Titanic

Factual error: The lake that Jack told Rose he went ice fishing on when she was threatening to jump is Lake Wissota, a man-made lake in Wisconsin near Chippewa Falls (where Jack grew up). The lake was only filled with water in 1918 when a power company built a dam on the Chippewa River, six years after the Titanic sank. (00:39:05)

Factual error: At the end of the movie, the Straus' are seen lying in each other's arms on their bed with water coming into the cabin under the closed door as the ship is sinking. This is not true, their cabin was on C deck, but his body was found in the following days of the sinking. For his body to get into the open water it would have had to float through a closed door, and up several flights of stairs. Historically, they refused to leave the ship, and were last seen sitting in deck chairs. They were there when the ship sank on the boat deck. Her body was never recovered.

Factual error: Rose mentions Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud's ideas on the male preoccupation with size to Bruce. However this is 1912, and Freud did not publish the work relating to this until 1920 in "Beyond The Pleasure Principle." Also, up until 1919, Freud relied solely on data from women. (00:33:40)

David Mercier

Titanic mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Jack and Rose are going down with the ship, there is a man holding onto the flagpole. The man's life jacket disappears and reappears. (02:42:42)

Titanic mistake picture Video

Visible crew/equipment: When Jack comes to the first class door for the first time in his tux, you can see a cameraman in the glass door just before he enters. (00:54:55)

Titanic mistake picture

Deliberate mistake: In the scene at the start of the movie with the "authentic" piece of film, you can see a girl with a hat waving to the people at the ground. When the ship is leaving port in the film, she and others are in the same positions, only in reverse, because the first "authentic" shot is the same shot, only mirrored. (00:00:40 - 00:25:30)

Titanic mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Rose breaks Jack's handcuffs, you can see the stunt person not wearing suspenders as Jack does. This is an inter cut shot between the raising of the axe and the striking of the cuffs. Leonardo's stunt double is noticeable in other shots throughout the film. (02:01:00)

Factual error: The hymn that they sing at the church service about "those in peril on the sea" has four verses. "Peril on the sea" was written in 1860 but the verses that have "protect them by Thy guarding hand" and "O Spirit whom the Father sent" were not written until 1937, and thus could not have been sung at the service. (01:10:40)

Factual error: When the men are checking the store room for Rose and Jack, the men are using huge battery powered bright white flash lights that look like they're from Jurassic Park. Back then they would have produced yellow light. The light used in the movie was a Short-Arc Xenon bulb, you can tell this by both the very high color temperature of the light and the center of the light has a "hole" in it where the actual tube is blocking the beam. Such technology was not around at that time. (01:33:15)

Titanic mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Just as Jack begins to draw naked Rose, he draws a dark line down the center of his paper. In the next shot of the page the line is suddenly much fainter (over to the right) and he is now drawing her face. (01:23:15)

Revealing mistake: When Jack and Rose are running from the raging water that is gushing down the hall after them you can see the faces of the stunt doubles through the computer generated ones of Leonardo and Kate (slow motion can help but isn't essential). (02:17:15)

Factual error: In the film the water tight doors are shown to lower mechanically all the way down, however in reality the last 20 inches or so they would suddenly drop by their own weight to effectively "dent" into the floor creating the water tight seal. A few of the crew in the film getting through "at the last moment" would have actually had their lower legs shattered by several tonnes of iron.

Titanic mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Rose is trying to rescue Jack she spies a fire axe. Smashing all the glass out from the holder she grabs the axe and turns round. The next camera shot shows Rose standing in front of the case with almost all of its glass intact. (01:59:25)

Titanic mistake picture Video

Revealing mistake: When Rose breaks Jack's handcuffs with an axe, it is obvious that she doesn't hit the handcuffs on the pipe but Jack's hand - the handcuffs come apart by themselves. The axe also bends. (02:01:30)

Continuity mistake: When Jack is persuading Rose not to jump, Jack's shirt collar changes position several times, revealing his white t-shirt from a little to a lot. (00:39:05)

Factual error: During the drawing scene, 'Jack' is using modern square sided, pressed charcoal with numbers embossed in the side of it. In 1912, Jack would have been using vine charcoal which was round and made of 'charcoalized' willow twigs. (01:23:30)

Titanic mistake picture Video

Continuity mistake: Look closely at the location of Rose's beauty-mark the first time you see her at the dock. It is on the opposite side of her face during the rest of the movie. (00:21:30)

Factual error: In the beginning of the film, when Jack is running to the boat on the pier, his rucksack is a Swedish Army rucksack, model 1939, and nowadays widely sold as army surplus. (00:25:10)

Titanic mistake picture

Revealing mistake: When Cal steps out of the car just after the beginning of the movie, you can see behind him the back of the Titanic replica still incomplete, with the internal structure totally visible. (00:22:06)

Revealing mistake: In the scene where Rose lets go of Jack's hand and he sinks to the bottom, if you look closely enough, you can see Jack eyes move under his lids, even though he is supposed to be dead already.

PoPEyE

Jack: That's one of the good things about Paris: lots of girls willing to take their clothes off.

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Trivia: Bernard Fox, who portrayed Colonel Archibald Gracie IV, also played Frederick Fleet in the 1958 film, A Night to Remember, another film about the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Frederick Fleet was the first person to notice the iceberg and shouted the warning to the crew.

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Question: What happened to Rose's mother after the sinking? I'm curious because she made it very clear while she was lacing up Rose's corset, that she was entirely dependent on Rose's match with Cal to survive. Whether she was exaggerating or not, she made the statement that she would be poor and in the workhouses if not for the marriage and Cal's fortune to support them. Obviously, since Rose is presumed dead after the sinking, she did not marry Cal and her mother was not able to benefit from his money. So would she then, in fact, end up poor and in the workhouses as she said? Rose didn't just abandon Cal and that lifestyle to start anew, she also had to abandon her mother. So did she leave her mother to be a poor and squandering worker? At the end of the movie, Rose gives her account of Cal and what happened to him in the following years, but never anything about her mother. I realize this question would probably be more speculation than a factual answer, but I just wondered if there were some clues at the end that I maybe didn't pick up on or if there were some "DVD bonus" or behind the scenes I haven't seen that answered this.

lblinc

Chosen answer: Because she is considered, in a minor sense, a "villain" in this film for forcing her daughter into a loveless arranged marriage to satisfy her personal wants, most fans probably speculate that she became a poor and penniless seamstress and lived out her life working in a factory. Of course, this is possible, without the financial security of the arranged marriage between Cal and Rose. However, it is difficult to believe that a woman of such status, and who has so many wealthy and powerful friends, would be allowed to languish in abject poverty doing menial labors. I would tend to believe that she probably sold a number of her possessions for money (she did mention that as part of the humiliation she would face if Rose were to refuse Cal's affections), and probably lived off the kindness of others. Given that her daughter was betrothed to a Hockley, his family might have felt an obligation to assist her in finding a suitable living arrangement and a situation for employment. It is also possible that she re-married into wealth. However, this is more unlikely, mainly because back in 1912, it was considered scandalous to re-marry, especially at Ruth's age. However, since Ruth does not make an appearance after surviving the sinking of the Titanic in a lifeboat number 6 (next to Molly Brown), nor is she mentioned again, her fate is left unknown and subject only to speculation.

Michael Albert

In that era, with Rose betrothed to Call, Cal would most definitely have provided for Ruth in the lifestyle she was accustomed to. As Cal angrily raged at Rose the morning after her excursion below decks, "You are my wife in custom if not yet in practice ", thus, society would have viewed him a villain had he not cared for Ruth once it was assumed Rose was dead.

Answer: I've wondered that too. I think it was easier to find out what happened to Cal because she said "it was in all the papers." As for her mother, it likely would have only been in the papers local to where she lived when she passed away. This was in an era before television and of course way before the internet. So I think the only way Rose would have been able to keep track of her mom would have been to live in the area or do some investigation. It seems unlikely she wanted to do either one, especially since it would have 'given it away" that Rose had survived in the first place. I agree with the other statements that Cal would have felt obligated to take care of her, and that the people she owed money to would have tried to collect on it as it would have been in "bad form" under the circumstances.

Answer: Her mother's big problem was a heap of debts. It would have looked badly on the debt collectors to go hovering around her after what was assumed to have happened, and in a society where one's reputation was valued highly. They probably simply gave her a degree of debt forgiveness in her bereavement, then Cal, insurance, and even her Mother herself taking a second (rich) husband could've taken care of what was left.

dizzyd

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