Down with the Ship

Films: Titanic (1953)
Format: DVD from Northern Illinois University Founders Memorial Library on rockin’ flatscreen.

When it comes to movies, Titanic typically means the 1997 James Cameron film. The 1953 film that covers the same ship sinking is pretty much forgotten these days despite its winning the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay that year. While this version doesn’t have the tremendous special effects of Cameron’s epic, it does have many of the same beats, and of course it also has a huge ship sinking in the northern Atlantic. It also does this in a spare 98 minutes, almost 100 fewer than Cameron’s film.

We’ll get to the ship sinking by the end of the movie, of course. Since we as the audience know that the ship is going down, it lends that same aura of tragedy and inevitability over everything else that happens. There’s one main drama aboard the ship and a few others that dip in now and then as minor distractions. That main drama concerns Julia Sturges (Barbara Stanwyck), who has boarded the ship with her daughter Annette (Audrey Dalton) and her young son Norman (Harper Carter). She meets a few friends as the ship boards who question why her husband is not traveling with them.

Make a Wish

Film: Three Coins in the Fountain
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on various players.

I have online office hours on Sundays and Tuesdays. It’s a rare event that someone actually shows up to them, but I have them anyway. On nights like these, I spend a couple of hours in my office and need to find something to watch to pass the time. I have a tendency to watch things on NetFlix in this situation, because I can use something other than the laptop, which I need for those office hours. Tonight, for no reason beyond whim, I decided on the oldest of the movies on my Oscar lists currently streaming: Three Coins in the Fountain. I expected something light and breezy. What I got was a film that never really figured out what it wanted to be.

The fountain in question here is Trevi Fountain in Rome. An American secretary named Maria (Maggie McNamara) arrives in Rome to begin working at a U.S. government agency. She is met at the airport by another secretary, Anita (Jean Peters). In fact, Maria is replacing Anita at her position; Anita is returning to the States to get married. The two head to Anita’s current and Maria’s new home, and apartment they share with Miss Frances (Dorothy McGuire), who is the private secretary for a well-known writer named John Frederick Shadwell (Clifton Webb).

Johnny Belinda

Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

I really love my DVR, although I’ve found a problem with it. The blessing is that I can record things that are showing at 2:00 am or when I’m at work and watch them later. That’s also the problem—the watching them later part. I’ve got a nice collection of films just waiting for me to watch them, but other things always seem to take priority. Sometimes it’s another film that’s just shown up. Other times is that I’m not sure I want to subject myself to the subject matter at hand. Such is very much the case with Johnny Belinda.

Why? Well, Johnny Belinda has all of the elements of a film designed specifically to pull emotionally in pre-planned and obvious ways. The quick synopsis is this: a deaf girl becomes the project of a local doctor, who teaches her to read lips and speak in sign language. An evil member of the small community rapes and impregnates her, although everyone assumes the doctor is the father. Eventually, there is a confrontation with the real father. This is not the sort of thing I wanted to jump into with both feet, so it’s sat on my DVR for months.