It was the first time that the sinking was brought to the screen: a film that was released just a month after the tragedy.
The impressive blockbuster winner of 11 Oscars shot by James Cameron It is the most famous film about the sinking of the RMS Titanic of all, but the reality is that the tragic maiden voyage of the enormous liner in 1912 has given rise to various audiovisual productions for more than a century. Many of them are unknown to the majority of the public, but the reality is that they exist and cannot be counted on the fingers of both hands.
Without going any further, what was the highest-grossing film in history was not 20th Century Fox’s first commitment to a love story set in the shipwreck, but 44 years before Titanic the studio had already released another Titanic -known in Spain as The sinking of the Titanic-, directed by Jean Negulesco in 1953, which was very well received in its day. And the list is much longer: from films and/or series that include sinking among their plots, to various documentaries, through animated feature films and, among others, the Bigas Luna film The Titanic waitress released the same year as James Cameron’s.
However, although it is well known that Titanic It was not the first nor will it be the last time that the historic shipwreck inspires a film, less known is the story of the first time the sinking was brought to the screen: a film that was released just a month after the tragedy and starred an actress who was among the survivors of the shipwreck.
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A movie about the Titanic that was lost forever
Its original title was Saved from the Titanic and, unfortunately, despite its valuable historical value, shortly after being produced it would be lost forever.
Its existence is documented: Saved from the Titanic was an American silent short film starring Dorothy Gibson, an actress who traveled aboard the RMS Titanic. and that, after managing to survive aboard one of the famous lifeboats, he quickly began working on a film about the disaster.
Released just a month after the sinking, the production was the first to dramatize the tragic event, although in 1912 two more projects were produced, copies of which are still preserved today. In the case of Saved from the Titanicthe last copies were destroyed in a fire at the Éclair studio, the company that produced it, in March 1914.
The survivor co-wrote the script in which she herself would star as soon as she returned to New York after her rescue and in it she told a fictional story about herself and her family. Although the object of some criticism for the “commercialization” of a very recent tragedy, the expectation was absolute both in the United States and in some European countries to which it was able to reach, since what was narrated contained very real details that Gibson , as a victim of the shipwreck, knew well.
Although the short film did not survive the passage of time, fortunately various evidence of its existence could be preserved.
