I'm not very fascinated by the Titanic, personally.

The Third Reich "Titanic" (1943) is the most interesting of them all. Goebbels had the director killed while it was still being completed.

On Kino Lorber DVD.

More people died in the sinking of the Nazi refugee ship, “Wilhelm Gustloff,” in 1945, when it was torpedoed by a Russian submarine in the North Sea.

More than 10,000 people died.

That’s well more than 6 times the “Titanic’s” deaths.

I've always been a Titanic buff. The sinking of that ship was a transitional moment in history -the end of one age and the beginning of another. All aspects and elements of society (not just Society) were present, and the event gives great insight into the attitudes and mores of the time. On the page linked below, scroll down and take a look at the mortality dashboard. Very eye-opening to discover that you had the worst chance of survival as a second class man (8%). Why is that? Those were teachers, doctors, lawyers, owners of small and medium-sized businesses. They clearly played by the rules more than first class men (33% survival rate) or even male crew members (22%).

The more you research the events, the more anomalies, what-ifs, and amazing stories you discover. It's the maritime equivalent of Hamlet -everything, all of human experience, is there. Very little of that is ever captured on film. Hollywood prefers its drama in the form of love stories, not facts. I heartily recommend Wyn Craig Wade's book Titanic: End of a Dream for a look at the aftermath of the disaster and its impact on the world at that time, and since.

I like to think some day they will make a movie called "Trump" in which a group of people merrily sets sail on journey of hubris, lies & deceit, only to one day have the ship hit a (proverbial) ice berg and everyone on the ship dies screaming. And everyone will shake their heads & marvel at why all these people climbed aboard this clearly doomed vessel.

Even in a threat about Titanic, you’re obsessed with him.

You're right, OP. It was totally overrated.

I get your point, R5, but R4 isn't so far off the mark, really. The Trumps and their ilk are not far removed from the hubris and excess of the Edwardian Gilded Age. They see themselves as inherently more valuable and worthy than those of us living second and third-class lives. We are expendable fodder to them. Exactly the thinking that led to locked gates keeping third-class passengers below decks while lifeboats were loaded. What's scarier is that if you had asked them, most of those poor people would have deferred, saying "Of course the lifeboats are for first class."

Wealth is just as worshipped today as it was in 1912. And the 1% feels just as entitled as ever.

[quote] The Trumps and their ilk are not far removed from the hubris and excess of the Edwardian Gilded Age.

That was my point; I actually think the Titanic story is a very interesting, but also a very old one in that there were several warning flags about potential problems with the ship & the Titanic crew was warned about the icebergs, but were so certain of the ship's infallibility, they ignored them. Basic precautions like making sure there were sufficient lifeboats on the ship & everyone knew how to reach them were ignored.

So because of hubris, arrogance & a sense of invincibility, people needlessly died. Whatever you think of Trump, I do think some day people will look back on his time in office in much the same way with fascination as to how people could ignore obvious warnings about the clearly apparent danger all in service to a complete charlatan.

In addition to the sociological aspects that R3 mentions, I also find the engineering accomplishments and failures interesting. The Titanic was an very advanced in terms engineering and had state of the art (for its time) wireless radio technology, but that’s mostly forgotten today in favor of images of wealthy passengers, early 20th century luxury and the fictional tragedy of Jack & Rose.

That engineering, while advanced, didn’t have a proven track record. This paper has a good breakdown of the failure of the hull. Although, I think the title is misleading. The Titanic sank relatively slow compared to other maritime disasters of the time, not rapidly.

Well, I can tell you that my cat is way more interesting than this Titanic thingy, even as she licks her own butthole.

Here on Datalounge, R10, there is very little that is more interesting than licking buttholes.

The 1953 version is my favorite. Mainly because of the witty dialogue between the married couple.

Completely overlooked are the 2nd class passengers. Middle class sprocket salesman from Coventry going to NY to then catching a train to Cleveland. Nobody ever mentions them

Weren't the poor the last to get on the life boats?

[quote]Tourists can visit the Titanic shipwreck in 2021

I'll admit to being a Titanic nut. I was obsessed with it as a little kid and even now as an adult, every few years I'll go thru an obsessive phase and dig out the deck plans and pore over them. There's a video game in the works, "Titanic: Honor & Glory" where the developers are going to ludicrous levels of scrutiny in recreating the entire ship down to the tiniest detail. There's going to be some superficial plot, but the real point of the game will be for nerds like me to just wander the boat and go, "Oh, THAT'S what an ash ejector system looked like!"

For me at least, I've always been fascinated by situations of isolation. As a little kid, the juxtaposition of the world's more luxurious liner with an icy, watery death was kind of haunting. As well as idea that everyone on board, from the millionaires to the boot shiners all faced the same fate alone together. And after that absorbs you, you start wondering: what was this capsule like, that everyone spent their last days on? And how poorly their final luxuries measure up to modern standards. And then finally you take it to unhealthy levels where you're researching whether the first class dining saloon had carpeting or linoleum (spoiler: linoleum).

I'm another Titanic obsessive. As a child I read A Night to Remember. I still have the book and you can see how I checked off in pencil all the women and children that died in 3d class and steerage and tje high mumber of men who survivied in 1st class.

Even as a child I could spot injustice.

This was one of my 3 childhood obsessions that pretty much lasted into adulthood. You know back in the dinosaur days having an obsession took some work. Not just googling. You actually had to go to a library and other places.

When the 1997 version of Titanic was released there was a slew of books on the Titanic published. I remember somebody came back to the office after lunch with a book and everybody raced out of the office across the road to buy the same book.

Lots of interest back then because of the film but I think since then there is little interest.

Why should any man give his life in favour of a woman that is not his spouse or family? I never understood or accepted the bullshit "woman first" code. Fucking right I'd push a frau overboard for a seat on a lifeboat.

R20 I agree. Though I would like to think that now it would be youngest first. However, the reality is is that it would be richest first.

[quote][R20] I agree. Though I would like to think that now it would be youngest first.

NO! Minority groups. BAME.

Maybe we could use that ticket as homosexuals. I'd make sure of it.

[quote]”Oh, THAT'S what an ash ejector system looked like!"

I wonder if bottoms could use something like this.

Interesting that the only black passenger onboard wasn’t acknowledged until after the wreck was discovered.

I met a Titanic survivor fifty years after the sinking. Her husband went down with the ship. I "interviewed" her for a school project when I was in the fifth grade.

So yeah, I was and am fascinated, personally.

I'm sitting here 700 miles from the wreck. Looking out my window at the Atlantic Ocean, if I could see far enough over the horizon I could actually see where it went down. Many of the bodies were brought here to Halifax, and buried, especially in Fairview Cemetery. We also have an assortment of Titanic artifacts in the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.

[quote]I'm not very fascinated by the Titanic, personally.

It's not The Titanic, just Titanic.

[quote]It's not The Titanic, just Titanic.

I'm going to hang onto the the - if you don't mind.

R2, Titanic was ballyhooed; your ship wasn't. Plus, the whole manifold SNAFU aspect. The wealthy and famous dead.

P.S. "Titanic" does not take the article "the."

[quote][R20]I agree. Though I would like to think that now it would be youngest first.

Black trannies first!

R1 you watch for free on YouTube

Well, it was sad. Yes it was sad. It was sad when the great ship went down. Husbands and wives, little bitty children lost their lives.

[quote]the first class dining saloon had carpeting or linoleum (spoiler: linoleum).

Rich people puke too, why would they have carpet in a ship's dining room?

I’m not fascinated by it either. There’s nothing compelling about the story.

[quote] I like to think some day they will make a movie called "Trump" in which a group of people merrily sets sail on journey of hubris, lies & deceit, only to one day have the ship hit a (proverbial) ice berg

You don’t even have to get all proverbial on it — there were multiple instances of those Trump flotillas turning into mini-titanics, with ships sinking. Is that any surprise, really?

There is no romance to the Gustloff. 10,000 Nazis, east Europeans, Russians. No first class 10 course dinners. Who gives a shit?

R35 you aren’t fascinated by a tragic event that changed things in the maritime industry ? You aren’t fascinated by the back stories of those who survived and those who perished? You aren’t fascinated by the Olympic Class vessels? You sound boring to be honest.

[quote]You aren’t fascinated by the back stories of those who survived and those who perished?

Not really. i don't get off on people's tragedies.

[quote]You aren’t fascinated by the Olympic Class vessels?

No.

[quote] You sound boring to be honest.

One thing I can be extremely confident about is that I'm not boring. You on the other hand...

If Titanic was full of DLers, who would have been locked behind the cages, who would have been on the lifeboats first? So many questions.

Btw- Titanic fascinates me.

OP I noticed how you didn’t answer my first question.

[quote]If Titanic was full of DLers, who would have been locked behind the cages,

Those that make mama's mussy moist.

Who would have been on the lifeboats first?

Not the fat ones.

R39, You sound defiantly pretentious, akin to those sorts who smugly state that they haven't watched TV since the Carter Administration.

The tale of "Titanic" is one of hubris, of Man's achievements vs. Nature's indifference, and so demands our attention (much like that of the "Challenger"), for hubris is humanity's Original Sin. Indeed, the gods were challenged from the very naming of the ship.

It is a Memento Mori, as the excessively wealthy perished with the desperately poor, neither taking anything with them.

Nevertheless, we find ourselves envious of the expression of wealth, of the no-expense-spared interior design and decor, as we ignore the conditions of the hold, just as the rich did.

The demise of "Titanic" is a tragedy of epic but also human-scaled proportions, of pride, hope, arrogance, complacency, fear, heroism, cowardice, nobility, love.

Ultimately, and quite unlike many past events, this moment in history compels us to ask of ourselves: "How would I have behaved?"

It is the struggle within one's soul to find the honest answer that comprises our true fascination with "Titanic."

[quote][R39], You sound defiantly pretentious

No I don't but you do, as is VERY CLEARLY evident from your post.

R44, I readily admit to not being humble.

But if OP isn't fascinated by "the" [italic]Titanic[/italic], why post about it? You must find some fascination with it or else would wouldn't have posted such a troll-esque thread. I don't post in threads if they aren't about something I know about/are interested in. I think most people are like that, yeah?

Why did someone ask why other people like golf, R46? Someone asked that a week or so ago, and there was a good discussion of something few of us like. Sometimes people are just curious.

And I agree that the story of the Titannic is memorable as the neatest example of the perils of Hubris in the 20th century, and that's something the world always needs to be reminded of. But even though I'm so prone to obsessive interests that I take birding vacations, that's one wormhole I've never wanted to dive into. But it's interesting to hear about why others like it.

R43 here. And I'm going to posit one other reason for people's interest.

In its better expression, it is "There but for the grace of God, go I."

But more realistically, it is "Those people don’t know what's in store for them. But WE know it's death, and we're enthralled!"

The frisson of imminent death---of others.

[quote] I’m not fascinated by it either. There’s nothing compelling about the story.

You probably think "The Real Housewives" are riveting.

R6 You can be blasé about some things, Rose, but not about Titanic.

And now we have ships five times her size that can potentially carry twice her complement.

I go through cycles every few years with Titanic, where I'm intensely interested in finding out everything I can about it, reading obscure bios of obscure people on board, watching real-time sinkings of the ship and the Movie, etc, etc. And then there are long periods where it doesn't even cross my mind (and I forget some of what I learned during the last cycle). I actually had a Titanic binge earlier this year and am currently in a latent phase, but the anniversary is coming up and I already know I'm going to watch the Titanic: Honor & Glory livestream because there are some questions I want to ask those experts.

As I child and young adult I was fascinated with Titanic. Books, movies, you name it. Then I saw Cameron's and I lost complete interest. It's like it just flushed it from my system-don't know why (although I thought the movie sucked).

And had she survived, [italic]Titanic[/italic] would have been the world’s largest ship for only one year; then the Germans launched their Imperator-class liners. The first ships to exceed 900 feet in length and 50,000 GRT. Everything would have turned out quite different.

I'm still pissed that old lady threw the diamond in the water, what the hell was she thinking?

Tell us what else doesn't interest you, OP. PLEASE.

YOU, r56...and spastic posts like yours.

The glamour, the shameless “apartheid” separating the classes, the grandeur of the world’s “fastest and largest cruise liner”, the fact that it sank on its maiden voyage...

Still fascinating.

Giving the choice of drowning or eating Barbara Stanwyck's pussy.

I was fascinated by it as a kid because the wreck hadn't yet been found, then was fascinated once it had been. The mismanagement and unnecessary deaths made a compelling story. As an adult (and after the last few years especially) it doesn't seem so strange and unique anymore, it seems like just another few thousands deaths because of incompetence and greed.

Titanic was NOT a cruise ship or a cruise liner. She was an ocean liner. Big difference r58.

I'm surprised they haven't made a modern-day movie about one of these newer "floating cities" sinking. We could all use a 2021 Poseidon-like action flick. I'm sure the cruise industry wouldn't want it but I'd love to see, say, an unsuspecting kid going down one of those water slides at the moment of impact, only to end up landing in the ocean and chewed up by a great white shark.

"personally" ... as opposed to professionally?

Same with R25

[quote] Even as a child I could spot injustice.

R18 Have you put that skill to use in your life?

I think I have sufficient knowledge of the ship, the event, the aftermath, the music list, the interior design details (middling), some of the dishes listed on the shop's menus, the marine archaeology prospects, and could prattle off a fair number of survivors/victims. I knew all this by the time I was 12 or so, and my curiosity hang increased since.

It's a compelling story but not so much in it's retelling and retelling again.

R5 'Apartheid' is an ugly word for a normal human character trait.

as a young teenager not only was I interested in the Titanic but the Andrea Doria, the Lusitania and any other sinkings I could find. I am terrified of water and decided I must have been on a ship that sunk and I drowned in a past life.

It’s only morbid if you want to look at the dead people washed ashore.

White nationalist @ R66. Jack Donovan, maybe?

Only on Datalounge.

My grandmother was on the Andrea Doria's sister ship, the Pia Zadora.

I love my fanny

R58 If you go seeking shameful things, you will find them. If you go seeking shameless things, you will find them.

[quote]My grandmother was on the Andrea Doria's sister ship, the Pia Zadora.

Their was also the Doria Exploria.

Totally obsessed in childhood. I have no idea why, but I was really into ghost stories and the Bermuda Triangle and stuff so I think it ticked those same boxes. It still gives me the eerie Jeebies even now. Youtube has a bunch of real-time re-enactments. I watched one on the anniversary night once, while reading accounts, just to give myself the spooks I guess. Definitely morbid curiosity.

When I was 16 in 1996, I spent 9 months in a psychiatric ward. One of the other teenagers there was obsessed with the Titanic. He could quote facts/figures and also made a detailed drawing of the inside of the Titanic using one of those large paper rolls. I've often wondered what his opinion of James Cameron's film was, which was released a year later. I don't think he would have cared much for the fictional love story. He was only interested in the mechanics/history of Titanic.

Did they ever find any of Mrs. Charlotte Wardle Cardeza's luggage? And what about the jeweled copy of the Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyyat?

[quote]Their was

Oh dear.

Folks will fetishize anything.

Watching SOS Titanic on Kanopy. A beautiful screenplay tempered by sloppy sets and cheapo special effects. David Warner plays a role in this as a second class passenger. He was Lovejoy in James Cameron's [italic]Titanic[/italic].

It's a handsome vessel.

Did anyone watch the 1996 miniseries starring a then unknown Catherine Zeta-Jones, Peter Gallagher, and DL fave Mike Doyle looking very lovely. It even had a rape scene (of course) courtesy of Tim Curry.

I liked the 1979 TV version of SOS Titanic even though some of the effects were crude. First, it was the first film version in color and second I loved Cloris Leachman as Molly Brown. The original was three hours but the European version was different and subsequent home video versions were different from that, all due to different cuts that were made.

Meanwhile. someone above mentioned that she was the largest and fastest liner in the world. Only partially true although a common misconception. She and her sister ship Olympic were designed to be the largest and most luxurious ships afloat but not the fastest. At the time it would have been too expensive. They were fast ships but not in a league with the Cunard sisters Mauritania and Lusitania for speed. Thus, contrary to popular legend, she was not trying to set a speed record and in fact was running below her own projected top speed at the time of the collision. She was, by design, incapable of setting a speed record.

Another classic film with a Titanic-like plot is [italic]History is Made at Night[/italic] with Charles Boyer and Jean Arthur. It has some camp elements in it that could appeal to some DLers...

......

^ Jean is strangling Charles.

For years I've wondered how to pronounce 'Frank Borzage'. I had assumed it was 'Bor-zarj' but I heard someone say 'Bor-zargie'.

^^^Yes, Frank's family hailed from Trieste, when it was part of Austria-Hungary...he was Italian and some other ethnicities. And not bad looking. Could have been an actor himself.

[quote] not bad looking

He has an extraordinary cleft chin. And I note he hired Dane Clark (who looks like his twin)

R82 thank you for your additions - I had no idea. Learnt something new.

Titanic movies are like pizzas. It's hard to make a bad one.

There was a third sister ship: Britannic.

She was sunk, too.

There’s a cheaply made movie about the [italic]Britannic[/italic] on YouTube. The man who portrayed the German spy masquerading as a priest is cute and Jacqueline Bisset has a role in it as well.

There is a fascinating National Geographic special about Britannic from back in the '80s or '90s. It was released on home video but I have no idea what its current availability is.

There are early White Star promotional materials calling her Gigantic but when she was formally announced her name had been changed to Britannic. The legend is her name was changed after the Titanic disaster so as not to sound too pompous or tempt fate.

Did you know that there was a passenger cargo vessel called LESBIAN?

The crew were cunning linguists.

As you might have gleaned from the posts above, The White Star Line traditionally named their ships ending in "ic" (Olympic, Homeric, Teutonic, Oceanic) while Cunard traditionally named their ships ending in "ia" (Lusitania, Aquitania, Carpathia, Carmania), with only a handful of exceptions.

This tradition probably helped establish this apocryphal story, which is doubted by most maritime historians but is still repeated:

Cunard decided to build the largest and grandest ship afloat and name her Queen Victoria. Cunard's directors sought an audience with King George V (the current Queen's grandfather) to seek Royal approval. After presenting him with designs, blueprints and paintings, they requested to name her after England's most illustrious Queen. Before they could say another word, the King interrupted with "My wife will be delighted." Thus RMS Queen Mary got her name.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, both White Star and Cunard were suffering tremendously and each petitioned the Government for financial subsidies. The Government agreed on the condition that the two lines merge. They became Cunard-White Star but eventually the White Star part was dropped.

^ Cunard is now a subsidiary of Carnival. The Cunard flagship Queen Mary 2 is now the only ship considered a true ocean liner, built to cross the North Atlantic in all weather, as opposed to a cruise ship.

R95 what's the difference?

You don't want to be on a ship designed to cruise the Caribbean during a heavy winter storm in the North Atlantic.

OP comes off as deeply retarded.

A liner, as opposed to a cruise ship, will have stronger steel plates...noticeably thicker. Also, I think, a longer bow that can cut through rough water. And a deeper draft, so she sits deeper in the water, making her more stable. I’m sure that I have forgotten something...

What about those cruise ships that go all the way from Mexico to Alaska and vice-versa?

Cruise ships also sail closer to land, where the seas aren’t as rough. The only time that they are in deep water is during repositioning voyages...

True or not, r94, I thoroughly enjoyed that tale.

The White Star Line treated the survivors and relatives of the dead abominably, refusing to pay reimbursement to many.. They refused to accept any real responsibility for the disaster. And IMM, the owners of the WSL, used their might and connections in the British Board of Trade to whitewash the investigation and exonerate the shipowners. The American inquiry was a bit more thorough, but focused mainly on the head of the line Bruce Ismay.

R95 I believe they have three Cunard ocean liners now.

No, R104, they have one bona fide liner, the QM2. The other two and the one currently being built are cruise ships, albeit with strongly plated bows for long distance cruising. They are not classified as ocean liners.

R105 You are entirely correct. Although the new Queen Mary 2 does do some cruises, including an annual round-the-world cruise each winter, it is a liner and not a cruise ship both because of its heavier design (meant to withstand mid-and-north-Atlantic weather) and because its principal purpose is "line voyages" or crossings between two points, these being New York and Southampton, for roughly half the year.

Thanks R106.

I know a few people who've done repositioning (transoceanic) cruises on cruise liner. Because of their shallow drafts and topheavy design, they slap on top of the water in rough seas and the bow almost disappears.

Tonight is the anniversary of the sinking.

If there had been no Titanic, we wouldn't have this masterpiece.

Nor this.

R108 and how do you plan to commemorate

I ‘celebrated’ on Sunday, the actual night it sank. Watched the 1953, 1958 theatrical films and the well written but cheaply produced 1979 TV film (released as a regular film in Europe).

We would sing this at summer camp.

R111, I don’t know about him, but I commemorated it by lighting 1,517 candles in my apartment.

It's all well and good for you all to make your jokes, but I lost my great-grandparents on the Titanic, and it led to our losing our family's wealth and estates, my grandmother being forced into prostitution in White Russia, my father growing up abused in an orphanage in Montevideo, and my ending up on the streets in NYC at 14, unable to speak English and being preyed upon by the worst kinds of men.

Thank you for your humanity. Monstruos.

Is there a Black Russia?

We prefer the term Russia of color r116.

I wonder if any gays were onboard the Titanic, and if so did they survive.

R118, there are a few. Go to the Encyclopedia Titanica website. There are a few articles about them. One survivor saved himself by wearing his large fur coat and a gay crewman stood atop an overturned lifeboat for several hours until rescue.