Directed by:
Werner Klingler
Herbert Selpin
Produced by:
Willy Reiber
Written by:
Herbert Selpin
Walter Zerlett-Olfenius
Production
company: Tobis Filmkunst
Distributed
by: UFA
Release
dates: 10 November 1943
Running
time: 85 minutes
Language:
German
Budget:
4 000 000 Reichsmark
Starring:
Sybille
Schmitz: Sigrid Olinsky
Hans
Nielsen: 1st Officer Petersen
Kirsten
Heiberg: Gloria
E.F.
Fürbringer: Sir Bruce Ismay
Karl
Schönböck: John Jacob Astor
Charlotte
Thiele: Lady Astor
Otto Wernicke:
Captain Edward J. Smith
Franz
Schafheitlin: Hunderson
Sepp Rist: Jan
Monika Burg:
Maniküre Heidi
Jolly Bohnert: Marcia
Fritz
Böttger: Lord Douglas
Hermann
Brix: Head of Orchestra Gruber
Lieselott
Klinger: Anne
Theodor
Loos: Privy Councillor Bergmann
Karl
Meixner: Hopkins
Plot:
The
film opens with a proclamation to the White Star stockholders that the value of
their stocks is falling. The president of White Star Line J. Bruce Ismay
promises to reveal a secret during the maiden voyage of the Titanic that will
change the fate of the stocks. He alone knows that the ship can break the world
record in speed and believes this will raise the stock value. Ismay and the
board of the White Star plan to lower the stocks by selling even their own stocks
in order to buy them back at a lower price. They plan to buy them back just
before the news about the record speed of the ship will be published to the
press.
The
issue of capitalism and the stock market plays a dominant role throughout the
movie. The hero of the film is fictional German First Officer Peterson (played
by Hans Nielsen) on the ill-fated voyage of the British ocean liner RMS Titanic
in 1912. He begs the ship's rich, snobbish and sleazy owners to slow down the
ship's speed, but they refuse and the Titanic hits an iceberg and sinks. The
passengers in first class are shown to be sleazy cowards while Peterson, his
recently impoverished Russian aristocrat ex-lover Sigrid Olinsky (Sybille
Schmitz), and other German passengers in steerage are shown: brave and kind.
Peterson manages to rescue many passengers, convince Sigrid to get into a
lifeboat, and saves a young girl, who was obviously left to die in her cabin by
an uncaring, callous British capitalist mother. In the ship's final death
throes, Peterson leaps from the deck with the little girl still in his arms and
is then pulled aboard Sigrid's lifeboat and the occupants watch in horror: the
Titanic plunges beneath the waves. The film ends with the British Inquiry into
the disaster, where Peterson testifies against Bruce Ismay, condemning his
actions, but Ismay is cleared of all charges and the blame is placed squarely
on the deceased Captain Smith's shoulders. The epilogue states that "the
deaths of 1,500 people remain un-atoned, forever a testament of Britain's
endless quest for profit."
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