I just saw the A&E specials on Titanic. There were so many real life characters and tragedies that happened on Titanic. Does anyone know if Cameron actually scripted and shot some of these scenes for later inclusion in a director's cut? For example, more on JJ Astor, the French guy who kidnapped his two sons, the Baker guy who stayed alive in the water until the Carpathian arrived, Colonel Gracie on the collapsible, the family who stayed on board looking for their infant son who was already on a lifeboat,

-- C.Rieger (crieger@rogers.wave.bc.ca), March 11, 1998

Answers

From what I have been able to gather, the scenes that were shot and discarded were:

1. A computer-generated animation "flyby" shot of the ship, which zooms into a tight shot of Kate Winslet walking up to the foremost part of the promenade deck.

2. The Wireless shack scene, in which the Californian's wireless operator, Cyril Evans, tries to warn Titanic about the ice field, and is cut off by Titanic's operator, Jack Phillips; Evans shuts down his set and walks out onto the bridge, where we see icebergs galore.

3. Lifeboat #6 rowing away as Capt. Smith calls them to row back to a gangway; Quartermaster Hitchens defends his decision, saying "Its our lives now, not theirs."

4. An extended chase sequence with Lovejoy pursuing Jack and Rose through the flooding First Class Dining Saloon. Jack eventually beats the crap out of Lovejoy, which is why he is so beat up and bloody in his final scene as the ship breaks apart.

5. A quick shot of baker Charles Joughin on the fantail with Rose and Jack as the ship is standing on end; Joughin turns to Rose and says "Helluva night."

The Allisons were not featured; no passengers from Second Class (i.e. Lawrence Beesley) were depicted.

Cheers!

-- Kip Henry (kip-henry@ouhsc.edu), March 11, 1998.

Wasn't there also a scene of the steerage meeting room when Rose goes down to find Jack, and then a shorter scene where they are walking on the decks. I know they don't feature real life characters but they did show more areas of the ship.

-- crystal smithwick (crystal@9v.com), March 12, 1998.

Crystal, I believe you're right; I was typing from memory (always dangerous). Just prior to the scene of Jack and Rose walking the Boat Deck, there was a scene in the Third Class general room with Jack drawing pictures for little Cora (wasn't she a doll!), while other steerage folks play chess, sing, and so on. Rose descends the stairs looking for Jack (I remember these from the book). There were probably one or two other scenes of them walking the decks. But as far as the fictional characters interacting with the historical characters, I am not aware of any other scenes in the script that has been floating the web. As I mentioned earlier, nobody from Second Class was featured at all; nor were the Allisons. The harrowing story of collapsible B was not addressed either.

Cheers!

-- Kip Henry (kip-henry@ouhsc.edu), March 12, 1998.

There is a scene in which Jack and Rose try to help save a child in steerage and a French man comes running up and grabs the child from them. He runs down the hall the wrong way, and a door bursts open carrying the man and the child in the water. Perhaps this was the French man who kidnapped his two s

-- CRieger (crieger@rogers.wave.bc.ca), March 12, 1998.

I know that this scene was in there, but since we're talking about real-life situations, a particularly poignant one for me was the middle eastern man using a dictionary trying to read the sign while his family waited so placidly beside him. I think it was important that Cameron included that scene to represent the non-european passengers that died because they couldn't understand the language. (We won't go into the fact that they were considered even lower than the 3rd Class passengers.) From what I've read only two non-europeans survivors were the oriental man who was plucked from the sea and a dragonman that was a servant of one of the first class passengers who left in one of the first boats.

Crystal

-- crystal smithwick (crystal@9v.com), March 12, 1998.

Re the man and child in the film:

The characters you mention are probably fictional. The passenger you're thinking of is Second Class passenger Michel Navratil and his two young sons, Edmond and Michel. The father was estranged from his wife, and had "kidnapped" the two boys to take them to America to start a new life. He boarded the Titanic under the name Louis Hoffman. After the collision, the elder Michel brought the two boys to the Boat Deck and placed them in lifeboat Collapsible D (one of the last boats to leave), but was prevented from joining them. His body was recovered, and was buried in the Jewish cemetary in Halifax.

The two boys made it to New York, but because of their very young age and the circumstances of their passage, could not be identified for several weeks, until their mother recognized a photograph of the boys, published in a French newspaper. The boys were reunited with their mother several weeks and returned to France.

Edmond Navratil died in 1953; his brother Michel lives in a nursing home in France, and is one of the six living survivors of the Titanic.

Cheers!

-- Kip Henry (kip-henry@ouhsc.edu), March 13, 1998.

There was also a scene that was cut that showed Ida and Isador Strauss. The scene showed Ida refusing to get into one of the lifeboats because she wanted to die with her Husband. Remember the old couple in the bed with the water rising around it (shown while the band played Nearer My God to Thee)? That was the Strausses. That is one scen I hope goes into the directors cut.

-- Miranda Swearingen (Kylen1@hotmail.com), April 26, 1998.

I forgot one other thing. The thing that always gets me about the story of the Frenchman that Kiddnaped his sons is what he told them to tell his wife. He told the oldest boy to tell his mother that he had always loved her and always would love her. Something along those lines...It touches my heart every single time I think about it!

-- Miranda Swearingen (Kylen1@hotmail.com), April 26, 1998.

Hi Miranda!

You're quite right about the cut scene of Isador and Ida Strauss. I remember seeing it in the script, and saw a clip of it in the Fox special, but forgot to list it.

Thanks for jogging the musty grey cells!

-- Kip Henry (kip-henry@ouhsc.edu), April 27, 1998.

The first place where most of us will see the scenes is on the "James Cameron's Titanic Explorer" CD-ROM.

Check out my posting in the TitanicShack(tm) Alert System!

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-- Thomas M. Terashima (titanicshack@yahoo.com), August 26, 1998.