Titanic Trivia
Before announcing development of this film, director James Cameron shot footage of icebergs off Nova Scotia under the pretense of making a film called ``Planet Ice.''

The name of the character Cal Hockley derives from two small towns (Caledon and Hockley)near Orangeville, Ontario, Canada where Cameron's aunt and uncle live.

Rose, in her old age, owns a Pomeranian. A Pomeranian was one of only three dogs known to have survived the disaster. As the real ship sank, a passenger freed dogs from their kennels, and a survivor later recalled a French bulldog swimming in the ocean. Cameron filmed scenes portraying the doomed animals but cut them.

Many of the paintings in the movie are authentic, such as Pablo Picasso's ``The Guitar Player''flown in from the Musée national d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.

Most of the decor on the ship - from the carpet to the chandeliers - was reconstructed by, or under the supervision of, the original companies which furnished the Titanic.

A 90% scale model of one half of the Titanic was constructed on a beach in Mexico. In the scenes portraying the ship at the Southampton dock, all shots were reversed to give the appearance of the port side of the ship, as it was actually docked in 1912. This required the painstaking construction of reversed costumes and signage to complete the illusion, which was achieved by reversing the image in post-production.

So many lights were required that cinematographer Russell Carpenter commented: ``And you walk inside, and 70 miles of one kind of cable and 70 miles of another kind all add up to this Terry Gilliam vision of the telephone company of the 1950s.''

When Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) is preparing to draw Rose, he tells her to ``Lie on that bed, uh I mean couch.'' The line was scripted ``Lie on that couch'', but DiCaprio made an honest mistake and Cameron liked it so much he kept it in.

Jack's sketch of Rose wearing the necklace was drawn by Cameron; it's his hands we see drawing the picture. Cameron also drew all the other pictures in Jack's sketchbook.

The rooms that Caledon Hockley, Rose DeWitt Bukater, and Ruth DeWitt Bukater occupied (B52, B54, and B56) were actual rooms on the real Titanic, booked to Bruce Ismay.

The completed film ignores the freighter Californian, which had stopped for the night due to the ice hazard and was within sight of the Titanic throughout the sinking. (The Titanic's radio operator was too busy sending passenger messages to listen to the Californian's warning of ice, then the Californian's radio was turned off overnight, and its captain failed to act on the distress rockets.) An early version of the script included a scene on the Californian, but Cameron cut out the subplot to shorten the film. Actors on the Californian would have included Adam Barker (II) as radio operator Cyril Evans.

A first-class suite on the Titanic cost $4,350, the equivalent of about $75,000 today.

In real life there was concern that the davits might not be strong enough to lower the boats fully loaded, although they had in fact been tested under such a weight. The davits in the film, which can be seen flexing under the weight, were made by the same company as the real-life ones.

When Rose is afloat on the wood looking up at the stars, there is a vague image of the necklace. It is outlined by brighter stars shaping the heart loosely, and a few bright stars shaping the chain.

After deciding on the lead characters' names, Cameron discovered that one member of Titanic's engineering crew killed in the sinking was ``J Dawson''. Dawson was a trimmer: someone who stows the coal and cargo on board.

If the Titanic had hit the iceburg head on, she wouldn't have sank. It would have crushed the bow of the ship and filled only the first two watertight compartments. Titanic could stay afloat if the first four were filled.

If the watertight doors hadn't shut, the water would have leveled out. Therefore, Titanic would have taken longer to sink and she wouldn't have gone down by the head. Everyone would have been able to get off because the Titanic would still be afloat when the Carpathia arrived.

In 1898, an American writer, Morgan Robertson, wrote a book entitled The Wreck of the Titan (or Futility). It was about a passenger ship, almost identical to the Titanic, that left from England to sail to New York. On its way, it struck an iceburg and sank to the bottom of the Atlantic. Robertson wrote this book before anyone had even thought up the Titanic. Coincidence or not?

The outdated British regulations required ships over 10,000 tons had to have lifeboats for 962 people. The Titanic exceeded this regulation by carrying enough lifeboats for 1,178 people.

The Titanic had four elevators: three in first class and one in second class. She was the first ship to have an elevator in second class.

The Titanic was one of the first liners to have a swimming pool and a gymnasium.

Titanic carried a rare copy of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam which sold for £405 to an American bidder at an auction in March 1912. The book's binding took two years to execute, and the decoration held at least 1500 precious stones each set separately in gold.

There were approximately 1535 windows on the Titanic: 1116 portholes and 419 windows in various deck houses.

Even though they could've taken the iceberg head on, it was not even a concern. The Titanic would have never hit the iceberg, for it was drifting. Calculations have it, that the Titanic could have avoided the iceberg just by stoping the engines to buy some time.

Besides being called The Unsinkable Ship, Titanic was also called The Floating Palace.


Information provided by Internet Movie Database