Raise the Titanic is a 1980 adventure film produced by Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment and directed by Jerry Jameson. The film, written by Eric Hughes (adaptation) and Adam Kennedy (screenplay), is based on the 1976 book of the same name by Clive Cussler. The storyline concerns a plan to recover to obtain cargo valuable to Cold War hegemony.
The film stars Jason Robards, Richard Jordan, David Selby, Anne Archer, and Alec Guinness. It received mixed reviews by critics and audiences and proved to be a failure at the box office, grossing about $7 million against an estimated $40 million budget. Producer Lew Grade later remarked "it would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic".
Plot
In the wilds of Northern Siberia during the Cold War, an American spy breaks into an old, snow-covered mine, where he discovers the frozen body of a U.S. Army sergeant next to a wooden marker dated 10 February 1912. Using a Geiger counter, the spy discovers that byzanium, a highly radioactive element that could be used in nuclear warfare, was mined there. The spy is quickly discovered and chased out of the mine by a Soviet soldier, who shoots him in pursuit. The Soviet soldier is then shot and killed by Dirk Pitt, who rescues the spy and takes him back to Washington, D.C.
The C.I.A. discovers that the mine was operated by Americans and that the raw byzanium ore found there was to be sent back to the United States. The byzanium was packaged into wooden shipping boxes by an American named Brewster and loaded onboard the Titanic, which sank on its maiden voyage on 15 April 1912. Pitt travels to speak with a deckhand on the Titanic who was the last person to see Brewster alive. The man says that he locked Brewster in the vault containing the shipping boxes minutes before the ship sank and that his last words were "Thank God for Southby!". When Pitt returns, he proposes a salvage mission to locate the wreck of the Titanic and raise it out of the ocean so they can find the byzanium before the Soviets can. Pitt and Admiral James Sandecker propose the plan to the president, who agrees and puts Pitt in charge of the operation.
Soviet diplomat Andre Prevlov discovers the plan and leaks the story to the press, forcing Sandecker to hold a press conference about why the Titanic is being raised. Reporters ask him questions about byzanium, but he refuses to answer. Meanwhile, Navy vessels search the ocean floor in the North Atlantic to locate the sunken ocean liner. During the search, one of the submersibles, Starfish, experiences a cabin flood and implodes. Once the wreckage is found, salvage experts begin the dangerous job of raising the Titanic. Another submersible, Deep Quest, experiences a battery shortage, which causes its manipulator arm to become locked onto the Titanics wreckage.
Eventually, the rusting Titanic is brought to the surface using multiple compressed air tanks and buoyancy aids. The passenger liner is then towed to a dry dock in New York, its original destination. It turns out no expense is being spared because the rare mineral will be used as the power source in a proposed weapons system that could take down any missile entering US airspace. In response, Prevlov challenges the United States over the salvage of Titanic because they claim the mineral was taken illegally from the Soviet Union. On entering the watertight vault, the salvage team discover the mummified remains of the American, but no mineral. The boxes are just full of gravel. It soon becomes evident that a clue was left in the dead American's final words. He had arranged a fake burial in a graveyard in "Southby", England prior to sailing back to the United States on the ill-fated ocean liner. It is decided to leave the mineral buried in the grave because knowledge of its existence would destabilise the that maintains the peace between the West and the Soviet Union.
Cast
Jason Robards as Admiral James Sandecker
Richard Jordan as Dirk Pitt
David Selby as Gene Seagram
Anne Archer as Dana Archibald
Alec Guinness as John Bigalow
Bo Brundin as Captain Andre Prevlov
M. Emmet Walsh as Master Chief Vinnie Walker
J.D. Cannon as Captain Joe Burke
Norman Bartold as Admiral Kemper
Elya Baskin as Marganin
Dirk Blocker as Merker
Robert Broyles as Willis
Paul Carr as CIA Director Nicholson
Michael C. Gwynne as Bohannon
Nancy Nevinson as Sarah Martindale
Harvey Lewis as Kiel
Development
The novel was published in 1976. In August of that year producer Robert Shaftel reportedly had the film rights, but in the following month it was clarified that the film rights had not yet been offered.