In 1898, author Morgan Robertson published a novel called "Futility".  It concerned a massive luxury liner, the largest ever built, which could carry nearly 3,000 passengers but which had lifeboats for only a fraction of that number.  It was believed to be unsinkable.  One April night far out at sea, the liner struck an iceberg and was wrecked.  The ship was called the Titan.
     On May 31, 1911, thirteen years later, a British shipping company, the White Star Line, launched the largest and most luxurious ocean-going liner in the world.  She could carry nearly 3000 people but had only 20 lifeboats with a capacity for 1,178 passengers.  On April 10, 1912, she set sail from Southampton for New York on her maiden voyage, carrying 2,207 passengers.  Four days later, on April 14, at 11:40 p.m., she struck an iceberg near the Grand Banks off the coast of Newfoundland and sank on the 15th without a trace.  Over 1,500 lives were lost.  The ship was called the Titanic.  She, too, had been pronounced unsinkable.
     Ever since that dreadful night, the fate of the Titanic has exercised a powerful hold on the world's imagination.  It was the greatest disaster ever to occur at sea.  And it could so easily have been averted.  The sheer needlessness of the tragedy shocked and horrified -- and still does.  There are so many "if only's" in the story that the disaster takes on an even more dramatic aspect -- it seems as if Fate herself willed the titanic into the iceberg and brought about the death of so many among the crème de la crème of London and American society.
     Throughout the day on that fateful Sunday, from other ships the Titanic received five warnings of ice in her locality.  The sixth ice warning, at 11:00 p.m., was cut off by the Titanic's wireless operator who was working overtime relaying trivial messages from the wealthy passengers to friends and relatives back home.
     The Titanic steamed on, regardless, at a fast 22 knots -- far faster than she should have been traveling on a pitch-black night in waters dotted with icebergs, even though the sea was as smooth as glass.
     At 11:40 p.m., a look-out in the crow's nest spotted a huge iceberg dead ahead and warned the bridge.  For agonizing seconds he watched the iceberg looming closer and closer until, at the last possible moment, the ship, responding slowly to command, swung to port and the iceberg appeared to crunch past on the starboard side.  It looked as if an accident had been narrowly avoided -- but far below a 300-foot bash had been made in the Titanic's side and the water already was pouring in.  At 2:20 a.m., less than three hours later, the Titanic was at the bottom of the sea.
     For at least twenty minutes after the collision, the majority of the passengers and many of the crew were blissfully unaware of the extent of the damage.  Many laughed and joked as they played with the large lumps of ice now lying all over the Titanic's decks.  Ten miles away, on the bridge of the Californian, a passenger liner, an officer had spotted the Titanic approaching.  He noticed all her lights go out shortly after 11:40 p.m., but thought nothing of it.  He never realized that the lights were still on but that the titanic had veered so sharply that her lights were no longer broadside to him.  In the Californian's radio room, the wireless operator was taking a well-earned rest.  He had closed his set down at 11:30 p.m. and never tuned in over the next two hours to hear the frantic calls for help from the sinking Titanic.  (Following the Titanic disaster it became obligatory for ship's wirelesses to be manned 24 hours a day.) The white flares of the Titanic's rockets went equally unheeded.  The crew of the Californian could not help but see the eight separate flares but  they never realized that they were distress signals.
     On the Titanic, the command was given to launch the lifeboats at 12:05 a.m..  It was now Monday, April 15.  women and children first was the order but it was often difficult to persuade the passengers to get into the boats.  To some, the night seemed so calm, the sea so smooth and the Titanic so unsinkable that they could  not grasp the danger of their situation.   Many women refused to leave their husbands.  A number of lifeboats left the Titanic half-full.  When all the boats had left, many of the remaining passengers and crew leapt into the sea and swam -- some to safety on the lifeboats; others never made it.  All this time, the ship's orchestra, gathered on the deck, had been playing ragtime.  Legend now has it that as the boat went under the orchestra was playing "Nearer y God to Thee."
     At 2:20 a.m., the Titanic's stern had risen so far, as the bow flooded deeper and deeper, that the ship now was virtually perpendicular.  Slowly, slowly, she started to glide beneath the water and finally disappeared completely.  Many of the people out in the lifeboats had turned their heads away.  After two hours of intolerable waiting, watching and praying, they could not bear to look at the final seconds.
     Within two hours, the first survivors had been picked up by the Carpathia, which had received the Titanic's S.O.S. signal at 12:25 a.m. and had steamed 58 miles through the night at a faster speed than her captain thought possible.  Altogether, only 690 survivors continued their journey to New York.
     From that day on, the Titanic's story has been told and retold; facts have been altered in the telling, acts of courage exaggerated, acts of cowardice conveniently forgotten.  Even the number of lives lost is uncertain, although most records indicate a total of 1,517.
     Once fact, however, remains indisputable.  At the bottom of the North Atlantic, somewhere in the area of Latitude 47º 46' N, Longitude 50º 14' W, lies the wreck of the Titanic.  No attempt has ever been made to raise her to the surface.  Any such exercise, even with today's sophisticated technology, would be both unthinkable costly and highly dangerous for the men involved.  Even the hardiest treasure seeker, tempted perhaps by the fortune in valuable left behind by the passengers (who, collectively, are estimated to have been worth $250,000,000), has balked at the mere thought of trying.
     Now, in "Raise the Titanic!" a motion picture based on Clive Cussler's best-selling novel, something even more valuable lies sealed within the vaults of the Titanic -- and incredibly rare mineral ore that is vital to the success of an elaborate, impregnable national defense system.  At whatever the cost, both in terms of money and of human lives, that mineral must be recovered.  An astonishing project is launched -- one that will take men deeper into the ocean than man has ever been, right to the remains of the Titanic.

     But the great liner will claim even more lives before the drama is played out, as she reaches out from her deep-sea grave to affect the lives of people, some of whom had not yet been born when the Titanic entered the history books.

     That story will be told in all its excitement, intrigue, and sweeping drama when "Raise the Titanic!" opens in theaters throughout the U.S. and Canada on August 1.

PRODUCTION NOTES

"There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world; and that is an idea whose time has come"
                                                                                                                                   --Victor Hugo
     Next to hurling the first interplanetary rocket into outer space, or perhaps digging a hole straight through the earth to China, the most prodigious feat modern civilized man might attempt -- given sufficient reason -- would be to somehow locate the wreck of one of the world's greatest ocean liners now lying sunken somewhere on the floor of the North Atlantic and -- here's the seemingly impossible challenge -- raise it to the surface!
     The idea would make a great book -- and it did.  The idea would also make a marvelous motion picture -- and that too now has happened.  An ITC films/Marble Arch Productions co-venture, "Raise the Titanic!" is a motion picture produced by William Gyre and directed by Jerry Jameson on twelve diverse locations in the U.S., Alaska, Greece, England and on Malta.  It is a Lord Grade Presentation of a Martin Starger Production, starring Jason Robards, Richard Jordan, David Selby, Anne Archer and Alec Guinness.  The production was completed in 1980 after two years of preparation and filming by the elite of motion picture creators and technicians, who made the next-to-impossible happen on film.
     Adapted from Clive Cussler's world-wide best-selling novel by screenwriter Adam Kennedy, "Raise The Titanic!" is completely contemporary, taking place this year.  It depicts the amazing efforts of an American special operations team to recover vital material for U.S. defense from the hold of the ill-fated steamship which sank three generations ago after colliding with an iceberg during its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York.
     Vital material thought to be locked deep in the Titanic's hold could be used to make America forever impregnable from atomic attack.  At a depth of 12,500 feet, the ship is down too far for divers.  The only solution, however mind-boggling in concept is to raise it!  This Herculean project must be managed in absolute secrecy and somehow be accomplished despite the extreme rigors of northern climate, deadly interference from another nation also dedicated to securing the vital material, and by using technology not only still on the drawing boards, but in part not yet even conceived.
     As monumental as the filming task was (there are those who claim it might have been easier to actually raise the ship than make the movie) were the brain -warping technical and logistical problems which proved to be inescapable during production.  Principal photography began in California at CBS Studio Center and followed at many outdoor sites in Los Angeles and at the U.S. Navy facilities in San Diego.  Other major location included Washington D.C., and environs, Alaska, Greece; England and Malta.
     A derelict steamship, the Athinai, approximately the size of the giant Titanic, was located on the Greek coast, chartered for six months, and overhauled and outfitted as a floating set.  A key sequence was filmed at one of the largest glaciers on the North American continent.  Dozens of locations in the U.S. capital included a presidential-sized yacht on the Potomac, foreign embassies, the National Archives, Pentagon offices, mansions, museums, parks and beach houses.  A mammoth tank holding  nine million gallons of water was constructed expressly for the filming on the island of Malta, adjacent to another huge film production tank already situated there.  Just one o f several "miniatures" used in the tanks was a 56-foot exact replica of the Titanic as she would appear on the sea bottom and after being raised -- authentic down to the last rivet and built from original blueprints of the vessel.  When finally photographed as a wreck, underwater lighting and photographic techniques expressly for this motion picture accomplished the film footage.
     The United States Navy provided vessels, aircraft, men and equipment in keeping with the Department of Defense policy of cooperation with worthwhile films.  All costs, however, were borne by the production company, not American taxpayers.
     Private industry in the United States and Japan contributed over three million dollars worth of up-to-date equipment and electronic systems which were used for the first time in a theatrical motion picture.
     Hewlett-Packard Company, headquartered in Palo Alto, California, loaned the Marble Arch production company a half-million dollars worth of advanced electronics equipment, used both in three submersibles built by the movie company and in their laboratory sets.  Four Hewlett-Packard divisions in San Diego, Colorado, Oregon and the San Francisco bay area assisted in connecting and programming the complex systems.  Computer-controllers, chart recorders, data plotters, loggers and displays are shown in working environments, thus illustrating that the "Raise the Titanic!" project is actually possible with today's technology.
     General Electric's Diver Equivalent Manipulator System (DEMS) is seen in the movie repairing the hull of the Titanic as it lies over two miles under the surface of the North Atlantic Ocean.  DEMS extends man's instinctive movements and "sense of feel" into the deep sea environment and offers a unique capability for underwater work systems.  It provides the dexterity of the human arm and allows the use of the same type of underwater tools normally used by divers.  To demonstrate its dexterity, DEMS "poured" tea for Lady Sarah Churchill on the set, swept the floor and opened zippers on clothing..  It's tasks in the movie, however, are of infinitely more dramatic effect.
     "Our films technical and special effects have never before been seen on a motion picture screen," says Martin Starger, President of Marble Arch Productions.  "But it's important to note that however extraordinary they are, they never intrude into the movie's thrilling, very human story."
     Built directly into the motion picture's overall concept is the monumental design by production designer John DeCuir, and the plans and creativity of producer William Frye, director Jerry Jameson and the ITC Films/Marble Arch Productions executives.  The goal was absolute realism, sparing no expense.  A long preproduction period helped.
     "You can't hurry construction of a nine million-gallon tank which we built on Malta," says DeCuir.  "It took time, and three were innumerable problems, but it worked out.  Any other way would have been second best, and would appear so on the screen.  And that's just one example.
     The first scenes to be filmed were on a soundstage at Studio Center in North Hollywood where interiors of three submersibles complete with correct instrumentation, were constructed.  The sets matched three mock-ups of the same vessels which actually were made to float, rise and sink in San Diego Bay.  They also matched three miniatures, radio-articulated to perform as the full-ale vessels, which worked in the tank at Malta.
     From the soundstages, the Titanic company moved into a natural cave in the Hollywood Hills which was transformed via plastics into the ice-covered mine located on the island off the coast of the Soviet Union.
     The company's next move was to Rockwell International in Anaheim, California, where filming took place at on-site marine-oriented facilities that included a 1¼ million-gallon, 90-foot wide by 120-foot long by 30-foot deep anechoic sonar test pool.  It was instrumented for a complete range of measurements on structures as large as 15 feet in diameter.  A small model of the Titanic in the act of sinking was charted by computer with readouts giving exact location and depth.
     Next on the lengthy schedule was an extended location at Washington D.C., and environs, including several sites in Maryland and Virginia.  The Titanic company filmed everywhere from a rural island off Chesapeake Bay to the grandiose Jefferson Memorial in the heart of the capital.  One of the locations in the capital included Meridian House International, a non-profit corporation in the field of international affairs and dedicated to supporting intercultural exchange programs.  The building is a Washington landmark and is one the National Register of Historic Places.  In the movie it becomes the U.S.S.R. Embassy in Washington.
     The world-famous Mayflower Hotel was the scene for the major press conference in the movie.  Since 1925, the hostelry has entertained a list of guests that reads like a "Who's Who" of politics and the arts.  Among the many notables who have stayed there are Winston Churchill, Charles DeGaulle, Billy Graham, Nikita Khrushschev, Charles Lindbergh, Norman Mailer, James Stewart, President Harry Truman, Gore Vidal and John Wayne.
     America's time machine, The National Archives, was just one library filmed n the capital.  It houses hospital records of the military services dating back to the War of 1812 and contains over 2,000,000 volumes.
     Morven Park in Leesburg, Virginia, former home of Thomas Swann, 19th Century governor of Maryland, doubled in the movie as the White House.  Following filming there, the company moved to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and set up camera outside the gates of the President's home, itself.  When the two scenes were connected, it was impossible to tell real from copy, and the President was not disturbed at a crucial time in the nation's history.
     At the historic Lighthouse Chesapeake on the Potomac River, scenes were photographed of an 89-foot luxury yacht, The Potomac, which plays the role of a presidential yacht.  Later, cameras were moved on board to film a meeting of admirals, generals when the decision to raise the Titanic was made.
     The private home of Mr. and Mrs. David Shapiro, Prospect House was made available to the movie company as the home of Admiral James Sandecker.  Once the home of Secretary of Defense John Forrestal, the house also was used as the nation's guest house during renovation of the White House when President Harry Truman stayed at Blair House.  Beautifully furnished and decorated in antiques, the 16-room mansion in Georgetown has been the scene for some of the  most noted social affairs in Washington.
     The Naval Research Laboratory Cyclotron Research Facility has never before been photographed for a theatrical motion picture.  This hush-hush lab houses laser beam equipment designed to aid medical surgery among other uses.  With walls and doors eight feet thick and safeguards against radiation leakage throughout, the lab offers movie audiences a glimpse into the future of this most vital field of science.
     Andrews Air Force Base, always a key name in national news broadcasts, became the background for several exciting scenes.  Serving largely as a headquarters base, Andrews has been the home of the Continental Air Command, the Strategic Air Command and the Military Air Transport Service (now Military Airlift Command).  Tenant units there include activities of the Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force Communications Service, Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve, and the Strategic Air Command.
     Dulles Field, also always a news broadcast byword was used to depict the transfer of a U.S. special agent wounded in Russia from a jet transport to an ambulance.
     Net major move of the Titanic company was to San Diego, California where, with special permission from the Department of Defense, several sequences were filmed aboard U.S. Navy vessels at sea ten miles off the coast.
     The U.S. Navy vessels made up a flotilla of seven working ships engaged in locating, then assisting in raising the Titanic from the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean.  All flew the same signals during principal photography -- a striped red and white pennant, U.S. Navy code for Civilian Vessel Nearby."  Underneath, flew a bright yellow flag with red background and a white cross, "Rodeo-R."  Altogether, they meant "Special Project Involving a Civilian Vessel."
     ITC Films/Marble Arch Productions paid all bills including fuel.  The Navy treated the time involved in almost two weeks at sea and at dock as an exercise, and appropriate maneuvers were built in toward that end.  On the other hand, Frye and director Jerry Jameson devised the company's shooting schedule around the Navy exercises.  The result; a silken-smooth marine operation which proceeded without a hitch to produce the most exciting theatrical film to date of the U.S. Navy at work.
     The U.S.S. Denver, a Landing Ship Personnel Dock, was the command ship for the Titanic salvage operation.  With a crew complement of 650, it is designed to submerge under control down into shallow water to deliver vehicles and personnel onto a beach.  In addition, it carries helicopters for scouting and rescue purposes.
     In the motion picture, the Denver was supplemented by the use of the U.S.S. Tarawa's Communications Center, a much more sophisticated complicated command center than that existing aboard the Denver.
     Other Navy vessels were:  The U.S.S. Schenectady, an LST (Landing Ship Tanks), with a crew of approximately 575, and a frigate, U.S.S. Carpenter, a warship by every meaning of the word, with a crew above 475.  It is equipped with the latest in armament, including air missiles, and it is a deadly dangerous protective vessel.  Also, a Deep Submergence Vessel, The Sea Cliff, filled with Hewlett-Packard and Sony electronic equipment which could descend seven miles below water to work on stricken vessels, and various submarines helicopters and small support aircraft.
     The Deep Quest and its mother ship, the Trans Quest, are owned by Lockheed Ocean laboratory.  Their normal use is for undersea studies.
     C.S. Longlines, the largest cable layer under the United States flag and operated by Trans-Oceanic Cable Ship Co. to lay telephone cable intercontinentally, portrays the Soviet spy ship, Mikhail Kurkov.
     The service vessels, a group of seven small craft used for transportation at sea, were organized by the movie company's boatmaster, Mannie Louis of Wilmington, Calif.  A graduate of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, Louis was a U.S. Navy engineering officer.  Some of his other film associations include "Lucky Lady" and "islands in the Stream."
     Still more fascinating additions to the gallery of unusual sets were the locations sites in St. Ives, on the Cornish coast of England.  A 13th century village of fishermen and sailors, St. Ives is a favorite tourist spot.  Along with crooked, narrow streets and an exquisite seafront, it boasts of "The Sloop," a 13th century pub around which most of the social life in the town takes place.
     Director Jerry Jameson used "The Sloop" was the pub owned by Commodore Sir John Bigalow, the 83-year-old survivor of the Titanic disaster played by England's distinguished Alec Guinness.  The movie company completely re-decorated the interior of the pub to put it in keeping with the theme of the movie.  St. Ives villagers hired as extras crowded into the tiny pub for the movie cameras as they do nightly for social reasons.
     Another St. Ives filming site was the quarter-mile stone quay at the harbor's entrance.  Filming there was dangerous and took place in the aftermath of a Force Twelve hurricane that almost swept Sir Alec and Richard Jordan off their feet as they walked its length during the big blow.
     The third St. Ives location had to be improvised due to the destructive elements of the gale.  Production designer John DeCuir constructed a churchyard wall around one of the town's loveliest attractions, an ancient stone chapel standing alone on a bluff over the sea.  But the hurricane blew DeCuir's plaster wall down.  Along with it came most of the old chapel's slate roof, which the movie company replaced at great expense.  Since the winds continued to blow, Jameson and DeCuir found another churchyard -- this time a real one -- for their filming.  Due to the enterprise of Marble Arch production vice-president Richard O'Connor, the movie company filmed at an open grave which had been prepared for a funeral to take place on the morning after.  It was shoot the scene and get out in one day, or interrupt a burial, so Jameson worked his company overtime for the movie's climatic final scene.  The family of the deceased was paid handsomely for the loan of the grave.
     Moving across Europe to Greece, filming continued in the Greek port city of Piraeus a few miles from Athens.  There, in all its derelict, glory, was moored the Athinai, plucked out of a ship's graveyard just before it was ordered to be scrapped.  Once an elegant Grace liner, the S.S. Santa Rosa, it was now a floating wreck and a ward of the Greek bankruptcy courts.
     With a small army of Greek, French and Italian workers to help him, John DeCuir transformed the Athinai into the Titanic, inside and out.  Going on the theory that 12,500 feet of depth would inhibit marine growth and rust because of a lack of oxygen, he plastered the huge vessel with a green/brown mudlike coating, carrying it inside to whatever public rooms and offices in which Jameson chose to film.  With the aid of expert matte painting and photography which "increased" the size of the ship to that of the Titanic, he produced a combination illusion/reality which is certain to make movie history.  Chairs, tables, grand pianos, furniture of all description, were coated with a similar aging substance, and piled together in flooded salons and passageways.  Rime covered every railing, cable, anchor and rope.  Dams across doorways and hatches blocked sea water which was flooded on board and gave the impression that the ship had just been raised from the depths of the North Atlantic.
     Four powerful tugboats maneuvered the huge Athinai into each position the cameras demanded.  It was a strange sigh, hoving off the coast of Greece, and a constant watch had to be kept to signal curious vessels away from the scene.
     Since the Athinai had long since lost its plumbing, electric power, heat and engines, all had to be added for safety and comfort of the movie's crew.  Portable toilets were installed in staterooms, generators provided juice for lights and heat, and meals were catered aboard when filming took place at sea.
     For four days, the Athinai was docked at Pier Twelve in Piraeus, next to sleek cruise ships and freighters from all over the world.  There the Titanic's triumphant arrival in New York harbor was filmed, with a section of the Greek waterfront magically transformed into Manhattan, complete with crowds, American flags and bunting, taxis, autos, fireboats spouting streams of water and craft of every kind -- and typically American -- giving it a rousing welcome.
     "There is the 'star' of our movie with my apologies to the human ones," said producer William Frye, pointing to the Athinai transformed as the Titanic.  "It will probably go down as the eighth wonder of the world, and upstage everyone at the same time."
     A short, stormy stay in Alaska completed principal photography for "Raise the Titanic!" Because of the January 1980 weather conditions, the company, now narrowed down to a basic key crew needed for exterior filming only, based itself in Anchorage, but scheduled filming for an area of Wilson Glacier above Valdez.
     Since the Alaskan sequence is the opening of the movie, Jerry Jameson was determined to make it look as authentic as possible, despite the rigors of weather.  The snowfields of the Wilson glacier doubled for an imaginary island off the coast of the Soviet Union, and they doubled perfectly.  All the chill and white death of a rescue operation which seeks to recover an American agent sent there to investigate a long-lost mine containing an extremely rare and valuable mineral will be apparent because of this hazardous, but exciting filming.
     The final phase of filming for the motion picture was an immense one, although it couldn't properly be called "principal photography."  It was the filming of models in two tanks on the island of Malta.  The models were just that and not so-called "miniatures."  For example the model of the Titanic, photographed "undersea," "being raised" and "up," was 55 feet in length and almost 12 feet high.  Other vessel models were in correct proportion.  Ancillary equipment, such as underwater lights, float tanks and tools were also in correct scale to the 55-foot Titanic, so all working models were very much larger than conventional movie "miniatures."  Also, the models were radio-controlled, acting on signals sent by directors, from a central station.  Due to salt water density and other factors, radio-signal maneuvering was not always possible.  when it was not, the models were controlled by invisible wires.
     To facilitate underwater photography in a special tank built by the production company  next to Malta's longtime existing one, the DCMA International Corporation of Canoga Park, California constructed a unique 240-foot unsupported span workway bridge and a 90-foot diameter turntable.
     The bridge spans a pie-shaped 2½ million-gallon tank which original 10-foot-deep tank which was built almost 20 years ago.  both tanks make the island a mecca for model photography.  The new one is over 35 feet deep at its center, is saucer-shaped and about the size of a double football field.
     One end of the bridge acts as a pivot while the opposite end travels through a 70-degree arc to completely cover the turntable in the filming portion of the tank.  A two-foot-wide, 100-foot-long opening centered in the bridge floor permits camera and special equipment to be moved longitudinally and to be raised and lowered into the water.  The structure supports ten men with equipment anywhere on the bridge.  The turntable rotating on two roller circles is submerged in twelve feet of water and supports a ten-ton, 1-to-10 scale model of the sunken Titanic.
     The problems in building and maintaining the Titanic tank on Malta were myriad, and scoffers claimed that no movie could ever be worth the time and trouble.  As Jameson points out, this same attitude was displayed in the face of difficult movie production on some of the world's cinema classics, but the jobs were finally accomplished and the movies by public acclamation were well worth the efforts.
     To sum up the "Raise the Titanic!" filming experience, director Jerry Jameson quotes football star John Namath: "When you win nothing hurts."

Leonetti Discusses
First Use of Ultracam
on a Major Production
"Raise The Titanic!"