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 film stars Jason Robards, Richard Jordan, David Selby, Anne Archer, and Alec Guinness.

[4][5] 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.

The Soviet soldier is then shot and killed by mercenary adventurer and government operative Dirk Pitt, who rescues the spy and takes him back to Washington, D.C.

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.

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.

Another submersible, Deep Quest, experiences a battery shortage, which causes its manipulator arm to become locked onto the Titanic's wreckage.

It turns out no expense is being spared because the rare mineral will be used as the power source in a proposed weapons system that could take down any missile entering US airspace.

He had arranged a fake burial in a graveyard in "Southby", England prior to sailing back to the United States on the ill-fated ocean liner.

It is decided to leave the mineral buried in the grave because knowledge of its existence would destabilise the status quo that maintains the peace between the West and the Soviet Union.

[7] Lew Grade said he read the novel by Clive Cussler and became interested, thinking there was potential for a series along the lines of the James Bond films.

[23] The first writer to work on it was Adam Kennedy, who wrote the script for Stanley Kramer's film for Lew Grade, The Domino Principle.

[16] Cussler was furious with the final result, because most of the original plot had been rejected leaving a hollow shell of his story; additionally he felt that the casting was wrong.

[citation needed] Elliott Gould was offered a lead role, but turned it down, quipping: "I don't want to raise the Titanic.

In 1985 the wreck of the real Titanic was located, confirming that she had broken up during the disaster, and lay in two pieces on the bottom of the North Atlantic in a state of advanced corrosion.

The day before the shoot St Ives had its worst storm in one hundred years, destroying the church where the scene was to be shot so it had to be relocated.

[31] John Barry created the film's musical score, which became the most acclaimed aspect of the production and is considered by many to be one of the very best of Barry's career – closely following the style of his soundtrack for the James Bond film Moonraker the preceding year, with militaristic passages reflecting the Cold War aspects of the plot to the dark, cold, brooding compositions reflected in the underwater scenes.

In August 2014[needs update] Network On Air were to release Raise The Titanic on Blu-ray in the UK, with the only known available original Barry score.

[37] In 2006, Cussler sued the filmmakers of Sahara, a film adaption of his 1992 book, for failing to consult him on the script when it also made huge financial losses.

[40] Lew Grade later wrote that he "thought the movie was quite good", particularly the actual raising of the Titanic and the scene where Dirk Pitt walks into the wrecked ballroom.

Raise the Titanic, along with other contemporary flops, has been credited with prompting Grade's withdrawal from continued involvement with the film industry.