Was that film really that bad??? Raise the Titanic

Have you ever watched a film and thought, "That's not too bad." "It was alright." "Pretty middle of the road." "Kind of flawed but worth a couple of hours," but then learned more about that film and realised that pretty much everyone else considers it trash? Yep, me too, and such was my thinking when, one boring lockdown afternoon, I happened across a full copy of "Raise the Titanic" on YouTube and decided to give it a watch.

Even the title looks bored.

You see, when I was but a wee lad in the 1980's, this was a semi-regular Saturday afternoon kind of film (and if that doesn't raise an alarm, nothing will) and I remember liking it quite a bit. After all, I'd read the novel and was a fan of the author (you can read my thoughts on a modern day re-reading of his first few novels here). Given the rose tint of memory, I wasn't sure really what to expect as the film started and by the end of it, well, yes...

Released in 1980, Raise the Titanic was a Lew Grade production of the Clive Cussler novel of the same name. The book was published in 1976 and filming began in late 1979. Famously, the producers spent $15 million before a single frame had been shot, getting together the models and water tanks required for the special effects. That was $15 million then. That's over $53 million today. In the end, the budget that was originally set at $9 million ($31m 2020) ended up being $40 million ($142m 2020). Given the money spent on it, it had to be something special. It's box office return of $7 million ($22m 2020) was not.

The plot is pretty straight forward: America has a defence program that would protect the country from airborne and spaceborne threats. It needs a specific mineral to power it. The only known source of this was on a Soviet held island, but when they look for it, it's already been mined. They discover that the mined material was loaded on to the Titanic and thus decide to raise the ship to get to the mineral. Naturally, the Soviets clock onto this and therein should lie the basis of a decent thriller. Notice I said "should".

Because this film isn't a decent thriller. Where to begin?

OK, let's start off with the whole point of the book: it's a Dirk Pitt adventure. Except here, Pitt is a bit of a whiny arse. Not really Richard Jordan's fault: the script does give him some clunkers - especially the "distress" rant, where he comes across as someone who doesn't know what's going on, when in fact the film has him reveal a secret insurance policy a few minutes later. Really, this film isn't about Pitt at all - it's about the ship. Which means most of the cast are wasted.

With Jordan being miscast as Pitt (no twinkle in his eyes, playing it completely flat), the rest of the cast are similarly poorly chosen. Jason Robards as Admiral Jim Sandecker looks bored and totally disinterested in acting. When asked why he was in the movie, he later replied "for the money." It shows. David Selby as Gene Seagram is ok, possibly the best casting of the lot, but an entire sub-plot from the book is discarded and again, he struggles to come across as two dimensional, so bad is the script. And bless poor Anne Archer, one of only two women in the film with speaking parts - the other is a pub landlady in Cornwall! Archer gives perhaps the only warm performance of the lot as Dana Archibald, a reporter who is Seagram's girlfriend and an ex of Pitt's. Again, not given much to do and with bugger all involvement in developing the plot, even though there is room for tension and drama (as there was in the novel), it's almost like Archer is window dressing and this is a criminal mis-use of her acting abilities.

Everyone else has pretty much bit parts, though one character was originally going to be Al Giordino, Pitt's long time friend, but in the end, Giordino is nowhere to be seen. Comment must be made about Alec Guiness, who pops up as the last surviving crew member of the Titanic - it looks like he was given £50 in an envelope and told to ham it up for a day or two. I apologise, it was probably way more than £50!

So, with a simple plot and barebones characters, you'd maybe expect a taut, Cold War thriller. Well, it's set in the Cold War, there is that. The pacing of the story is glacial, with a brisk-ish start that soon slows to the almost documentary-level torpidity of how to raise a long sunken ship from a very deep part of the ocean. Of course, this is dangerous and there are deaths but you might not notice all of this as you'll have been too busy watching some impressive, albeit murky, model submarine work. This pretty much takes up the middle third of the film. When they do get the ship to the surface (with some rather decent model work, it must be admitted), it then plods on for a bit before introducing the dual threats of bad weather and the Soviets, who have lured away the Titanic's protective Navy presence. The Soviets are dealt with by Pitt's surprise insurance policy of a sub and two fighter jets, whilst the bad weather never gets mentioned again. Needless to say, Cussler made this much more exciting in his book. Then we get to the end of the film and the twist. Except it's not really a twist and it's delivered with such a whimper that when one of the characters asks, "Don't you want us to dig it up?", you can't help but question whether they mean the mineral or the script.

On the plus side, there is that rather good model work, though modern day viewers used to CGI will call it out as crap, but that seems to be a generational thing. There is a lovely little easter egg on the model of the Titanic by its builders as well (yes, this is how desperate I am to find good things to say here...).

I've circled the pump operator here - he did well from 12,600 feet!

They did get official US Navy support so when you see ships floating about or mini-subs hanging from cranes, they are the real thing. There is also some decent real world location filming in the US, but there I am stretching the point that they got to walk two actors past a security cabin at an entrance to the White House. Other times, it looks cheap, especially when they dock the Titanic in New York and there is a crowd of about fifty people stood behind a railing and everyone else behind them isn't even taking any notice of the ship at all.

There is one thing, however, that we should be grateful for with this film, and that's the soundtrack. John Barry delivers one of his finest pieces of work. Some may only be familiar with his work on the Bond films but if you look here, he was extremely prolific. For Raise the Titanic though, he nails it, even if the film itself is poor. The score soars when it needs to, matches the seriousness of the underwater scenes and captures the joy of success - something the rest of this film lacks. Not only a damn fine composer, perhaps he'd read the book as well...

Is Raise the Titanic a good film? No, certainly not. It's biggest flaw is the lack of relatable characters - the focus on the ship means there is no human drama here worth a damn and all the actors have to do is turn up. The lack of passion is palpable and you often feel that even the actors are giving sly nods to the camera to show that they're also aware of it. This is a shame, as given the character of Pitt, there is an adventure series waiting to happen. And believe me, years after this box office bomb, they tried. But that's for another day, and another entry into what I hope becomes a semi-regular series. As for Raise the Titanic, it's a perfect Sunday afternoon film. After stuffing yourself with Sunday lunch, retire to the settee and doze off listening to Barry's superb score. It's not like you'll be missing much of the film.