Raise the Titanic | |
---|---|
Theatrical release poster
|
|
Directed by | Jerry Jameson |
Produced by | William Frye Lord Grade |
Screenplay by | Adam Kennedy |
Story by | Eric Hughes (Adaptation) |
Based on |
Raise the Titanic! by Clive Cussler |
Starring |
Jason Robards Richard Jordan David Selby Anne Archer Sir Alec Guinness |
Music by | John Barry |
Cinematography | Matthew F. Leonetti |
Edited by | Robert F. Shugrue J. Terry Williams |
Production
company |
|
Distributed by | Associated Film Distribution |
Release date
|
|
Running time
|
114 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $40 million |
Box office | $7 million |
Raise the Titanic is a 1980 adventure film produced by Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment and directed by Jerry Jameson. The film, which was written by Eric Hughes (adaptation) and Adam Kennedy (screenplay), was based on the book of the same name by Clive Cussler. The story concerns a plan to recover the RMS Titanic due to the fact that it was carrying cargo valuable to Cold War hegemony.
Although the film starred Jason Robards, Richard Jordan, David Selby, Anne Archer, and Sir Alec Guinness, it received mixed reviews by critics and audiences and proved to be a box office bomb. The film only grossed about $7 million against an estimated $40 million budget. Lew Grade later remarked "it would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic".
The film opens on the fictional island of Svardlov in the far North Sea above the Soviet Union where an American spy breaks into an old mine where he discovers the frozen body of a US Army sergeant and mining expert Jake Hobart. Next to the frozen corpses is a newspaper from 1912, as well as some mining tools from the early part of the 20th century. Using a radiation meter, the spy discovers that what he seeks, an extremely rare mineral named byzanium, was there but had been mined out leaving only traces. He is then chased and shot by Soviet forces but rescued at the last moment by Dirk Pitt (Richard Jordan), a former U.S. Navy officer and a clandestine operator.