The Titanic And The Poseidon Adventure – Coincidence?
Anyone even the least bit familiar with the history of The Titanic is also familiar with one of the great coincidences surrounding the tragedy. Fourteen years prior to that fateful day in 1912, Morgan Robertson wrote a novella entitled “Futility”, about the world’s largest, most luxurious, and safest ocean liner. This new ship was said to be unsinkable due to the newest water tight compartments they had installed. Coincidentally, that ship sank after hitting an iceberg. An even more remarkable coincidence is that the name of the ship in the fictitious story was “The Titan”!
But here’s a little known fact you can use to amaze your friends and family. On that fateful last night aboard the Titanic, over 200 Second Class passengers were eagerly holed up in the Second Class dining room. What was keeping these passengers so entertained? Why, a new fangled contraption called a Motion Picture! And what were they watching? What else? “The Poseidon Adventure”!
The film industry was still in it’s infancy in 1912 and had only recently graduated to projecting movies onto screens for entire audiences to enjoy. Movies of the day were short, no more than a reel, and of course, filmed in black and white with no sound. Nevertheless, this new entertainment industry had captured the imagination of the people and the Titanic carried it’s own movie projector and library of movies.
The film industy still had a somewhat undesirable image, though, that it had aquired in the days of the Nickleodeon. This is probably the reason that not many have heard this story. The First Class passengers considered the movies to be vulgar so the films were shown late in the evening, at 11 PM after the First Class passengers had retired, and only in the Second Class dining room.
On that fateful night, April 14, 1912, there were a few hundred Second Class passengers eagerly viewing “The Poseidon Adventure”. So enthralled were they by this tale of six passengers struggling to survive a sinking ship that they either didn’t feel the Titanic shudder as it struck the iceberg or the took no notice. In fact, they were so entertained by the movie that they sat through it a second time!
“The Poseidon Adventure” was a newer movie, and a longer one too. After watching the 53 minute feature a second time, it was after 1AM when the Second Class passengers finally returned to the deck of The Titanic. There they found that nearly all of the lifeboats had already been launched. These hundreds of Second Class passengers were stranded onboard a sinking ship, while the too few lifeboats, full of First Class passengers and crew members, drifted off into the distance.
This grim coincidence could explain why barely one third of the Titanic’s Second Class Passengers survived while nearly two thirds of the First Class passengers and crew made it to safety.
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