The board members of White Star, led by Bruce Ismay (E.F. Fürbinger), use the fragile financial condition of the company brought about by the expense of building The Titanic, as an opportunity to buy up stock. If the ship’s maiden voyage can break speed records, the stock price will rise and they’ll make a fortune. Captain Smith (Otto Wernicke), securely in Ismay’s pocket, ignores the danger of high speed in icy waters, with well-known tragic results. Only German officer Petersen (Hans Nielsen) opposes the actions that will cause the sinking of The Titanic. At least he finds an ex-girlfriend (Sybille Schmitz) on the ship, so he has someone to help him when things go horribly wrong.
Before Leo and Kate turned the deaths of over a thousand people into a romance, the German film industry used it to demonstrate the decadence of British capitalists. It’s hard to argue against their broader point, but they were playing fast and loose with the facts. But hey, it’s safe to say that the plot of this film wasn’t the biggest lie to come out of NAZI Germany, and the greed of wealthy industrialists is easier to believe than Leo’s yell of “I’m king of the world.”
As a disaster flick, divorced from its propaganda aim, it’s not too bad. There are plenty of slimy characters whose unpleasant deaths will make you smile. There’s a reasonable amount of tension, and plenty of the twisted relationships that would mark the Irwin Allen films of the ’70s. The special effects are adequate, although they don’t build excitement. The best shots of the ship were reused (without permission) in 1958’s A Night to Remember. The only real dramatic flaws are the dropping of the youthful romantic subplot two-thirds of the way through the movie, and the lack of a likable primary character. The second is the real problem. In a disaster film, half the fun is watching people drown, burn, or fall from great heights, but the rest comes from struggling with someone you want to live. There’s no such person here. All the main characters are amoral scum-buckets who are cowardly to boot, except for Petersen, who can charitably be described as a dick. He whines, he cajoles, he demands, he insults a kindly woman, and in the middle of the disaster, takes time out to say, “I told you so” to everyone he can find. Perhaps I missed a socio-history lecture, but I find it hard to believe that even in NAZI Germany this guy would get invited to any garden parties.
So, is Titanic a piece of corrupt propaganda that should be grouped with Triumph of the Will? Not really. You can’t blame them for putting a German front and center. It’s less obnoxious than making a movie about Samurai and placing a white guy in the lead (The Last Samurai) or having another white guy, surrounded by hot American Indian women, finding the only Caucasian chick in a hundred miles (Dances with Wolves). Filmmakers want an entry point that their viewers can understand. It’s raciest and nationalistic, but it hardly sets Titanic apart. And as previously mentioned, that German entry point is an unpleasant jerk, so it hardly puts Germans in a superior light. Yes, the movie does attack English and American aristocrats as greedy SOBs, but Hollywood has produced a lot of films doing the same thing. And in many other ways, the flick is kinder to the Brits and Yanks than the 1997 version. The poorer passengers are not imprisoned below deck, and are even allowed to walk into the grand ballroom to be informed of the situation. It’s hard to find a NAZI outlook here (except for a text sentence tacked on at the end condemning the British). If anything, the movie has a communist slant (it did play well in the East after the war). The propaganda may be slight due to director Herbert Selpin, who was less enthusiastic about The Third Reich than was good for his health. He was arrested by the Gestapo during production for making disparaging remarks about the German navy, and died in prison—almost certainly murdered.
By the time Titanic was complete, the war wasn’t going well for Germany. Joseph Goebbels decided that the panicking celluloid passengers might inspire actual panic in a population that was living through nightly bombings, and banned the movie. So it wasn’t very successful propaganda anyway you look at it.
Titanic is a slightly above average disaster movie that is made more interesting due to historical context. And there are worse takes on the story.
Actress Sybille Schmitz also appeared in Vampyr.