FAQ

Unhappy with her upper-crust British husband Richard (Clifton Webb), Julia Sturges (Barbara Stanwyck) books passage for herself and her two children-17-year-old Annette (Audrey Dalton) and 10-year-old Norman (Harper Carter)-to return to America on the maiden voyage of the R.M.S. Titanic. When Richard learns that Julia has run away, he wheedles a steerage ticket from a Basque couple so that he can get on the ship at the last minute and attempt to convince Julia to return home. Things come to a head when Julia reveals that Norman is not Richard's son. However, that little problem soon seems minor when the ship strikes an iceberg.

The sinking of the British passenger liner R.M.S. Titanic is, indeed, a true event that took place in April 1912 when she struck an iceberg and sank just at 2:20am on 15 April 1912. The movie is based on a screenplay co-written by American screenwriters Charles Brackett (who also produced the movie) and Richard L. Breen along with Austrian-born screenwriter Walter Reisch. The drama between Richard Ward and Sturges is fiction.

Julia is an American, born and raised in Mackinac, Michigan. She finds her English husband to be stuffy and pretentious and their lifestyle (winters in St Moritz, seasons in Deauville) to be elitist and unfullfilling. She wants to 'rescue' Annette and Norman to be raised as down-to-earth Americans. However, Richard considers her taking the children away to be 'kidnapping' and vows to fight her for custody.

She left Southampton, England on Wednesday 10 April 1912 and took on more passengers at Cherbourg, France and Queenstown, Ireland (now called Cobh) later that day. On Sunday 14 April at 11:40 p.m. (ship time) she struck an iceberg 400 miles (650 km) south of Newfoundland and went under at 2:20 a.m.

The Titanic crashes into the iceberg at 1:08.

Not by name, but she is represented by passenger Maude Young (Thelma Ritter).

Norman gives up his seat on the lifeboat and goes looking for his father. While attempting to untangle a lifeboat pulley, Giff (Robert Wagner) falls into the water and is pulled onto a lifeboat. A round of explosions rock the ship, and Norman and Richard see each other. Richard attempts to get Norman on another lifeboat, but they have all left. Hugging his son, Richard assures him that he loves him. As the band plays and the remaining passengers sing "Nearer, My God, to Thee", explosions again erupt. The Titanic's bow sinks lower and lower into the water, until the ship disappears completely. In the final scene, the lifeboats can be seen floating amidst chunks of ice, and the narrator says, "Thus, on April 15, 1912, at 02:20 hours, as the passengers and crew sang a Welsh hymn, RMS Titanic passed from the British registry. Seven hundred and twelve (712) people in 19 lifeboats survived."

The sinking of the Titanic is a popular movie subject. Some of the more memorable movies include Titanic (1943), A Night to Remember (1958), and Titanic (1997). There have also been several miniseries featuring the Titanic, such as S.O.S. Titanic (1979), Titanic (1996), and Titanic: Blood and Steel (2012) (2012), as well as movies about the aftermath of the Titanic including Raise the Titanic (1980), the animated Titanic: The Legend Goes On... (2000), and Titanic II (2010).