Re-Pressed: A Different Look at “Titanic” from 1996 Part One

Two years ago I did a blog post on the two different promos CBS used to lead in to the Hallmark miniseries Titanic in 1996. Not too long after that, the YouTube account associated with the videos I linked to was abandoned, but I never took the time to fix the post. Here is the re-pressed (not “repressed”) post with a video from my YouTube channel. The original post from November 17, 2012 with edits to reflect the new video follows:

In an age before instant video, when a movie or a show premiered on the the television, it was kind of a big deal. The same is true for the Hallmark miniseries Titanic which premiered on CBS 16 years ago to this day. Before and during the airing, CBS added special previews and bumpers which, since a movie can have only one premiere, would never be seen again. Like many previews, these would contain a handful of alternate shots not shown in the film. With no behind-the-scenes features or anything resembling them on DVDs, seeing these in previews is kind of a big deal to compare and contrast with the finished product.

I had the premiere of the miniseries on tape for a few years until it got recorded over and when I realized how that meant I would never see the whole show like that again, I was heartbroken. I remembered as a kid noticing a handful of things which were different from the film, but without the VHS could never critically look at it. Over the past couple of years I would habitually search YouTube and other sources for videos or references to the premiere in hopes of seeing something from it again, to refresh my memory and perhaps to learn something new.

This promo aired right before the first half started 16 years ago tonight.  From this preview, we can learn/see/notice:

• 00:11, An alternate shot of people waving to the Titanic.
• 00:14, A shot of Titanic, which in the film erroneously has no rudder, but in this preview shot correctly does!
• 00:17, A very CGI-looking Titanic.
• 00:20, One of many shots with a slightly different hue/filter than the finished product.
• 00:28, Mr. Phillips (Matt Hill) says, “We’ve struck an Iceberg,” but in the film his line is, “We’ve struck a berg.”
• 00:29, A shot of Mr. Ismay, which in the film is severely filtered in post and actually used in a montage with many other shots in slower motion.
• 00:31, A shot of a man running into a wall of water.  Like the above, the film version has a different post-filming color filter and slowed down in the final montage.
• 00:33, HOLY GOODNESS this is a BIG ONE! A shot of the Titanic sinking that is NO WHERE in the film!  Is it a model?  To me, it looks different than the CGI Titanic they have, but it might just be because the shot has the natural yellow hue to it and not the filtered blue hue most of the sinking sequence gets.
• 00:33, ANOTHER BIGGY!  A shot of people sliding down the side of the ship which A, corresponds to a shot used in the film but from a different angle and B, CLEARLY shows a studio lamp in the top right corner.  WHAT?!  Six-year-old Cade NEVER noticed this!
• 00:38, “How long to you think they would last; that water is 28 degrees!” is a line paraphrased from Officer Murdoch (played by Malcolm Stewart) in the film. The line that Stewart delivers is much softer, as he is trying not to attract attention, so it makes sense that a more urgent one recorded by someone else was used for the preview
• 00:40, Isabella Paradine’s, “There aren’t enough boats,” is not said the same as it is said in the film.  THis time, though, it sounds more like the original actor doing the dub.
• 00:42, TWO THINGS!!  One, as a kid I noticed that this is NOT Sonsee Ahray saying the line, “We can’t leave all hose people,” as Ahray’s line in the movie is much quieter and less urgent. Two, this is a totally different shot of the staircase flooding that is used in the film.  I don’t mean just a different post-filming filter or a speed change like :30 and :31 were, I mean the men are falling in different ways, the water is moving differently, and the staircase is not breaking apart. That means they flooded that staircase set at least twice.  James Cameron’s was flooded once.  Of course that destroyed his set, but still interesting to think that they sank this one multiple times!
• 00:44, This is a weird one and I am not sure it counts.  As a kid I always thought Mr. Phillips said, “Go away, sir,” to Captain Smith in this preview but in the movie clearly says, “Right away, sir.”  When I got older I dismissed the idea of “Go away, sir,” as my childhood ears betraying me, and of course then I had no video to prove one way or another.  Upon finding this video though, I am again unsure.  It sounds a LOT like, “Go away, sir.”  That would be immensely disrespectful and wrong of Mr. Phillips to do that, and I am sure that he never did or would have done, so it may just be the preview heightening the moment (like it did dubbing other lines).  It may also be me incorrectly hearing it.
• 00:45, A FULL SPEED of the ship breaking apart after the group of people runs up the deck.  In the film this is slowed down and used in the final montage, so much of the shot is distorted by Sonsee Ahray’s face smack in the middle and a number of crossfades happening.
• 00:51, This is a harder one to detect.  beyond the narrator’s voice saying, “Discover the truth behind the disaster…” we hear the a stock sound effect of screaming.  It was also used in the game Cyberflix made, Titanic: Adventure Out of Time.
• 00:56, The shot of this child and mother is altered for the movie via the filter and having been part of the montage.
• 00:57, You thought artist Ken Marschall was only involved in James Cameron’s Titanic?  You are wrong.  The background of the title shot here is T1982c of his (hit the right-pointing arrow a couple of times to see it).  This painting would also be used on promotional materials as well as the cover of the Australian DVD release of this miniseries.  Marschall also supplied photographs for the film.  You can read that in the credits.

Look at all that! Isn’t that crazy?!?! From one minute of video, we have seen so much more of the miniseries that we might have expected! There are a handful of other videos which show some other interesting things as well, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The filter thing happens in a few shots that I did not list. I only listed the ones which appear significantly different for other reasons as well.

Two years later, I still think this preview is pretty neat for setting the mood to the miniseries, even if it does use a lot of material not in the final product. Part two is next!