A Night to Remember

A Night to Remember dramatises the sinking of the Titanic in April 1912, following the liner from Southampton on its maiden voyage to New York. Told largely through the eyes of Second Officer Charles Lightoller, the film shows the ship pressing ahead at speed despite repeated warnings of ice, and it traces what happens once an iceberg strikes: too few lifeboats for everyone aboard, and a crew and passenger list forced to reckon with that shortage as the vessel goes down.

The British production was directed by Roy Ward Baker, arriving between Jacqueline and The Vampire Lovers in a filmography that later ran heavily to horror. Eric Ambler wrote the screenplay, adapting Walter Lord's account of the disaster, and William MacQuitty produced. Kenneth More leads as Lightoller, with Ronald Allen, Robert Ayres, Honor Blackman, Anthony Bushell and John Cairney among a credited cast of 110.

Made for about two million dollars, the film received a critics' rating of 8.8 out of 10 from 22 reviews, well above the 7.6 out of 10 that users give it on TMDB from just over 300 votes. That gap suggests a film held in higher regard by reviewers than by the broader audience that has since found it.