worse. script. ever. When Billy Zane pulled out gun at the end I thought I was going to explode.