‘Unsinkable’ crew is ready for Titanic drama’s maiden voyage
Nov. 8, 2023, was a historic day for Pittsburgh’s film community. Hollywood couldn’t have scripted a better time for SAG-AFTRA to end its monthslong labor stoppage than during the world premiere of “Unsinkable,” the locally shot drama about the U.S. Senate inquiries into the 1912 Titanic disaster that took six years to finish.
“I felt like I was taking this weird trip down memory lane that felt like a different lifetime ago when I actually liked wearing corsets,” quipped Daina Griffith, a Swissvale-based actor who played the Countess of Rothes in “Unsinkable.” “Then to have the strike end, it was a very exciting and super hopeful night.”
Five months later, “Unsinkable” is beginning to screen publicly everywhere from the United Kingdom to, of course, Western Pennsylvania. This cinematic adaptation
of Beaver County writer Eileen Enwright Hodgetts’ play “Titanic to All Ships” opened Thursday at Sewickley’s Lindsay Theater and Cultural Center and Friday at Lincoln-Lemington’s MovieScoop Waterworks Luxury Cinemas. Screenings will continue this week. Tickets are available at
viathelindsaytheater.org moviescoop.com.
Brian Hartman, the film’s lead producer and screenwriter, told the Post-Gazette that it took more than 2,400 (mostly Western Pennsylvania-based) crew members and performers to see through this pandemic-delayed production that
and started with test shoots way back in 2017 and finally wrapped in April 2022.
“It’s a gift to Pittsburgh,” said Cotter Smith, who starred as Michigan Sen. William Alden Smith. “They should be rightfully very proud of it.”
So close, yet so far
“Unsinkable” follows Sen. Smith’s efforts to obtain something resembling justice for more than 1,500 Titanic victims. The film is mostly split between a series of charged congressional testimonies, intrepid journalist Alaine Ricard’s (Fiona Dourif’s) concurrent investigation and flashbacks to that fateful night when the Titanic sunk to the Atlantic Ocean’s floor.
Most “Unsinkable” scenes involving water were shot at Ligonier Beach. Downtown’s Heinz Hall and Station Square’s Grand Concourse combined to form New York City’s Waldorf Astoria hotel, where most of Sen. Smith’s hearings were held. The Washington, D.C., leg of Sen. Smith’s crusade mostly took place in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s chambers within Downtown’s City County Building.
Other filming locations included a South Side warehouse, which in “Unsinkable” stored recovered Titanic lifeboats; The Pennsylvanian Apartments, where Titanic survivors arrived in New York on the RMS Carpathia; a mausoleum in a Pleasant Hills cemetery; the King Estate in Highland Park; and Downtown’s Benedum Center for a third-act sequence set in an era-appropriate movie theater.
Cameras officially began rolling on “Unsinkable” in 2019. Most of its principal photography had been completed when the COVID-19 pandemic was officially declared in early 2020 and filming was forced to pause for more than two years.
“It was really emotionally difficult to step away, especially when something felt so close to being done,” said director (and Brian’s son) Cody Hartman.
For Brian Hartman, this “Unsinkable” journey has been “a long road with a lot of obstacles and incredible memories along the way.” As someone who started out as a crew member on Pittsburgh-shot features, he had no doubt that this region’s filmcommunity would come through for him and his son.
“These are our old friends,” he said. “These are people we worked side by side with and rose through the ranks together. A lot of it was coming back and knowing who you trusted with a story like this.”
Vampires of Pittsburgh
Smith is a veteran actor andPittsburgh resident since 2016 who memorably caused Jonathan Groff’s Holden Ford to spiral into a panic attack in season 2 of Netflix’s “Mindhunter.” He was recording some automated dialogue replacement (ADR) for “Mindhunter” near the offices of “Unsinkable” production company PMI Films and happened to share an elevator with Brian Hartman, who pitched Smith on his ambitious project.
“I loved the way that he through the course of the film, got very emotionally attached to the case and became concerned for the immigrants. ...,” he said of Sen. Smith. “It destroyed his career, and he was lost to history basically. I thought it was a wonderful character that has a very personal, human, emotional life.”
In addition to being the “extremely open and warm collaborator” Cody Hartman was looking for, Smith also helped “Unsinkable” land longtime friend Karen Allen (of “Indiana Jones” fame) as Nancy Smith, Sen. Smith’s devoted wife. It’s a relatively small part, but one that Smith felt was vital to
fleshing out the senator’s personal life. When it came to portraying their characters’ on-screen affection, “Karen and I didn’t have to act that.”
The main filming blocks that remained solely on the page for two-plus years were the courtroom scenes that Smith said compromised about a third of the film’s script. The “Unsinkable” team ended up filming 30 pages of cross-examinations in about two days. Smith got through that production whirlwind by remembering how thrilled his late father, who worked as a federal judge in his native D.C., would be to see him in this prosecutorial role.
Resuming filming after two years was a strange experience for everyone. Griffith recalled showing up on set with “these blunt bangs” that the film’s hairdresser immediately identified as pandemic chic.
Jayne Wisener — a Northern Ireland native who plays Sen. Smith’s loyal assistant, Maggie Malloy — was pregnant during the initial “Unsinkable” filming. Dourif was amused upon discovering that Wisener “was exactly as pregnant as before” with her second child once production recommenced.
“Every time you got back onto the set, it was like rejoining a little family,” said Wisener, who also had to overcome visa-related hurdles
for her second Pittsburgh excursion.
Dourif lives in Los Angeles and thinks of her “Unsinkable” filming stints as a “delightful period experience I got to dip in and out of in Pittsburgh.” She mentioned that, at least for Alaine’s scenes, most of the shoots had to take place at night in order to access all the historical sites that Cody Hartman couldn’t “bring myself away from” once he envisioned their place in his film’s story.
“We were like vampires after about three weeks,” Dourif joked. “The town was so supportive, and people were excited to be there. It just felt really special and not like a regular movie, I thought.”
Maiden voyage
Starting Friday, “Unsinkable” will chart a course for limited theatrical engagements in more than 80 cities nationwide. Brian Hartman said that he’s still being “contacted by theaters everyday” and is currently aiming to make “Unsinkable” available by mid-May.
Everyone involved is excited for the world to watch their long-gestating individual and collective efforts. Griffith runs the Griffith Coaching Acting Studio in East Liberty and said that a high school-age student of hers was 12 when she served as an “Unsinkable” extra.
She had a blast last fall seeing how her wealthy Titanic survivor helped give Sen. Smith “a real-life account of what it was like” as the ship was sinking.
Neither Dourif nor Wisener had ever been to Pittsburgh prior to booking their “Unsinkable” roles. Dourif felt that Alaine was “scrappy and fun” and relished the challenge of playing one of the film’s few fictional creations. Wisener loved that Maggie “has a bit of feist about her” and appreciated that the Hartmans opted to leave in a scene involving Maggie that elicited uproarious laughter at the November “Unsinkable” premiere.
“It’s hard to cut away from either of them and cut to anyone else in the scene,” Brian Hartman said. “Those characters are so different from one another. They’re literally sugar and spice, and we thought Jayne Wisener and Fiona Dourif could play that perfectly.”
“Unsinkable” had its nonfestival U.S. debut last week in New York City — which was supposed to be the Titanic’s final destination. Before that, though, the main “Unsinkable” crew flew overseas for three United Kingdom screenings in London; Southampton, England, the Titanic’s departure point; and Belfast, Northern Ireland, where the Titanic was built.
Multiple descendants of Titanic shipbuilders and passengers attended the Belfast and Southampton screenings, according to Brian Hartman. Smith said their generally positive reactions made for two “unexpectedly moving” evenings, and Wisener believes the mere fact they were able to see “Unsinkable” after so many starts and stops “kind of makes it all worthwhile.”
Now that “Unsinkable” is also about to drop anchor at The Lindsay and Waterworks, Smith urged Pittsburghers to check out this “homegrown independent film” that makes it clear as day what “a mecca of talent” this region has become.
“The response has been pretty amazing and warm,” Cody Hartman said. “I was pretty blown away with how Europe received it. ... I hope [Western Pennsylvanians] find a sense of pride in watching a film that grew out of a filmmaking team from Pittsburgh.”