A doomed ocean liner is perfect fare for a big-budget studio like Fox, whose production unit gives the real life tragedy the conventional Hollywood treatment. Wagner and Dalton charm as the attractive young lovers, while Stanwyck lends a formidable presence as the matron with a past. However, Webb is an unusual choice for the lead, given his rather brittle personality. The script makes good use of his aristocratic demeanor by squaring him off against his estranged commoner wife Stanwyck. He's all stuffy rules and European airs, while she's taking their two kids and returning to her practical American roots. There's a subtext here about Webb coming to realize a human side buried under layers of snobbish pretensions. It's an interesting idea, but I wonder how many viewers were able to warm up to Webb's basically cold personality. Fox took a chance here and I doubt that it helped at the box-office.
Nonetheless, Ray Kellogg's special effects are outstanding, especially the liner as it lists headfirst into the water that became a spectacular logo for the movie's ad campaign. Note, however, the general absence of noisy panic surrounding the evacuation, the opposite of what you would expect given the life and death circumstance. Generally, both passengers and crew react efficiently as if executing a fire drill. I suspect anything more realistic would have risked unsettling 1950's audiences and dampening box-office appeal, but whatever, the general absence is noticeable. Also, I'm not clear on what happened to the women and children in steerage. These are the poor folk presumably responding to America's "give us your huddled masses yearning to be free". Maybe I missed something, but the class segregation aboard the liner is made unmistakably clear and we do know the ladies and children of wealth made the cut. But what about those "huddled masses" since the movie is based on fact? Still and all, not to worry since they're all going to heaven anyway as the final choral overlay assures us.
Speaking of class struggle, too bad the screenplay doesn't exploit the lively potential of a Clifton Webb-Thelma Ritter face-off. They're two extreme ends of the refinement spectrum — the earthy commoner and the waspish aristocrat. Yet no one was better at delivering sarcastic barbs than these two. Squaring them off against one another would have produced great verbal fireworks and social contrast. All in all, the movie is entertaining with some good moments, but fails to hit the dramatic high points inherent in the real life tragedy. Ultimately, the screenplay reflects the extreme cautiousness of its time period.
