Silent movies - In Night and Ice

I don't think that I need to tell you much about the RMS Titanic. In the early hours of April 15, 1912 the ocean liner hit an iceberg on her maiden voyage and sank within a few hours.

Now move over, James Cameron! 
The film I present to you today is the second film about the disaster (the first one didn't survive). It was released in 1912 only four months after the sinking of the Titanic and is called "In Nacht und Eis" = "In Night and Ice".

The movie is starting like a newsreel for the cinema.
First, we get shown how the passengers board the ship (and even at that point the intertitles give us examples for who survived and who drowned!).

Next we see how what the passengers do on board - games, walks on the deck and meeting in the "posh 'Café Parisien'".
I'm especially intrigued by the second game where the two men try to, uhm, push one another out of the circle just using their feet?

We also see the crew at work, the Captain, the First Officer on the bridge, a sailor in the crow's nest, the stokers in the boiler room, the wireless operators, while the passengers (the wealthy ones, the others get just a short mention) get ready for a nice evening.
Then the First Officer gets the iceberg warning and from there it gets a little less documentary.

I'm torn about that. On one hand the shock of the people in the café or in the cabins when the ship starts to move got to me more than I expected. I'm usually not one to watch disaster films or documentaries for exactly that reason.
On the other hand we've got this ...

The First Officer and the Captain proved to be real pros (the characters and the actors). A fine piece of overacting. I went from genuinely feeling sorry for the passengers to giggling hysterically in less than two seconds.
You would probably have to watch it yourself to understand why.
They kept running away, together or individually, coming back, looking through the binoculars, grabbing their heads, stretching out their arms, repeat. It was simply too much - well, for me anyhow.

We also get to see the collision of the ship with the iceberg.
This is supposed to have been an 8 meter model. Is it just me who doesn't believe that?

Although people panic and run back and forth a lot, none of the scenes are sensationalist in any way. We don't see people jumping off the ship or drowning. The film doesn't concentrate so much on the horror itself as on bravery and heroism which is very nicely illustrated by the captain calling out to the passengers on the deck: "Be British!" (oh the stereotype) while the band is playing "Nearer, My God, to Thee".

One of the brave crew members is the first wireless operator.
There's a long scene of the wire operators sending out distress messages in Morse, getting up, sitting down, and move levers a lot (no idea if that's how it's done in the way they did, it didn't look very organized and, shame on me, I giggled again).

You see a lot of people running back and forth by this window.

The ship keeps sinking.
 

There's a very touching scene when the Captain releases the first wireless operator from his duty (the second one is about to leave the ship), but we're told they are both ready to go down with the ship and only think of the rescue of the passengers.

In the end, we are informed that the Captain gets pushed overboard by a wave (ignore that there are no such waves in the movie), helps a drowning passenger to a lifeboat, but refuses to get on it himself.
It takes away a little from the effect, though, that he seems to walk in the water instead of swim ...

This is one of the earliest disaster movies and it featured special effects that hadn't been seen like that in German movies before.
The director was 24 year old Romanian Mime Misu who had a rather short film career despite the success of this movie.
"In Nacht und Eis" was filmed in different towns, on a German ocean liner, on moving sets, and on a lake.

It's also interesting that for decades the movie was believed to be lost. During the hype around Cameron's "Titanic" it was mentioned in a newspaper article and several people reacted to that saying that they in fact had copies. I will never cease to be amazed by old treasure turning up like that.
If you are interested in more information on the film, check out the site Titanic's Officers which has info on the officers, but also a lot of articles, one of them about this film. Also, the website owner collaborated with several people to provide a version of the remastered film with English intertitles.

Now you want to know how I liked the movie because you are a bit confused by my conflicting statements?
Well, I actually quite liked it (giggles or not), and although it's 40 minutes long and some of the scenes weren't super exciting - like the ladies getting dressed for the café - I wasn't bored.
Okay, so there was some unintended comic relief, but I felt a bit guilty for giving in to my childish giggling fit. You know how I'm always the one to emphasize that we have to take the age and history of a film into account.
I can't deny having been taken by surprise by the jump from the newsreel vibe to highly dramatic acting, though.

You also have to remember that this was just a few months after the disaster which must have added to the emotions of the audience which wasn't suffering from oversaturation yet as we do today.
There are still people arguing about what exactly happened and why today, and you can imagine how much more different information and opinions there must have been around at the time of filming.
So the film may not be completely accurate, but still a good watch.


Sources and further reading:

1. "In Night and Ice" (with English intertitles) on the YouTube channel "Titanic's Officers"
2. Dan Parkes: "In Nacht und Eis" - "In Night and Ice" - 1912 German Titanic Film. On: "Titanic's Officers" website