Lost Films: Saved From the Titanic
Written by Rachael Crawley
A “lost film” has no known existing copies. In most cases, none will ever be found. This series aims to discuss lost movies from across the ages, and to highlight the reasons for film loss and the continuing efforts to counteract it. It is estimated that 90% of all movies made before 1929 are gone forever.
Even for 1912, when the concept of a movie was much looser than today, Saved From the Titanic (1912, Étienne Arnaud) is an oddity. It was filmed very soon after the disaster, starring a Titanic survivor (in the clothes she wore on the ship!). As there was no footage of the sinking or its aftermath, it was the closest audiences could get to a real-time depiction. Its immediacy and authentic detail would have attracted a great number of viewers interested in this enormous event. No trace of this remarkable document exists today.
Gibson, twenty-two at the time, was an established actress and model, working in vaudeville, theatre and – starting from 1911 – the screen. She had appeared in several landmark movies, was one of the highest-paid actresses working, and could safely be considered one of the first true stars – biographer Randy Bryan Bingham compared her to Mary Pickford. At the time, she was linked closely with Éclair Studios, a French company considered quite prestigious.
As first-class passengers, she and her mother were among the first to be rescued from the ship. Shortly after her arrival in New York, her manager suggested that she make a film about her experiences.
So what do we know about the movie? It was successful domestically and abroad. It was one reel (around ten minutes), and reportedly contained two scenes in kinemacolor. As mentioned, Gibson wore her own clothing from that night. She retired in May of 1912, making this her final film. A synopsis (1) presents a fictionalized Dorothy, on her way home to marry a naval officer. When she is reunited with her relieved parents and fiancé, she struggles with the idea of her future husband spending his life at sea – the rest of the movie debates the choice between wife and country. Reportedly, Gibson struggled during the filming, at one point bursting into tears (2).
The last known prints of this movie were destroyed by a studio fire at Éclair in 1914. Gibson herself only had one surviving film, A Lucky Holdup (1912) – not an uncommon situation for silent stars. (The film is now preserved by the Library of Congress.) According to Finding Dorothy: A Biography of Dorothy Gibson (Randy Bryan Bingham, 2014), all that was left of Saved were “four scene stills, two posters, a few advertisements, and a series of press articles and reviews”, leaning towards favourable. Moving Picture World referred to the film as “a heart-stirring tale of the sea’s greatest tragedy” (3). The New York Dramatic Mirror, by contrast, criticized the perceived commercialization of the disaster, using it to lament the moral character of motion pictures in general. For those interested, more reviews and reactions can be found here. Overall, the reception appears to have been positive, with many singling out Gibson for her bravery in tackling this story mere days after the sinking.
Did You Know? Fires in archives and studios have been responsible for the loss of many important movies. Many of these fires were due to nitrate film, an unstable and highly flammable type of film stock used primarily in the early 20th century. With proper storage and maintenance, nitrate films can be safely kept in designated archives, and even screened, but require significant security precautions. Known for its bright colours and crisp visuals, it is certainly a treat to view!
That said, do not even THINK of attempting to store, screen or procure nitrate film for yourself – leave that to the professionals who are trained to handle it.
The posters and production material play up both Gibson’s star status and her Titanic link, to the extent of treating it as a news story. One poster alliteratively boasts of “Éclair’s Exclusive Extra!”. The surviving stills are mostly of Gibson and the actors playing her family. No footage is left, to the best of anyone’s knowledge. A YouTube video is titled Saved from the Titanic, but it appears instead to be footage of the Olympic, its sister ship.
Gibson herself had an unusual life after retirement. She became the focus of a scandal in which she struck a pedestrian, which exposed an affair. She then moved to Europe and allied herself with the Nazis, possibly working in espionage (4). After renouncing fascism, she was imprisoned in Italy and managed to escape. She died in Paris in 1946.
Because the prints are confirmed to have been destroyed, Saved from the Titanic is unlikely to be found. One can only hope that it will resurface in another archive, perhaps somewhere that it was exhibited (such stories do happen, though of course there is no predicting what will turn up). With its first-hand description of the disaster, it would be an invaluable document, and a prime example of current-events filmmaking. Even alongside countless film adaptations of the Titanic, this movie would stand apart.
Footnotes
(1) Total Titanic, 1998, Marc Shapiro
(2) The Titanic and Silent Cinema, 2000, Stephen Bottomore.
(3) A Night to Remember: The Definitive Titanic Film, 1953, Jeffrey Richards.
(4) Stephanie Weber, "The First Movie About the Titanic Starred a Titanic Survivor". Atlas Obscura, 7 December 2016.
Rachael Crawley holds a Master's Degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, and has worked with film in Canada and in Europe. She adores language and cinema, and how these subjects interact with each other.