A Night to Remember (1958)
Roy Ward Baker's wonderful telling of the 1912 Titanic disaster which features an all star British cast with Kenneth More absolutely brilliant in his role as the ships second officer.
It's impossible not to think of James Cameron's epic Titanic film to begin with as this feels so utterly stiff upper lip British, it's also done in a semi documentary style.
Then half an hour in the inevitable happens and the ship hits the iceberg and the film becomes absolutely riveting viewing. The disparity between social classes at the forefront of the story strands. Characters are brought vividly to life and Ward Baker's direction is exemplary. So much so i was in tears when the band leader Wallace Hartley (Born in Colne, only a stones throw away from me) tells his band mates they can stop playing as they've done enough with the ship almost sunk before starting playing himself one final time... just as his mates re-join him for that last tune.
The way the script brings life to the actual crew and people who were aboard the ship rather than inventing stories and characters to tell it's tale helps no end in making this a genuine masterpiece.
I'll finish by quoting the esteemed New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther who described A Night to Remember as a "tense, exciting and supremely awesome drama...[that] puts the story of the great disaster in simple human terms and yet brings it all into a drama of monumental unity and scope".
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