Review of Raise the Titanic (1980) by Lee C — 15 Mar 2010

I remember first seeing this on TV with my granddad. Adventure novela had been his forte for many years. He introduced me to the worlds of James Bond, Mack Bolan and of course Dirk Pitt. It is a travesty that in light of some of the excellent adaptations of literary works in recent years that no one has yet to produce a film that captures the spirit of Clive Cussler's series of novels. All of them start in a very modern film fashion of a short prologue set in the past that gives us a stage for the main film to build on, like a Bond film. And every Dirk Pitt novel just goes into such detail and depth they are the definition of page-turners and written exactly like a movie for your mind.

Seeing this particular version at a young age I felt it was pretty boring. Later I read the novel and was amazed at how much more there was to digest in it. The screenwriters of this movie pretty much gutted the book for all but the most basic elements then gave the actors very little to work with. Despite that, Richard Jordan was the epitome of Dirk Pitt in his manner, build and arrogance. Jason Robards had much less to work with as Admiral Sandecker making a very limited appearence. The same goes for Anne Archer, whose character of Dana Seagram is little more than a name along with several other key characters in the book. A mild surprise is enjoyed when Alec Guiness graces the screen to enlighten us with some history, but even his character is truncated severely.

Now for the real reasons I give this three stars. The first reason follows Mr. Guiness' appearance when the movie picks up a bit as the Pitt and his crew scour the North Atlantic for the Titanic. in the middle of the movie is the real meat here with lots of work done to capture the claustrophobic feel of deep-sea submersibles. The detail is simply incredible, everything looks realistic and plausible. The miniature work is just getting going though, building up to the great ship's discovery and the incredible looking third-act resurrection and raising.

The second reason is probably the only really wise choice made and my favorite part: John Barry's score. Lost for years to time, only recently has this score been released and it is magnificent. There are excellent themes for searching, spying, reminiscing and redemption present and this easily ranks amongst Barry's best scores. If there ever is an attempt to make this novel into a movie again, someone should at least revisit this score because it's the only part that actually does match the source material.