This documentary looks at the 1912 sinking of the world's newest and largest passenger ship of the time, RMS Titanic. Victor Garber narrates a full-length program that was produced for A & E television. It includes news clips and interviews with authors and researchers.
As of 2015, nearly two dozen films have been made about Titanic, its sinking, the survivors, and attempts to locate the ship, and its discovery on the ocean floor. More films were done around the 100th anniversary of the Titanic's sinking. This film covers some aspects that are little remembered by the 21st century. The scandal of the time was the survival of Joseph Bruce Ismay. He was chairman and managing director of the White Star Line that owned the Titanic. Ismay was one of the 705 people who survived and were rescued from lifeboats. More than 1,500 perished.
Author Daniel Allen Butler explains the scandal of Ismay's survival. "In 1912, the accepted standard of behavior for a man was very simple. He was expected to die rather than save himself and be looked upon as a coward." Following the incident, Ismay was removed from the White Star Line. He was shunned by American business and society and lived the rest of his life in infamy.
This film includes the U.S. Senate hearing into the disaster. It was called by Sen. William Alden Smith on April 19, 1912, and held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. But even with this, the later British inquiry, and several other scientific and historical reviews, many questions about the disaster may never be answered. The ship's discovery verified a teenage survivor witness who made a drawing of the ship as he saw it break in two.
A number of other authors and researchers are in this film. They include Bob Ballard who discovered the wreck undersea in 1985, James Cameron, Ryan Cassidy, and authors Steven Biel, Paul Heyer and Charles Haas.