Titanic Survivors (1998)
*** (out of 4)
Titanic survivors Eva Hart, Frank Prentice, Ruth Blanchard and Margaret Brown are featured in interviews as they discuss what happened to the doomed ship during its final hours. All four were quite elderly when the interviews were done but all of them are still able to tell the chilling stories. In a rather strange movie, the documentary starts off with Hart at a séance where she's trying to make contact with the spirit of her father. From here she tells how her mother had a premonition that the ship was in trouble and how her mother would stay up each night just fearing that something was going to go wrong. Prentice was just 18-years-old when the ship sank and he was a member of the crew. You can tell that he's still shaken by the entire event as he recalls the sinking, him crashing into the water and then talking about a friend who died in front of him. I'm sure most Titanic buffs already know these stories but it's still quite chilling hearing them from those who were actually there. There's no question that this documentary has a rather cheap feel to it but this can be forgiven simply because of how powerful the stories are. No matter how many times you hear them you still can't wrap your mind around the tragic event and why all of it should have been avoided. We also get some footage of fans at the Titanic Historic Society meeting in Philadelphia and there's even a couple archival interviews with some men who helped build the ship.
