Wednesday 6th September's Belfast Telegraph carried this interesting report.===start===
Classic film of liner's heroic tale was nearly sunk
IF Sir Frederick Rebbeck, chairman of Harland & Wolff had had his way, the classic movie A Night to Remember about the Titanic would never have been made. He was furious when he heard of the plans to turn the tragedy into a screen epic.
Sir Frederick's attempts to block the film in 1957 are revealed by the Ulster-born producer Bill MacQuitty, now 95, in a new book published today by the National Maritime Museum - Titanic Memories: The Making of a Night to Remember.
The book tells the story of Sir Frederick's fears that the film from the book by Walter Lord, directed by Roy Baker, would reflect badly on the Belfast shipyard.
A video of the making of A Night to Remember was produced several years ago, but it is in this book that MacQuitty, the first chairman of Ulster Television, tells the intimate details of his struggle to convert the Titanic story to celluloid.
Even though MacQuitty was a close friend of the family and had been bestman at the wedding of one of Sir Frederick's sons. it didn't stop the H&W bossman losing his temper at the very idea of a film.
"I went to see him, confident that the project would receive his blessing. Instead he was furious 'You surely don't intend to make money out of this tragedy,' he roared. 'You can make it in a hundred years time when all the relatives are dead.'"Macquitty, who lives in Fulham with his wife Betty, explains today how he tried every ploy to calm Sir Frederick down. "I told him not to be ashamed of the Titanic. She was a perfect ship and had been beautifully built. The film would be no reflection on the shipyardmen who had constructed her. It would show the courage of the passengers and crew. It was a heroic story that deserved to be told."But Sir Frederick's son, Dr Denis, who later succeeded his father as chairman and was responsible for building the three-legged oil rig Sea Quest, which the Japanese forecast wrongly could never be launched, was even more angry. He refused to give MacQuitty or his film crew permission to photograph the shipyard or anything in it.
"Too many people from this shipyard lost their lives that night and too many others as well," Dr Denis said at the time. "Why should we help to make an entertainment out of it?" And, he and his father turned the Rank Organisation down flat when they asked to film on the slipway where the liner had been launched. "That was sad news for me," writes MacQuitty, "but at least I had access to the few surviving shipyard workers who had helped to build the Titanic ... All were helpful and confirmed the high level of skill that had been needed."And his quest for authentic information about the work on the gantries also produced a certain bigoted response.
One letter declared: "I wonder if you were told that the Orangemen employed in the Belfast shipyard cursed the Pope with every rivet they put in the Titanic and her registered number 390904 when read from the back of the paper it was put on was No Pope. With this so called unsinkable ship the Curse of Almighty God fell on Her and I wonder what they said when they heard that the band played Nearer My God to Thee as she sank."MacQuitty and the Rank Organisation also ran into serious problems with the White Star Line and the family of its managing director, J Bruce Ismay, who persuaded several shipping companies to refuse permission for liners with characteristics like davits and lifeboats similiar to the Titanic's to be used for filming.
Ismay had survived the sinking and came in for public criticism for his erratic behaviour on board in the final moments of the Titanic.
"I tried other companies," goes on MacQuitty, "but the word had gone about that sinking ships was bad for business."Finally he found the Asturias, which the Clyde shipbreakers Thomas Ward were breaking up at Helensburgh. The starboard side was still intact and was perfect for the film purposes.
"By fixing a mirror on the camera and ensuring that all lettering was then written backwards we could also transform it into the port side. I asked the manager how much he would charge to allow us to film the starboard side at night only, which would not interfere with his work. He liked the idea and accepted £100 for 10 nights ... I warned him he might be getting a call from the London shipping companies. Sure enough, a telegram arrived the next day telling him to have no dealings with MacQuitty. The manager only laughed and told me to carry on."The Asturias was white, but Glasgow art students came to the rescue and painted her black and MacQuitty wonders today if there are any of these anonymous extras still around from those early days of A Night to Remember.
Even as a little boy in a sailor suit in Belfast in 1911, as Titanic was about to be launched MacQuitty was fascinated by tales about the unsinkable liner coming out of Harland & Wolff.
"The spectacle of her huge hull rising above the slipway provided my childhood with one of its most vividly remembered sights. It was beyond me as a frail frightened little boy, plagued by asthma and bronchitis, to imagine how this huge mountain of metal could ever be floated...
"My father took me to the launch ... suddenly a rocket flamed into the sky, the chocks were knocked away, hydraulic rams pushed and the huge vessel began to move down the slipway. My fears vanished. This great ship had been built by people like me. On April 2 the following year I saw the fitted-out Titanic as she sailed away to begin her maiden voyage. Before her lay the freedom of the oceans and I longed to be aboard."MacQuitty never forgot the Titanic. "Perhaps even then I knew she would play an important role in my life, never mind that she was at the bottom of the deep."The heartache and hurdles MacQuitty and Rank encountered in the making of A Night to Remember were definitely worth the bother, he says now. "The film is accepted as a classic cinematic account of the story of the ship."MacQuitty had to raise half a million sterling to make his film - James Cameron who made the modern Titanic a couple of years ago needed $$230m"The purpose of Cameron's film was to tell an epic love story within the context of a calamity. I am frequently asked why his version has taken such a hold on its audiences and why A Night to Remember has come to be so revered by so many. It is because people from every strata of society have associated with someone on board. Part of the fascination is that audiences participate in the disaster. They wonder how they would act in similar circumstances."And the retired producer, who also made the wartime epic Above Us the Waves, adds: "The Titanic experience taught me that life is for living as fully as possible. Lost opportunities don't return. Too Late are the saddest words in any language. I have two artificial hips and a pacemaker and all my friends who retired are dead. My secret is to retain an active mind. That is one reason why didn't make the mistake of retiring and I wrote this book instead. And I wanted to pay tribute to everyone who helped me make A Night to Remember."
© Copyright Belfast Telegraph Newspapers Ltd.
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Terry Donegan