~Tension before Boarding~

*Cal, Ruth and Rose have just arrived at South Hampton and are preparing to board the TITANIC..*

They pass a well-dressed young man cranking the handle of a wooden Biograph "cinematograph" camera mounted on a tripod. DANIEL MARVIN (whose father founded the Biogaph Film Studio) is filming his young bride in front of the Titanic. MARY MARVIN stands stiffly and smiled, self conscious.

DANIEL
Look at the ship, darling. That's it. You're amazed! You can't believe how big it is! Like a mountain
That's great.

MARY MARVIN, without and acting fiber in her body, does a bad Clara Bow pantomime of awe, hands raised.

Cal is jostled by two yelling steerage boys who shove past him. And his is bumped again a second later by the boys' father.

CAL
Steady!

MAN
Sorry squire!

The Cockney father pushes on, after his kids, shouting.

CAL
Steerage swine. Apparently missed his annual bath.

RUTH
Honestly, Cal, if you weren't forever booking everything at the last instant, we could have gone through the terminal instead of running along the dock like a squalid immigrant family.

CAL
All part of my charm, Ruth. At any rate, it was my darling fiancée's beauty rituals which made us late.

ROSE
You made me change.

CAL
I couldn't let you wear black on sailing day, sweetpea. It's bad luck.

ROSE
I felt like black

Cal guides them out of the path of a horse-drawn wagon loaded down with two tons of OXFORD MARMALADE, in wooden cases, for Titanic's Victualling Department.

CAL
Here I've pulled every string I could to book us on the grandest ship in history, in her most luxurious suites...and you act as if you're going to your execution.

Rose looks up at the hull of Titanic over tem...a great iron wall, Bible black and severe. Cal motions her forward, and she enters the gangway to the D decks with a sense of overwhelming dread.

<--Back | Home | Next-->