mhesselius This is a very disappointing effort by producer-writer Darryl F. Zanuck and Michael Curtiz in his American directorial debut. The film is obviously an attempt to replicate the DeMille formula of selling pre-code cheesecake in a biblical package. Which is OK if you have some original ideas. But this film has very little new to offer, and steals not only from DeMille, but from Rex Ingram's THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE and Frank Borzage's SEVENTH HEAVEN.The WWI story is blatantly derived from FOUR HORSEMEN, and carries over some of that film's problems. The idea that war can have a moral impact and yet remain immoral in the abstract doesn't cohere; and the portrayal of Travis (played by George O'Brien) and his buddy Al (played by Guinn Williams) as untroubled by moral misgivings about taking part in an apocalyptic war undercuts the anti-war message Zanuck seemed to be striving for.The maudlin sentiment - Al has a picture of "Mother" in his helmet - and facial mugging of the actors gives NOAH'S ARK the appearance of a film made ten years earlier. And the scene in the biblical section of a sightless Japheth divinely led to his lover Miriam (Dolores Costello) works no better than Charles Farrel's blind search for Janet Gaynor in SEVENTH HEAVEN.However, criticism of the incompatibility between the the modern and biblical sections is not valid. Both stories have apocalyptic themes; the comparison of God's decision to destroy "all flesh" in the flood, and the endgame specter of ten million dead in WWI would not be lost on audiences of 1929. Also the melodramatic tale of lust that leads the villain Nickoloff to condemn Travis' German wife to execution as a spy does roughly parallel King Nephilim's determination to sacrifice a virgin to an idol in the biblical section.More jarring than the parallel stories - or the ridiculous leopard skin costumes worn by Noah's sons - is the inclusion of spoken lines in the modern section. The actors' slow, careful, halting enunciation, and the drivel that come out whenever they open their mouths, kills the pace of the film and shows why Murnau believed the transition to sound was premature.The saving grace of the film is the spectacle of the ancient city and the flood itself, but the sets in the biblical section bear more than a little resemblance to the Babylonian sets in Griffith's INTOLERANCE, and the flood could not help but be realistic since Curtiz saw fit to let loose tons of water on extras who didn't know it was coming.

kidboots "Noah's Ark" was one of Warner Brothers most ambitious and spectacular movies of the late 20s. It originally ran 2 hours and 15 minutes, but when I saw it back in the 60s, it was just over 70 minutes. I can't remember much about it other than being bowled over by the sheer grandeur of it. It was a part talkie, but when Robert Youngson re-edited it for re release in 1957, it was the talking sequences that were eliminated. So the 1950s "Noah"s Ark" emerged as a silent movie with a voice narration filling in the gaps. It was designed along the lines of "Manslaughter"(1923) and "The Ten Commandments" (1923) - as a split story drawing parallels between sin and salvation in the Biblical days to youthful folly in the 'teens. So the famous story of Noah's ark is sandwiched between a World War 1 romance between a German showgirl, Mary (Dolores Costello) and an American soldier, Travis (George O'Brien). Costello and O'Brien also play the parts of the two lovers, Miriam and Japhet, in the Biblical story.In my opinion the Biblical sequence was the most spectacular - the building of the Ark, the herding of the animals, the Tower of Babel and the massive destruction and flooding of the city, including the drowning of the jeering mob. Japhet has been blinded and is forced into a life of slavery on a treadmill - the flood sets him free to be guided by God to rescue Miriam, who was to be sacrificed on the altar to a pagan God - very stirring stuff.Like a lot of silent films with added talking sequences, dialogue trivialized the characters and situations. This occurred in the modern story where a beautiful romance was made banal by long stretches of talk - about patriotism, how wonderful it is to be an American etc. Mary, who is German and at one point is reading a German newspaper on a train, suddenly starts to talk - Travis says to her "You will never be taken for a German spy, you talk just like an American"!! In another scene, a behind the scenes conversation between Myrna Loy and Mary. Loy kindly asks something like "Do you want to talk things over", to which Mary huffily responds "There are some things you'll never understand". Apart from Myrna Loy, who sounded completely at home with dialogue, Noah Beery (who played the villain in both sequences) was the one main star who really acted with his dialogue - he definitely had the type of voice you imagined his character to have. Beautiful Dolores Costello was Warner's top female star (it's top male star was Rin Tin Tin). Before "The Jazz Singer' saved it, Warners was not the powerful studio that it became in the 30s. Costello seemed completely at home in these extravaganzas, in which the only acting required was to look helpless and lovingly into the hero's eyes.The director, Michael Curtiz, was bought to the U.S. in 1926 and had a dictatorial reputation. Chief cameraman Hal Mohr left the film prior to completion because he felt that the handling of the flood scenes and the destruction of the massive sets were a danger to life and wanted safety precautions set in place. Curtiz said extras "would have to take their chances" and as a result several extras drowned.Highly Recommended.

dbdumonteil The conclusion of the movie leaves a bitter taste in the mouth .In his remake of his classic silent "J'accuse" (1937) ,Abel Gance too proclaimed universal peace.It was not to be the last of all the wars and men are still fighting at my time of writing.And there's another flood "in which we are engulfed which is more treacherous and persistent:the deluge of the mass production (and consummation)moves inexorably forward ,capturing everything that walks in whirlpools" of frozen food,rusted cars,DVDs and CDs,cans ,boxes ,hamburgers ,tons and tons of Bumf (papers) ,growing in an exponential way...Curtiz's movie was obviously intended to match the scale and quality (and commercial appeal)of De Mille'' "the ten commandments " .The structure is the same:a fine mixture of two stories ,a modern one (WW1,the deluge of blood)and a "biblical story" ,reversing De Mille's order .The connection between the two stories is perhaps tighter than in the 1924 work although in the first part of the movie the viewer may sometimes wonder what Curtiz is driving at.The biblical story has been " expanded " ,which was necessary for Noah's story is rather short and not particularly eventful if spectacular. Curtiz borrowed a lot from De Mille in the scenes of the deluge and when God "writes" to Noah (using thunderbolt).But his deluge is superior to John Huston's "the animals went in two by two" sequence in "The Bible" (1967)All in all,this is a very exciting show ,which features talking scenes ,including a whole version of "La Madelon" the Poilus' songs during WW1.The parade on the Champs D'Elysées with a painted Arc De Triomphe in the background and women throwing flowers when Travis sees Al marching on to war is a great moment.Melodrama reaches peaks of kitsch when the same is to execute ...his own wife ,condemned in mistake for spying.When will we see Noah's dove?

roadshow70 So many people were injured in shooting the biblical sequences for this film that star Delores Costello always referred to it as "FLOOD, MUD AND BLOOD" This film was made in the transitional period between silent and sound film so talking sequences were added to keep the film contemporary.