Raise the Titanic (1980)

User Rating:

3.8/10   

Director:

Jerry Jameson

Writers:

Clive Cussler (novel)
Eric Hughes (adaptation)

Release Date:

1 August 1980 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Thriller | Adventure

Tagline:

They've found the Titanic. There's just one thing left to do...

Plot:

To obtain a supply of a rare mineral, a ship raising operation is conducted for the only known source, the Titanic.

Plot Keywords:

Titanic | Ship | Military | Ocean | Helicopter

Awards:

3 nominations

Cast

Jason Robards	...	Admiral James Sandecker
Richard Jordan	...	Dirk Pitt
David Selby	...	Dr. Gene Seagram
Anne Archer	...	Dana Archibald
Alec Guinness	...	John Bigalow
Bo Brundin	...	Captain Prevlov
M. Emmet Walsh	...	Master Chief Vinnie Walker
J.D. Cannon	...	Captain Joe Burke
Norman Bartold	...	Admiral Kemper
Elya Baskin	...	Marganin
Dirk Blocker	...	Merker
Robert Broyles	...	Willis
Paul Carr	...	CIA Director Nicholson
Michael C. Gwynne	...	Bohannon
Harvey Lewis	...	Kiel

Also Known As:

La guerre des abîmes (Canada: French title) (France) [fr]
A Guerra dos Abismos (Portugal) [pt]
Blitz nell'oceano (Italy) [it]
Hæv Titanic (Denmark) [da]
Hebt die Titanic (West Germany) [de]
Lyft Titanic (Sweden) [sv]
Nostakaa Titanic! (Finland) [fi]
Rescaten el Titanic (Spain) [es]

Runtime:

115 min | Canada:113 min (Ontario) | Australia:119 min (DVD)

Country:

UK | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) | Dolby (35 mm prints)

Certification:

Canada:PG (Ontario) | Iceland:L | Australia:G | Finland:K-12 | Norway:12 (1981) | Sweden:11 | UK:PG | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Bronson Caves, Bronson Canyon, Griffith Park - 4730 Crystal Springs Drive, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Incorporated Television Company (ITC)

Trivia:

A model of the Titanic was built at a cost of $350,000. When it was finished, it was discovered that it was too big for the tank in which it was to be filmed. An additional, bigger tank had to be built, at a cost of $6 million.

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Towards the end of the film, Seagram makes reference to the Sicilian Defense System, he accidentally says "Caesarian" instead of "Sicilian".

Quotes:

Dirk Pitt: If anything goes wrong, we lose two men and if we don't do anything we lose them anyway. They've got two chances to die and one to live.

Movie Connections:

Followed by Sahara (2005)

Treading water

Along with Revolution and Thunderbirds the biggest flop in British film history and a one-time Stanley Kramer project before he jumped ship after a couple of weeks' filming, Raise the Titanic is one of those films that isn't really that bad, it just isn't much good. It handles the exposition and setup briskly and efficiently and the raising of the wreck genuinely spectacularly, but everything inbetween is just tedious and undramatic. A huge problem is the decision to drop the parallel narrative from the book: where the film only concentrates on the modern-day story, which means lots of looking at sonar screens while mini-subs float around in the darkest depths of the ocean for almost as long as it took the ship to sink, the book livened things up with the ship's maiden voyage and sinking as well. The end result is by the rules storytelling that keeps everything under two hours, but which keeps everything pretty flat as well. Still, it has its moments – Alec Guinness' cameo, Richard Jordan wandering through the ghostly skeleton of the Titanic's ballroom, the sequence of the raised Titanic sailing into New York past the Twin Towers inadvertently linking the first great civilian tragedy of the 20th century with the first great civilian tragedy of the 21st - looks good in Scope (though only the Swedish and Australian DVDs are in 2.35:1: the UK disc is cropped) and has a very nice score by John Barry.