Trivia: The emotional scene where Jack and Cal watch Rose getting lowered in the lifeboat is very reminiscent to an emotional scene in "Terminator 2: Judgement Day" (1991), where Sarah and John watch The Terminator being lowered into the molten pool. A James Cameron trademark.
Trivia: At the party in steerage, a foreign-speaking man is speaking with Rose and she says "I'm sorry, I can't understand you." The man is Swedish, probably a friend of Sven's, and he's saying to her "Talar fröken svenska?" In English that translates to "Does the miss/lady speak Swedish?" which she obviously doesn't.
Trivia: While "Nearer My God to Thee" is the last song played by the band in the movie, it is still being disputed whether or not this is correct. It seems that some people heard the song from the lifeboats, but there are three versions of "Nearer..." Also some claim it was a song called "L'Automne" a ragtime tune popular at the time.
Trivia: While the set designers duplicated the woodwork detailing of the Titanic, they used "flat-sawn" oak which has a completely different appearance from the more expensive "quarter-sawn" oak used in the Titanic (and virtually all Victorian and Edwardian cabinet work). Check it against archival photos.
Trivia: When the ship is sinking and the water crashes through the big glass dome above the grand staircase, in the first take the water actually broke the staircase off the wall and crashing into the actors who were in the scene.
Trivia: Director James Cameron has two cameo roles in this film. First, he is just below Lovejoy during the below decks party (with a grey beard), and secondly, he is standing behind Fabrizio on the deck waiting for a lifeboat when Murdoch starts shooting.
Trivia: The "Titanic" haircut popularized by Leonardo DiCaprio (Jack) was banned in Afghanistan by the Taliban rulers. They claimed it interfered with Muslim prayer.
Trivia: Kate Winslet badgered and bribed director James Cameron into getting this role the following ways: Once she sent him a rose with a card. Another was when she rang him up while he was driving in his Humvee and tearfully said, 'You don't understand! I am Rose! I don't understand why you're trying out someone else!' She eventually landed the role.
Trivia: During the filming of the sinking, Kate Winslet was the only cast member not allowed to wear a wet suit underneath her dress, due to the fact it would show.
Trivia: Along with playing Spicer Lovejoy in the 1997 film, actor David Warner portrayed actual Titanic passenger Laurence Beasley in the 1979 TV movie "S.O.S. Titanic".
Trivia: Though James Cameron surrendered his director's pay check to make the film the way he wanted, he did retain his writer's fee, which was pretty big by itself.
Trivia: In the movie, the seaman steering Molly Brown's boat says "There'll be one less in this boat if you don't shut that 'ole in your face." As in many items with the movie, the line is authentic. Except 1) it was not said to Molly Brown, 2) it was not said by that seaman, and 3) it was not said in that lifeboat. Check A Night to Remember for the actual circumstances. (In fact, Molly Brown not only wasn't subdued by the loud-mouthed seaman, she faced him down later.)
Trivia: Director James Cameron knew he had found the perfect Jack in Leo DiCaprio when he invited the young actor to his office for an interview and he noticed that all his female staff were present for the meeting. Later on, during rehearsal, Kate Winslet was so impressed with DiCaprio that she said to James, 'Even if you don't hire me, hire him.' The rest, as they say, is history.
Trivia: When Kate Winslet found out that she had to be naked in front of Leo, to help break the ice, the first time they met she immediately flashed him.
Trivia: There is no explanation how Spicer Lovejoy received the wound to his head when we see him as the ship breaks apart. This occurred in a deleted scene. When Cal chased Jack and Rose down the stairs shooting at them, originally this was supposed to continue. Cal then handed Lovejoy the gun and told him if he could get the diamond from them he could keep it. Lovejoy then goes after Jack and Rose, finds Rose hiding from him, and is then set upon by Jack, who jumps out at him, smashes his head through a window and roughs him up.
Trivia: The reception room's double doors leading into the first class dining saloon only have bronze grilles in the movie. In 1912, there was actually a pane of glass in each door with the grilles behind them on the dining room side. On the collector's DVD commentary, James Cameron mentions they didn't discover this until a later Titanic expedition in 2001 - that's why this is trivia, rather than a mistake.
Trivia: Despite the highly positive reception of the film, filmmaker Robert Altman (M.A.S.H., The Player) called it "the most dreadful piece of work I have ever seen in my life."
Suggested correction: Did he mean it for real or said so jokingly?
He meant it. Quoted in an interview with journalist Roger Friedman, Altman made it clear that he hated the film. Had he been joking I doubt if James Cameron would have responded the way he did - "That comes from a guy who only directed TV movies that went nowhere." I don't think either man was having a laugh, do you?
Thanks. This info doesn't sound credible to me. I had to ask because I wanted to make sure.
Trivia: When Titanic was re-released in 3D in theaters in April 2012 in conjunction with the centennial anniversary of the sinking, NBC News did a story on Nightly News. One of the things they mentioned is that an astrophysicist, Neil Degrasse Tyson, noticed in the original 1997 release that when Leonardo DiCaprio is lying on a bench looking at the night sky, the constellations are not correct based on the time of year and the location on earth they are being viewed from. Director James Cameron became aware of this error, and corrected the constellations in the night sky for the re-release in 2012.
