Raise the Titanic

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.