At the last minute, a wealthy American expatriate in Europe, Richard Sturges (Clifton Webb), buys a steerage (deck)-class ticket (the lowest class) for the maiden voyage of the RMS ''Titanic'' from a Basque people immigrant. Once aboard he seeks out his runaway wife, Julia (Barbara Stanwyck). He discovers she is trying to take their two unsuspecting children, 18-year-old Annette (Audrey Dalton) and ten-year-old Norman (Harper Carter), to her hometown of Mackinac Island, Michigan, Michigan, to raise as down-to-earth Americans rather than rootless elitists like Richard himself.