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"The Blame"
Every good story needs a villain and unfortunately that's my lot in this particular story.
J. Bruce Ismay was the owner of the White Star Line. At the time there was fierce
competition in the North Atlantic passenger trade. And White Star which had been
preeminent - especially in the luxury end of the service was feeling a lot of pressure
from the German lines and the Cunard had just come out with two ships that were very fast.
In fact the North Atlantic record was held by the Mauritania which had made the crossing
at 26 or 27 knots. White Star had nothing to compete with that. Their answer to this was
to come up with the biggest, most luxurious passenger liner that had ever been built. That
could make the crossing in six days, a day turn around and then back in six more.
--David Garrison, J. Bruce Ismay
The owner wanted speed, all the speed the ship could provide. He wanted it to be a six day
ship. And he was after the Captain to produce more speed than was prudent given the
weather reports.
--Peter Stone
The real culprit here is the hubris of the time- the arrogance, the extravagance, the
complete faith in materialism and technology. Parenthetically not so different than the
times we live in.
--David Garrison, J. Bruce Ismay
Whether you believe in God as a white bearded person or a natural force. Any attempt to
usurp it failed. And that's reassuring.
--Peter Stone
The owner, the builder and the master, all three of them through separate failings of
character, made this accident inevitable. What these men did was dare nature. They defied
nature.
--Peter Stone
There is a power struggle between the three of them.
--Michael Cerveris
In the case of "The Blame" we have the extraordinary fact that the Captain, the
owner of the ship and the designer of the ship are all onboard at the same time. And we
found a way of compacting them into a tight spot - the telegraph room. A very small room
and here's poor Mr. Bride tapping away furiously tapping...
The Captain has obviously been driving the ship too fast but he's been doing so because
he's been under pressure by the owner to make the best possible speed to NY. And here is
the builder of the ship, and he has designed the ship so it has sixteen watertight
compartments except for the fact that the walls between the compartments don't go all the
way up. When they should go all the way up. Now why didn't they go all the way up? Is it
his fault? Well...The owner didn't want the walls to go all the way up because that would
have made small living rooms for the first class and so who's fault is it? It's all their
fault. The owner shouldn't have pushed, the designer should have fought the owner and the
Captain should have resisted. And so they sing a song in which they literally ascribe
blame to each other. And it's shocking because the owner keeps somehow believing that
they're going to be saved.
--Maury Yeston
Its hard for any of them to except the fact that he could be part of the problem.
--David Garrison, J. Bruce Ismay
The core of it for him is he turns to Ismay and he says you undermined me - you. Then at
the very end says, all that to one side there's only one Captain, I'm it.
--John Cunningham, Captain Smith
Captain Smith is the classic, stoic British Captain who according to legend told his crew
to "be British" as the ship was going down. The irony is of course and the drama
of his story is that this was his last voyage and it ended tragically.
The Captain had been the Commodore of the Atlantic, He was the most famous, the most
trusted, most reputed Captain on the sea. He had told the line that he was to retire. They
said will you please wait until after the maiden voyage? All these passengers in First
class know you, they've traveled with you before, they're confident in you, you give a
great picture of what a Captain should be.
--Peter Stone
A Captain inspires I think that confidence. This particular Captain, Captain Smith - so
much confidence- he was the guy that they all wanted to travel with. You had the three
classes. First Class was for all the stars, the rich people. And he particularly was a
favorite of theirs.
So for the line he was a real asset. Right now I do love that first moment when I get on
the Bridge and I just get the ship underway. It's the wild grandeur of the sea, that I
feel. Now they're on the maiden voyage and Ismay in our story and perhaps in reality said,
we're in the business of selling passage on this ship of ours. We have to be faster than
because that's what people want in this age. It was perhaps that pressure to arrive so
that we have the publicity event of most expensive, biggest, most beautiful of ships and
he was probably pressuring the Captain against the Captain's better judgement.
--John Cunningham, Captain Smith
The Captain didn't trust the radio. He didn't trust the technology of radio so he didn't
give it its full due. He didn't quite believe. There was a report from a French liner
which put the iceberg a lot closer than the other reports did and they decided it was
simply an error in transmission.
--Peter Stone
If you are going to say in the vast expanse of the North Atlantic, here is an iceberg and
here comes a ship from South Hampton, what would you bet that the two would ever come
within forty miles of each other? And yet on this night, this ship found this iceberg.
--John Cunningham, Captain Smith
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