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Carlton Home Entertainment
- Cat.no: 37115 00013
- Cert: PG
- Running time: 118 minutes
- Year: 1958
- Pressing: 1998
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 10 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 1.0 (Mono)
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: None
- Widescreen: 1.85:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: No
- Price: £19.99
- Extras : Scene index, Cast/Crew Biographies, Original UK and US Theatrical Trailers, 61-min featurette: “The Making Of A Night To Remember”.
Director:
- Roy Baker (And Now The Screaming Stars, Asylum, Doctor Jeckyll And Sister Hyde, TV: “The Avengers”, “Minder”, “The Persuaders”)
Producer:
- William MacQuitty
Author:
- Walter Lord
Cast:
- Peter Carter: Kenneth More (Battle Of Britain, Doctor In The House, Raising A Riot, Reach For The Sky, Scott Of The Antarctic, Sink The Bismarck!, TV: “The Forsyte Saga”)
June: Honor Blackman (Goldfinger, The Square Peg, To The Devil A Daughter, TV: “The Avengers”, “The Upper Hand”)
Dr. Reeves: Michael Goodliffe (633 Squadron, The Gorgon)
Abraham Farlan: David McCallum (Dirty Weekend, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Mosquito Squadron, TV: “Babylon 5”, “The Man From UNCLE”, “Sapphire And Steel”)
A Night To Remember: On April 10th 1912, RMS Titanic sailed from Southampton on her maiden voyage. On her fourth night at sea, she struck an iceberg and sank with the loss of 1500 passengers and crew.
Sound familiar? Patrons of cinemas during 1998 will recall a similar fate befalling young Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in James Cameron’s 3hr+ epic, Titanic. Many films have been made on this subject and in its day, this was one of the most revered films of the time.
The picture, filmed in black and white, looks fantastically sharp throughout the entire film, the only slight let-down coming briefly at the beginning as the original print settles down. Brief moments involving smoke falter a little but these do not last long and will not affect viewing for the majority of viewers.
The film appears here in its original widescreen ratio of 1.85:1, not the slightly-less 16:9 (1.77:1) as indicated on the box and it’s an anamorphic master as well which will benefit owners of widescreen TVs. The average bitrate is a lower-than-average 3.93Mb/s. Usually films tend to suffer when they drop below 4Mb/s but there are no artifacts on show here other than those caused by the small anomolies mentioned above.
The mono sound (presented in Dolby Digital 1.0) comes across clearly, but won’t set any home cinema system on fire.
Extras : Biographies : The disc contains biographies for Kenneth More (6 pages of info) and Honor Blackman (3 pages). Chapters/Bookmarking : Although most Carlton DVDs contain one more chapter than there is listed, this one contains 11 instead of the nine indicated inside. It’s not enough in either case of course, especially since Chapter 10 lasts 32 minutes !
For some strange reason, although I could make bookmarks on my Encore Dxr2 DVD-ROM and go back to them while playing the film, if I was to stop and come back to it later, these bookmarks would disappear – something which has never happened to me before.
Languages/Subtitles : English language only and no subtitles. “The Making Of…A Night To Remember” On the flip side of the disc is “The Making Of ‘A Night To Remember'”, a 61-minute documentary which includes behind-the-scenes footage of the movie including interviews with producer William MacQuitty, who saw the original ship launched, as well as the author of the book, Walter Lord. It also features historical footage of the Titanic, the 1958 London film premiere and the original theatrical trailers. Menu : The interactive menu is static. Side one simply offers the film and scene selection, but side two brings on the aforementioned extras.
On inserting the disc, a copyright logo is shown before the film begins. Then you can go back to the menu and select specific scenes or the biographies on the respective sides.
Overall, veterans of the cinema may wonder why I’ve only given this film a mere three stars out of five, but the problem comes when one sees a remake before an original or an earlier version of the same story. Having been spoiled by the technological splendour of James Cameron’s blockbusting vision, A Night To Remember tells a good story with good acting, but, running the risk of having to dodge the rotten fruit about to be thrown, this version didn’t quite cut it for me in comparison.
That said, one of the most sought-after films on DVD is Titanic, something which may take a while since Fox have only announced a few titles in Japan, most of which are back-catalogue offerings. Hence, for now this DVD is your best – and only – chance to get the story in the new digital format, for now. It’s only competition is the American DVD which costs a bit more, but does also feature an audio commentary from Titanic experts Don Lynch & Ken Marshall.
After the promising first five releases, it’ll be interesting to see what comes by under the Carlton label next, particularly as they have an extensive back-catalogue of television programmes which are ripe for this format and I would love to see those series made in 16:9 released in that format, as they’re being shown on analogue terrestrial television in a zoomed-in 14:9 format.
Finally, after watching this film, one can’t help thinking that there’s something ironic when Kenneth More gets upset about the fate of the RMS Titanic, when two years later he was doing his level best to “Sink The Bismarck!”
FILM : *** PICTURE QUALITY : ****½ SOUND QUALITY : ** EXTRAS : ***½ ——————————- OVERALL : *** Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1998.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.