Dispatches from Home: Titanic!

Dec. 19, 1997, was a Friday. Where were you? Me? I sat with friends in the Hardy Court Theater on Courthouse Road, waiting with bated breath for the lights to dim and for a movie to begin that I’d waited years to see: TITANIC. My dear friend, David Delk, had invited a slew of friends to the cinema. He’d passed out flyers with TITANIC questions on them, such as: “When did Andy first say that’s not historical,” or “When did Andy start to cry,” or “What scene caused Andy to sit up on the edge of his seat and bite his fingernails.” Did I like the movie? I saw TITANIC 14 times.

     I was mesmerized by Cameron’s masterpiece. Hardly a year goes by that I don’t rewatch his TITANIC and 20th Century Fox’s 1953 movie by the same name. That movie’s screenplay won an Oscar, and its plot and storyline are still my favorites. My favorite line from that movie is: “Well, Julia, there’s no love lost between us.” To which she answers, “Oh! Richard, there’s been so much love lost between us.”

     On this rainy, cold day, I think I’ll watch that version again…and remember my Dad saying, “Son, come here. We’re gonna watch a movie.” The movie? TITANIC, the ’53 version, which we watched in 1964 on Dad’s black and white Zenith TV. I was 12. And the rest, as they say, is history. Sail on great ship TITANIC!