It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

O.K., so it might be a tad worse than some other Titanic films, and 'A Night to Remember' may be to 'S.O.S. Titanic' what '2001: A Space Odyssey' is to 'Star Wars: Attack of the Clones'. But remember how badly directed James Cameron's 1997 'Titanic' was, and bear in mind how badly 'Raise the Titanic' flopped at the box office in 1980. What I'm trying to say is, look at the better things attributed to 'S.O.S Titanic', like David Warner's awesome performance as schoolteacher Lawrence Beesley, who, in 1912, wrote the book 'The Loss of the S.S. Titanic', which stands as one of the most authentic and realistic eyewitness accounts ever written about any disaster. Or how about Howard Blake's wonderful soundtrack, or Cloris Leachman, or Ian Holm as White Star Line president J. Bruce Ismay. And even better, the fact that the original 1979 Television version is superior to the edited theatrical release that many of you have seen. It may not be the best, but 'S.O.S. Titanic' is second only to 'A Night to Remember' when it comes to retelling the story of history's most famous ship.

People complain about the lack of a decent plot and the cardboard characters ,but it was the rule of the disaster movies of the seventies ,a genre which was already on the wane when this MTV flick was made ;it was not the first and was not to be the last.Anyway, a wreckage is a plot in itself isn't it? People who enjoyed the unfairly despised Cameron 's movie should watch this: there are many elements ,apart from David Warner -who does not play a villain who handcuffs Leonardo but an educated professor who finds love :a very bland story anyway- which will reappear in Cameron's work: the black and white shots at the beginning ,the upper classes and the masses on the boat,the latter's rebellion's during the wreckage ;on the lifeboat the countess plays a role similar to that of Kathy Bates ;the Irish folk music and the ball;Cameron found more inspiration here than in Negulesco's "Titanic" or the German effort.The second MTV work (starring G. C.Scott and Eva-Marie Saint was not that much an improvement on the 1979 "SOS titanic" .

Sandwiched between 'Titanic' and 'A Night to Remember' from the 1950's, and Cameron's blockbuster from the 90's, 'SOS Titanic' is the weakest of the quartet, but still manages to be entertaining with all the elements of the basic story handled well.In tune with its intended TV audience, the film begins more like a period soap opera with emphasis on the variety of characters on the ship, and particularly the class distinctions between them. The social and physical barriers are rather obviously shown, with the three decks containing the 1st Class, 2nd Class and steerage passengers all looking down from one to the other. Like 'Titanic' (1953) and 'Titanic' (1997), the concentration on the characters does detract from the historical aspects of the story, leaving 'A Night to Remember' as the most accurate depiction of the tragedy.Some of the issues in the story do become laboured in 'SOS Titanic', with hymn singing intercut with shots of floating ice, characters asking about lifeboat drills, and a 1st Class passenger cutting open his lifejacket to show what the insides are made of. The Mills & Boon dialogue also begins to surface more frequently, with lines like "New York seems so far away" and "Tonight may be our last night but one".Small gripes aside, the effects and acting are good throughout and the characters are made interesting enough for us to care about them when the inevitable happens. It may be the poor relation of the family of Titanic films, but it has more than enough credentials to justify a place of its own at the table.David Warner had a prominent role in this film and in Cameron's 1997 version.

This movie was better than some and worse than others. It was interesting to see the second class point of view, but two major errors in the movie made it difficult for me to take the rest of it too seriously.At the start, when the Carpathia arrives, we see that Captain Rostron has made NO preparations until they've reached the scene. Dramatic license is not adequate reason to show Rostron as incompetent. A little later on, the big Sunday is shown as April 12 rather than April 14. I've made typos myself, but this was a bad one.