Women and Children First!
A Review of A Night to Remember
by Ron Enderland
British moviemaking in the 1950's can be epitomized by one marvelous presentation: A Night to Remember. This 1958 movie full of unknown actors (most of which, unfortunately, would remain so) was a success among critics, audiences, and historians.
A Night to Remember by Voyager is a CD-ROM celebration of this movie. The question is, just how much celebrating can you do?
Included in the package is the entire 123 minute movie in Quick Time format, running commentary by Don Lynch and Ken Marshall (the author and illustrator of Titanic, an Illustrated History), blueprints of the ship, and a search engine that will find words spoken in the movie.
The CD-ROM opens with the movie playing in "large format" (about 400x300
pixels), which is really too big. The graphics are badly fragmented at this
rendering. The "small format" view (about 170x110) is much sharper and not
overly small to look at.
Once the show is up and rolling, you can switch on the commentary (which is rather like sitting in a living room listening to two buffs chatting over a movie that's playing on TV. It's darned fascinating if you've seen the movie before, but annoying if you're trying to watch it for the first time.) The commentary can be switched off or on, and it's fun to pop in and out and see what the experts have to say about various scenes.
There is also a timeline feature that will take you instantly to various
parts of the movie. The stopping-off points are benchmarked by quotes that
are recognizable. For instance, "C'mon, girls, row!" leaves no doubt in your
mind what scene that citation is from.
The program is well done by Voyager. The trouble is that it quickly exhausts itself. If you were a huge fan of the movie, then perhaps you could sit through the whole thing more than once. Or, if you were needing to research this particular film, the CD would be a boon as well, with the ability to quickly reach certain passages by means of the excellent search engine being of great value.
The bonus disk that is part of the package is on the making of the movie
(actually, the entire one hour documentary produced in 1993 by Ray Johnson).
It also contains the original trailer for ANTR. The throw-in is a nice
little
presentation, perhaps even more interesting than the main CD it accompanies.
The question that you have to ask, though, is how much of a classic movie is too much? I guess that the cash register will ultimately decide.
Multimedia Cafe Scorecard
| Product: |
A Night to Remember |
| Company: |
The Voyager Company
|
| Cost: |
$29.95 |
System Requirements:
Windows: 486 DX2-66 or faster processor
256 color display
8 MB RAM
Double-speed CD-ROM drive
16 bit sound card and speakers
DOS 5.0 or higher
Windows 3.1 or higher
Macintosh: 33 MHz 68040 or faster processor
640x480 256-color display
8 MB RAM
Double-speed CD-ROM drive
Speakers
System 7 or higher
Breakdown:
Entertainment Value 3
Educational Value 4
Concept 3
Depth 4
Interface 3
Overall Score:
Copyright © 1997 InfoMedia, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.