The film is based on
Walter Lord's book
A Night to Remember (1955). In Ray Johnson's documentary ''The Making of 'A Night to Remember'
(1993), Lord says that when he wrote his book, there was no mass interest in the Titanic'', and he was the first writer in four decades to attempt a grand history of the disaster, synthesising written sources and survivors' first-hand accounts. Lord dated the genesis of his interest in the subject to childhood as did producer MacQuitty, who had vivid memories of, as a boy of six, watching the launch of the
Titanic at the
Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast on 31 May 1911 and seeing it depart on its maiden voyage the following April. The book had been adapted as a
live American TV production, screened by
NBC and sponsored by
Kraft Foods as part of the
Kraft Television Theatre series on 28 March 1956. It was described as "the biggest, most lavish, most expensive thing of its kind" attempted up to that point, with 31 sets, 107 actors, 72 speaking parts, and 3,000 gallons of water and costing $95,000 ($ at prices).
George Roy Hill directed and
Claude Rains narrated – a practice borrowed from radio dramas, which provided a template for many television dramas of the time. It took a similar approach to the book, lacking dominant characters and switching between a multiplicity of scenes. Rains's narration was used "to bridge the almost limitless number of sequences of life aboard the doomed liner", as a reviewer put it and closed with his declaration that "never again has Man been so confident. An age had come to an end." The production was a major hit, attracting 28 million viewers, and greatly boosted the book's sales. It was rerun on
kinescope on 2 May 1956, five weeks after its first broadcast.
Development The film adaptation came about after its eventual director,
Roy Ward Baker, and its producer, Belfast-born
William MacQuitty, both acquired copies of the book – Baker from his favourite bookshop and MacQuitty from his wife – and decided to obtain the film rights. MacQuitty succeeded in raising finance from
John Davis at the Rank Organisation, who in the late 1950s were expanding into bigger-budgeted film making. The job of directing was assigned to Roy Baker, who was under contract to Rank, and Baker recommended Ambler be given the job of writing the screenplay. Lord was brought on board as a consultant. In addition to basing the script – both in action and dialogue – on Lord's book, the film makers achieved nuanced performances and authentic atmosphere by consulting
Titanic survivors, who served as technical advisors. Among them were Fourth Officer
Joseph Boxhall and passengers
Edith Russell and
Lawrence Beesley. Beesley was asked to sit by a tape recorder in a caravan at Pinewood Studios and imitate the cries of the struggling swimmers after the sinking. The film makers went out of their way to cast actors who resembled their real life counterparts. Charles Lightoller's widow Sylvia was also consulted during production, at one point visiting Pinewood Studios and meeting with Kenneth More, whom she introduced to her children on set. Sylvia commended More for his portrayal of her husband. When Helen Smith, Captain Smith's daughter, visited the set and met Laurence Naismith, she was overcome with emotion by his striking physical resemblance to her father. There were numerous changes made to real events to increase the drama and appeal. For example, there is a limited involvement of American passengers (with the exception of the Strauses, Guggenheim, "the unsinkable"
Molly Brown and Colonel Gracie), and several characters based on Americans are depicted as being British. When questioned as to why he did this, Roy Baker noted that "it was a British film made by British artists for a British audience". The film diverges from the book and the NBC TV adaptation in focusing on a central character, Second Officer
Charles Lightoller, who performs actions that other crew members did and said during the disaster. Its conclusion reflects Lord's world-historical theme of a "world changed forever" with a fictional conversation between Lightoller and Colonel
Archibald Gracie, sitting on a lifeboat. Lightoller declares that the disaster is "different ... Because we were so sure. Because even though it's happened, it's still unbelievable. I don't think I'll ever feel sure again. About anything". Rank wanted a star for the part, so it was offered to Kenneth More, who accepted. It was the first film that he made under a new contract with Rank to make seven films in five years for a fee of £40,000 per film (about £ in terms, with a total of £6,600,000 for all seven). Producer MacQuitty had originally contracted with
Shaw, Savill & Albion Line to use its former flagship to shoot scenes, but the company pulled out at the last minute, citing that they did not want to use one of their liners to recreate the
Titanic sinking. According to MacQuitty, the Shaw Savill Line at the time was managed by
Basil Sanderson, son of
Harold Sanderson, the White Star Line's deputy chairman. Harold Sanderson would later succeed
J. Bruce Ismay as president of the
International Mercantile Marine Company,
J.P. Morgan's shipping conglomerate that owned the White Star Line. Basil Sanderson was also married to Ismay's daughter. This connection to White Star, according to MacQuitty, is what actually led the Shaw Savill Line to pull out. MacQuitty eventually got permission from Ship Breaking Industries in
Faslane, Scotland to film scenes aboard , a 1920s ocean liner that the company was
scrapping. The liner's port side had been demolished, but its starboard was still intact, so MacQuitty got art students to paint the liner the White Star Line colours and used mirrors to recreate scenes that took place on the port side. Thirty sets were constructed using the builders' original plans for
Titanic.
Filming Filming began on 15 October 1957 at Pinewood Studios, until 5 March 1958. When the set was being raised at an angle, the microphones picked up the sounds of the set creaking. The director kept them in the sinking scenes because they made the scenes more realistic. The last shot to be filmed was Sir Richard and Lady Richard's departure from their home past the waving orphans, according to Ray Johnson's documentary ''The Making of 'A Night to Remember''' (1993).
Kenneth More recalled the production of the film in his autobiography, published twenty years later in 1978. There was no tank big enough at
Pinewood Studios to film the survivors struggling to climb into lifeboats, so it was done in the open-air swimming bath at
Ruislip Lido, at 2:00 a.m. on an icy November morning. When the extras refused to jump in, More realised he would have to set an example. He called out: "Come on!". Four clips from the
Nazi propaganda film Titanic (1943) were used in
A Night to Remember; two of the ship sailing in calm waters during the day, and two of a flooding walkway in the engine room. As Brian Hawkins writes, the British came closest "to the
Titanic truth in 1958 with their black-and-white production of Walter Lord's novel
A Night to Remember, seamlessly incorporating sequences from director
Herbert Selpin's 1943 (Nazi)
Titanic without giving any screen credits for these incredible scenes". Selpin was arrested on the instruction of Propaganda Minister
Joseph Goebbels during production in early August 1942, for offering a negative opinion of the German military while directing this earlier Nazi-era film. He was then found dead in his prison cell. ==Historical accuracy==