The First ’Titanic’ Movie Came a Month After the Disaster—And It Starred a Survivor

The survivors of the Titanic spent the days following the infamous 1912 disaster coming to terms with the tragedy. Many appreciated they could spend time with their family; others spoke to reporters. Dorothy Gibson made a movie about it.

In May 1912, barely a month after the sinking, the 22-year-old Gibson portrayed a fictionalized version of herself named Miss Dorothy in Saved From the Titanic, a hastily-produced one-reel film intended to capitalize on the public’s fascination with the event. It was the first dramatized film about the Titanic ever made, but the rush to go before cameras had at least one major consequence: In her pursuit of stardom, Gibson retraumatized herself all over again.

1. Miss Dorothy
2. A Second Disaster

Miss Dorothy

Gibson had arrived in New York in 1906 with designs on becoming a model. She joined a chorus line and appeared in stage musicals. When the burgeoning film industry kept growing, she shifted her attention to acting, debuting onscreen in 1911 and populating a number of silent films that called for exaggerated performing in between subtitle cards.

In March 1912, Gibson and her mother embarked on a vacation in Europe, with plans to travel for three months. She was called back to the States on business earlier than expected, and so the two boarded the Titanic in Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, France. As first-class passengers, they ate well and socialized. With two other travelers, they formed a bridge group.

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At 11:40 p.m. on the evening of April 14, Gibson finished up a game and retired to her cabin. She heard what she would later describe as a “long, drawn, sickening scrunch,” potentially the sound of the ship striking the iceberg that caused severe damage to the hull. Gibson didn’t idle in place: She and her mother quickly boarded Boat 7, which hit the water even though it was only half-full of passengers.

On the boat, Gibson recalled, a plug came loose that required a man to sit over it and apply pressure to avoid taking in too much water; another man hoarded blankets meant for everyone.

Finally, the boat was greeted by the rescue ship Carpathia, and Gibson and her mother were headed home.

Waiting for her was Jules Brulatour, a wealthy (and recently separated but not divorced) man who was eager to make two proposals to Gibson. He sought her hand in marriage—he planned to divorce his wife—but he also suggested she write and film a movie about her experiences on the Titanic. He argued it would be as good for her career as it had been for their relationship: Nearly losing her had apparently spurred him into an engagement.

At the time, Gibson was a contract player for Éclair Film Company, which had a soundstage in Fort Lee, New Jersey. The company was eager to capitalize on public interest in the disaster, which appeared insatiable.

Gibson began writing down a scenario for a short film. At one reel, it would be just 10 minutes long. She imagined herself as Miss Dorothy, a bride-to-be who boards the ship and causes considerable panic for her fiancé, Jack, when news of the shipwreck hits the wire services. She, of course, returns alive, relating the horrible story to her family and fainting in the process.

But her marriage to Jack is thrown into doubt. Her mother insists Jack resign from the Navy, fearing another maritime tragedy, but he refuses. This pleases Miss Dorothy’s father, who encourages her to marry a man he considers strong-willed. He gladly sanctions the marriage, urging Dorothy to wed the patriotic Jack.

Within days of returning from the Carpathia, Gibson was on set in Fort Lee, dramatizing her rescue. Other scenes were shot on a vessel docked at New York harbor. She wore a white dress, sweater, gloves, and black pumps—the exact clothing she wore the night the ship sank. At one point, she became so overcome with emotional duress that filming had to be halted. Gibson was likely suffering from some form of post-traumatic stress; if so, reenacting the catastrophe—in the same apparel, no less—would have been the last thing she needed to experience.

Yet she plowed on. In an era where it might take two months to shoot a movie, Saved From the Titanic was completed and released just 30 days after the tragedy.

An advertisement for the movie was breathless: “Miss Dorothy Gibson, a survivor of the sea’s greatest disaster, tells the story of the shipwreck, supported by an all-star cast, on the film marvel of the age.”

A Second Disaster

The urgency on the part of Éclair was warranted. Scores of newsreel footage of the ship, its captain, and sister ship the Olympic were in circulation, with many unscrupulous exhibitors claiming they had actual footage of the ship sinking—even though no such footage was ever captured. At one theater, it was estimated one in three audience members demanded a refund after finding out they were being misled.

Saved From the Titanic was far more warmly received. Unlike the sterile newsreels, the movie portrayed a romance—likely the first set in and around the Titanic—which further humanized the story. The movie “created a sensation wherever shown,” read one notice in The Appeal-Democrat. Another mention clarified that the film had “moving pictures and not slides as some seem to think.” Admission was 5 to 10 cents. Due to its modest length, it was typically shown alongside other films and shorts.

“The nation and the world has been profoundly grieved by the sinking of the Titanic,” Gibson said. “And I had the opportunity to pay tribute to those who gave their lives on that awful night. That is all I tried to do.”

Whatever financial consideration Gibson got for Saved From the Titanic might not have ultimately been worth it. The experience of surviving the shipwreck and shooting the film in rapid succession prompted her to walk away from the movie business. At one point, she appeared to indicate that she could not even consent to an interview about the incident.

More turmoil would follow. In 1913, a car belonging to Brulatour and driven by a chauffer killed a pedestrian; Gibson was one of the vehicle’s passengers. Gibson later testified in the hopes of minimizing both Brulatour’s culpability and the driver’s, insisting he hadn’t been speeding by invoking her tragic backstory.

“You see, ever since the Titanic disaster, I have been so nervous that I could not bear to drive the car at a high rate of speed, or allow it to be driven fast,” she said.

She married Brulatour in 1917, though their union ended in an acrimonious divorce. Gibson would later be dubbed an “agitator” during World War II. She was found in a Paris hotel room, dead of a heart attack, in 1946.

Saved From the Titanic didn’t fare any better. In 1914, just two years after its release, the one and only negative of the film went up in flames at a fire at Éclair in Fort Lee. A spark from one of the machines had set off a blaze, one which city officials later claimed was made worse by a lack of water pressure. The site manager, Henry Maire, could think of little else to do but grab a camera and film the fire.

As a result, Saved From the Titanic has never been seen since its initial release. Questions linger about how the film and the primitive visual effects of the era depicted the ship’s descent. One notice in Moving Picture News complimented the movie’s “wonderful mechanical and lighting effects.” Another review exhorted “the distressing incidents of the great liner’s destruction.”

But it likely stopped short of trying to visualize the massive ship’s undoing. “There is no attempt to fake the loss of the Titanic,” one reviewer wrote, “but during the story of Dorothy Gibson, one of the survivors, there appears in a clouded background the sea of ice, with the Titanic rushing to her doom, the fatal collision with the mountain of floating ice—all shown with true imaginative conception, giving her own description of the terrible tragedy, and illustrating the story she is relating.”

Additional Sources: Lost Films: Important Movies That Disappeared; Shadow of the Titanic.