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NEW YORK (Reuters) - A volume of dramatic distress signals from the doomed ocean liner Titanic sold for $123,500 in electrifying bidding at an auction Tuesday, including the eerie message, "We have struck an iceberg." At a crowded Christie's East auction room and on the telephone, the bidding and sales easily scaled estimates for the signals. Interest was sparked by the current box office success of "Titanic," which is the third-highest grossing film in North American history. Christie's said the buyer of the volume of 34 signals exchanged between the stricken Titanic and other ships from April 14 to April 16, 1912 had requested anonymity and no details about its identity would be disclosed. The liner sank in the North Atlantic on the night of April 14, 1912 after hitting an iceberg. Subsequent signal messages came from other nearby ships in the area. The telephone buyer's bid of $110,000 clinched the sale and Christie's premium raised the final sale price to $123,500. The estimated sale price had been $2,200 to $2,800 for the volume of Marconi signals -- the wireless telegraph messages exchanged between vessels. The signals also included "we are putting the passengers off in small boats" and other details of the rescue operations following the disaster. "It was thrilling, it was a thrilling moment," said Christie's expert James Zemaitis, who received the winning bid on the telephone. "It was way more than we could ever have expected and hoped for." He said the sale was driven to the heights it reached by "very, very serious collectors on both sides of the Atlantic who have waited for years to have a stab at lots like these again, combined with perhaps some of the recent publicity, which brought in a lot of new collectors." The Titanic sank more than halfway on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. The White Star Line ship struck an iceberg and sank to the ocean floor within three hours, killing 1,523 of the 2,228 passengers and crew aboard. The tragedy became a symbol of modern arrogance -- the ship had been declared "unsinkable" -- and some of the richest and most powerful people of the day went down with it. Buyers paid a total of $180,310 for four separate lots of Titanic historical documents Tuesday as part of Christie's second annual sale of maritime objects. Besides the principal volume of 34 signals, other Titanic-related lots sold Tuesday included a group of so-called "ice messages" detailing the ice conditions on the North Atlantic, which went for $46,000. A single Marconi signal from "Commander" Titanic to the commander of its sister ship Olympic sold for $8,050. It was sent April 3, 1912 during its passage from Belfast to Southampton before its transatlantic journey. The buyer was New York attorney Craig Sopin, who came to the auction house specifically to buy that item. "I'm fascinated by the Titanic," he said. "I've been collecting for about 10 years and I think holding a piece of history like this provides a connection to the Titanic and to an era and to a time that you just can't experience from reading a history book." A manuscript letter sent by one crew member to his steward on the Olympic, weeks before the disaster, sold for $2,760. The crew member was lost in the Titanic disaster. The envelope is color embossed with the White Star Line house flag. Reuters/Variety ^REUTERS@
BERLIN, Feb 18 (Reuters) - The world's first film about the Titanic, a 30-minute ``silent'' made in Berlin just two months after the ocean liner sank, has been discovered on the shelf of a Berlin film collector, a German newspaper said on Wednesday. Berlin's Tagesspiegel daily said one copy of ``In Nacht und Eis'' (In Night and Ice), which is believed to be the first of at least eight feature films on the doomed ship that sank in 1912 on its maiden voyage, had been found after a lengthy search. ``There were documents and reports about the first Titanic film but no one could find a copy of it anymore and it was thought to have been lost forever,'' said Andreas Austilat, a journalist whose earlier articles on the film by director Mime Misu prompted the anonymous film collector to come forward. ``The film is no great work of art, but it is historically significant because it was made so soon after the Titanic sank,'' Austilat told Reuters after viewing the film with the 76-year-old collector and a Tagesspiegel photographer. The latest film on the Titanic tragedy, in which 1,523 of the 2,228 passengers and crew on board died when the supposedly ``unsinkable'' ship went down, is breaking box office records around the world. ``Titanic,'' a Paramount Pictures film by director James Cameron, has revenues of $376 million in the United States and more than $700 million worldwide in its first two months. Other films on the doomed ship include the 1958 ``Night to Remember'' by Roy Ward Baker, a 1929 German-British co-production called ``Atlantic'' by E.A. Dupont and a 1942 German film ``Titanic'' by director Herbert Selpin. Selpin's Nazi-supported film was stridently anti-British but was banned by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels shortly after it was released in 1943 because Germany was by that time losing the war. There were also made-for-television films in Britain and the United States on the Titanic in 1972, 1979 and 1996. The massive ship sank on a moonless night after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic on April 14, 1912 on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York. The tragedy became a symbol of modern arrogance in the face of nature. ``This finding is definitely a minor sensation,'' said Wolfgang Noa, an amateur film historian who tried unsuccessfully to find the first Titanic film for a 1992 exhibit at Babelsberg studio to mark the 80th anniversary of the disaster. ``Everyone thought the film had disappeared without a trace,'' he added. The film was made in June 1912 in Misu's 100-square metre studio at Chausseestrassee 23, a district with a dozen such small film studios near the Friedrichstrasse train station. With a cast of about 30 actors, the director used his attic studio and the courtyard of the building. There were also scenes shot in the Hamburg harbour. Two still pictures taken from the screening and published in Tagesspiegel show a boat sinking and a shirtless man throwing coal into a huge oven. ``Most of the action takes place indoors,'' Austilat said. ``There are some very dramatic moments, such as the captain dismissing the telegraph operator. But he refuses and continues sending out distress calls.'' Austilat said the special effects are, as to be expected, primitive. It is not difficult to see that the toy ship runs into an ice cube in a small pond. The ocean ``waves'' appear to be created by someone just off camera stirring the water, he said. ``But all in all it is quite an achievement for 1912,'' he said. ``The tumultuous scenes are done very well. He shows the tensions between the wealthy in the first class and the poor passengers. He shows the captain going down with the ship.'' ^REUTERS@
SYDNEY (Variety) - Titanic is still very much the word at cinemas overseas, as James Cameron's blockbuster harvested $47 million in 43 territories last weekend, propelling the foreign gross to $440 million. The fourth film in history to gross more than $400 million abroad, Titanic is set to cruise past The Lion King ($454 million) and, beyond that, is sure to beat Independence Day ($505 million). Just how high can Fox Intl.'s meteor fly? Powered by the 14 Oscar nominations, the hot-selling soundtrack and an extraordinary level of repeat business, the phenomenon looks capable of overtaking Jurassic Park ($563 million) and could peak at around $600 million. The period drama had smash debuts last weekend in Poland ($940,000), Norway ($847,000) and Lebanon ($147,000). In Japan, the pre-Oscar publicity helped to increase receipts by 10% in its ninth weekend for $3.1 million on 238 screens, tallying $61.1 million to date. In France, Titanic dipped by just 15% for $6 million in its sixth lap ($56.8 million thus far) despite the arrival of time travel saga "Les Couloirs du Temps: Les Visiteurs 2." The sequel to the 1993 click hauled in an estimated $12 million despite being severely panned. "Titanic" surged along to $57.7 million in Germany (off 12%), $44.5 million in its fourth go-round in the U.K. (commanding 45% of the market) and $35.5 million in Italy. In Spain, where the juggernaut has amassed $23.4 million through the sixth lap, Fox reported its receipts in local currency zoomed past Jurassic Park's to rank as the highest-grosser ever. In Australia, with $22.4 million in the kitty, Titanic has just moved past E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and Jurassic Park to become the third-highest earner in history, behind only Babe and the legendary Crocodile Dundee. Other totals include Brazil's $17.6 million, Mexico's $15.2 million and Argentina's $4.4 million after its sophomore session.
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