Raise the Titanic.

Review #1195: Raise the Titanic.

Cast: 
Jason Robards (Admiral James Sandecker), Richard Jordan (Dirk Pitt), David Selby (Dr. Gene Seagram), Anne Archer (Dana Archibald), Alec Guinness (John Bigalow), Bo Brundin (Captain Andre Prevlov), M. Emmet Walsh (Master Chief Vinnie Walker), J.D. Cannon (Captain Joe Burke), and Norman Bartold (Admiral Kemper) Directed by Jerry Jameson.

Review: 
What film can best be summed up by a quote from its producer other than this one: "It would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic." With a budget of over $40 million (which would be roughly over $120 million in 2019) and an ultimate box office finish of $7 million, this was another of Lord Lew Grade's failures for the year of 1980, where production overruns and story re-writes doomed a film to fail beyond belief. The film is based off the novel Raise the Titanic! (1976) by Clive Cussler, the third book in his series of adventure books involving the character Dirk Pitt, for which he has currently written 24 of since 1973. Grade saw potential in Cussler's books to adapt to film and make a series much like with the James Bond films. The intent was to have Stanley Kramer as director, although he quit as pre-production began due to creative differences, with the brunt of the budget's spiraling being due to making models (alongside re-writes for the script); a fifty foot scale model was built for the climatic raising of the ship that required a 10 million-gallon tank to accompany its size. Larry McMurtry (writer of novels such as The Last Picture Show and Lonesome Dove) claimed to have worked on the screenplay alongside sixteen other writers, although he was the only one who did not petition for writing credit, although the final credits list Eric Hughes for story and the screenplay credit for Adam Kennedy.

As ridiculous as it may sound, the idea of making an adventure film set around raising the Titanic could have had potential, albeit one that would have to rely on charm and effects instead of tight logic to really work. Keep in mind, the Titanic was not proven to have been broken up into two pieces (as opposed to the theory that it simply sunk intact) until 1985. Unfortunately, the final product is not particularly interesting to watch, managing to squander its premise with plenty of padding surrounded by one pure highlight. Jordan doesn't spring too much interest as the main hero, perhaps in part because there really is nothing for him to go on in terms of personality. I suppose him and Selby are supposed to be an interesting pair to see interact and bicker with, too bad they don't really click well. Robards is okay. The actors besides him really seem to just say the lines very mildly. Honestly, the only one who seems interesting is Guinness, playing a survivor of the Titanic who exists just to say exposition about the mysterious person who just happened to put the "byzanium" in a vault before the ship sank. He's in the film for one scene, looking perfectly like someone waiting to cash a check, but at least it means he isn't stuck in the feature for very long. Archer has slightly more screen-time, yet her character (and her motivations for being in the plot) fade halfway through the film. There isn't even a real villain worth mentioning, and the only real menace in the entire film is boredom over the water scenes, which don't really give the film much in terms of spectacle for 114 minutes of run-time.

Comparing it to Grade's other boondoggle in Saturn 3 is amusing, since both films have such strange differences yet still manage to both be ridiculous in their own ways due to their cast, story and use of effects. In this regard, the earlier film is somehow a bit better, perhaps because it doesn't feel so long. Undeniably, the only shining part of the film is composer John Barry (known for his work on Born Free and the James Bond films) and his score, which is entertainingly majestic, fitting quite well for the film, particularly when dealing with the climatic raising. In a less flawed film (i.e. one that works better), the scene of the Titanic rising the depths would prove to make the film ultimately feel worth it, as it is a nice sequence even after over three decades since its release. Understandably, Cussler was not happy with the results of the film, saying that they had turned the plot into a hollow shell of the original along with not liking the cast. He refused to give permission for any more film adaptations of his books, with the only other film adaptation of his books in Sahara (2005) also being a tremendous failure with audiences. In any case, this is a strangely terrible flick, being occasionally watchable but also being something that doesn't quite elevate itself to serviceable entertainment, unless one likes to watch an adventure film sink itself.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.