Flattop!!!! My God, man, I was wondering if you were still in the land of the living. Still playing devil's advocate, eh? :-) Titanic would have worked better for me with this kind of story: Focus on the key people who were responsible for building the ship and crewing it. That's high drama. You had one of the foremost shipbuilders of his era, a career captain, and a group of highly professional seamen, none of whom would ever have dreamed that ship would sink on its maiden voyage. That makes for tremendously high drama. You also had the very rich and the very poor, literally all in the same boat...but of course, you were more likely to get off if you happened to be among the rich. More high drama. You don't need a contrived love story to dress up a situation that is already totally chock full of important moral and psychological issues of a really timeless nature.

Am I to deduce that you want to see a movie where the Titanic DOESN'T sink? (LOL!)

There is still debate about which was the last song played by the band, but most witnesses said that it was a tune called "Autumn". In some of the movies done about the Titanic it was changed to the tune "Nearer My God To Thee", for obvious reasons.

Whatever it was, that was a tremendously poignant moment.

Note that a recent movie, and a very good one, called "Master and Commander" had no love story. Hurrah! Someone out there had some guts for a change, and decided to tell it like it was in the British Navy of the 1800's. Ever read any Patrick O'Brien, Flattop?

PM and let me know what you're up to.

Yeah, Bryan still sings the song about the polar bear. He's going to England shortly.

- LH