Titanic's Captain in Kinemacolor - April 1912

Launching of the Ill-fated Ocean Liner, and Her Gallant Commander, To Be Shown in Color-Motion Pictures at the Garden Theatre

What is probably the last and best photograph ever taken of Captain E. J. Smith, the gallant commander of the ill-fated ocean leviathan, the steamship Titanic, was one posed by the veteran commodore of the White Star fleet especially for the Kinemacolor camera, just before his last voyage from America.

And at a time he had decided to abandon the sea forever, content to close his career of forty-three years of honorable and efficient service (which never had been marred by an accident on the high seas) while still in command of the steamship Olympic.

This most lifelike Kinemacolor portrait in color-motion photography shows the hale and hearty septuagenarian surrounded by his chief officers, a remarkable specimen of vigorous old age crowned with honors.

The compact figure and broad shoulders, even the merry twinkle in the alert gray eyes, so familiar to thousands of ocean voyagers, are reproduced with perfect fidelity.

This exciting group will be shown for the first time this evening (Wednesday, April 17th) at the Garden Theatre.

As an added feature to the Kinemacolor exhibition of “The Durbar” and the “Burial of the Maine,” the film is in conjunction with a reproduction by the same process of the launching of both the steamship Olympic and her sister ship, the unfortunate Titanic, the latter on May 31, 1911, from the famous Harland & Wolff yards at Queen's Island, Belfast.

“Titanic’s Captain in Kinemacolor,” in The Moving Picture News, New York: The Cinematograph Publishing Company, Vol. V, No. 16, Saturday, 20 April 1912, p. 9.

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