Later on, as the ship is propelled to the surface, things take a lively turn, mostly because the special effects are so odd. This is staged adequately, but without much excitment. The watery deep has much the same ambience as cinematic outer space, as big, cumbersome hunks of machinery glide to and fro. Emmet Walsh, are perfunctory enough to place an unusually large burden upon the special effects and underwater activity.Īs John Barry's theme music repeats endlessly, the undersea exploration unfolds. The performances in ''Raise the Titanic,'' by a cast that also includes Alec Guinness, Anne Archer and M. The ship is discovered and up she goes, in sequences that ought to be the movie's finest hour. ''The trouble is, sir, it could wind up being a damn big ballpark,'' offers one of his men. The Navy knows roughly where the Titanic lies: ''One way or another we're in the ballpark,'' an officer declares. Gene Seagram (David Selby) speculate on the outcome of the session, as follows: ''That didn't take long.'' ''It never takes long to say no.'' ''It never takes long to say yes, either.'' Maybe not, but that's longer than it takes to write this kind of screenplay. Off goes the admiral to his Presidential meeting. ''If Dirk says he can handle it, I'm willing to go to the President and do my best to push it through,'' promises Jason Robards, as the leathery Admiral Sandecker. And so the plan of the title is dreamed up, with Dirk Pitt (Dirk Pitt?), played by Richard Jordan, in charge of the salvage operation. It seems that the Titanic sunk carrying samples of a special radioactive mineral, one of those substances capable of either saving or wrecking the world, depending upon whose hands the substance falls into. ''If we're lucky, we can make nuclear warfare obsolete,'' observes someone, with typical sang-froid, at the beginning of the story. In fact, it speaks a language all its own.

''Raise the Titanic!,'' which opens at the Ziegfeld today, is dopily brusque even for an adventure film. Anyone who can't figure out what the job is in ''Raise The Titanic!'', incidentally, ought to go see a film that's less demanding.

TAKE the adventure out of an adventure movie, and what have you got? A lot of hearty he-men, barking commands or insults and offering terse congratulations on a job well done.

Raise the titanic novel