Titanic

Chances are that without James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster, Fox Video probably wouldn't be releasing Jean Negulesco's Titanic (1953) on DVD. It's a black-and-white movie from the pre-Cinemascope era, clocking in at a mere 98 minutes (less than half the length of Cameron's epic). Without overly impressive special effects by today's standards, it's more melodrama than spectacle, with only two names in the cast (Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Wagner) that mean much to the public today. Releasing it was something of a no-brainer, but you can tell that Fox was sheepish about it; released as part of the company's "Studio Classics" line, they've loaded the disc up with bonus features (including two separate commentary tracks) that outweigh the film itself. For visual spectacle, Cameron's movie has outdone it six ways from Sunday, and Roy Ward Baker's A Night to Remember (1958), based on Walter Lord's 1955 bestseller, outstrips it on a technical, historical, and scholarly level; even the black-and-white Academy ratio image (1.33:1) will seem anemic to most modern viewers. But the film benefits from a handsome full-screen transfer, with rich contrasts and the kind of detail that one never found in the old television broadcasts of this movie. Additionally, the movie does have a heart, and a lot of heart, rooted in the performances -- Clifton Webb as the estranged husband of Barbara Stanwyck gives a performance as a priggish member of the upper-crust that oozes charm and confidence, and every scene in which he appears is worth seeing. Almost his equal, but somewhat more arch, is Richard Basehart's performance as a defrocked alcoholic priest, and Thelma Ritter as a character modeled after Molly Brown is also effective. Barbara Stanwyck's performance doesn't really come to life until about 17 minutes into the movie, but it is rewarding to watch overall. The interesting aspect of the movie, when viewed today, is that, while the effects look a little threadbare and perfunctory, the performances carry it -- Webb's character becomes a compelling presence despite his flaws, and the others follow in behind him, so that one is actually moved by some of the portrayals. The bonus materials on this disc are about as extensive as any in the series. The two commentary tracks offer very little overlap -- Richard Schickel's audio track ranges across the cinematic content of the movie in a somewhat too leisurely fashion, often telling us what we're seeing onscreen and occasionally missing a salient point or two. We learn a lot about Clifton Webb's early career, and Schickel gives a delightful account of what it was that Webb did in movies that allowed him to achieve a peculiar kind of screen stardom, but we never hear that he was gay, which was so obvious that it nearly cost him his big break (in Laura) because Darryl F. Zanuck, the head of production, was put off by his personality. Schickel tends to skip over a fair amount of material in the course of explaining the movie's content. The audio track by Robert Wagner, Audrey Dalton, cinematographer and historian Michael Lonzo, and historian Silvia Stoddard, is much livelier and more directly informative about the making of the movie, the period in which it was made, and how and where the movie departed significantly from reality. Lonzo delves mostly into technical explanations, while Dalton and Wagner recall where they were in each of their lives at the time of the film's production -- they're so charming to hear that their commentary is in a class by itself. Both have very fond memories of working on the movie, and Wagner still feels some of the excitement that he experienced at the time, suddenly thrust into star-billing alongside Webb, Stanwyck, et al. There's also an additional audio essay, "Titanic Aftermath," by Stoddard, in which she delves much more deeply into the history of the ship, which is extremely diverting and well worth the time. The documentary "Beyond Titanic" goes into the factual side of the sinking, and there are also Fox Movietone newsreel clips devoted to the opening of the movie and the 26th Annual Academy Awards, including the Oscar presentations for The Robe, the process of Cinemascope, and the screenwriters and the composer of Titanic's score. A trailer and stills gallery are also present. The movie has been given a generous 25 chapters that break its multi-tiered plot down perfectly. The disc opens automatically to a straightforward menu that goes three layers deep in special features.