Noah’s Ark (1928)

Directed by Michael Curtiz. Starring George O’Brien, Dolores Costello, Noah Beery, Louise Fazenda, Paul McAllister, Guinn “Big Boy” Williams, Armand Kaliz, Anders Randolf, Myrna Loy.

Lumbering, misbegotten attempt to illustrate parallels between God’s decision to wipe out humanity with the Great Flood and contemporary greedy wastrels wiping themselves out with the Great War. A silent-talkie hybrid, far better off when it keeps quiet (as it is with most other early sound films, the line readings are stiffer than a board suffering from rigor mortis). Somewhere in all of this is the story of Noah and his ark, but you’ll have to sort through a lot of flotsam and jetsam to find it. The second half depicting the biblical flood fable is superior to the contemporary scenes in the first, but it’s only good for uneven spectacle—overwrought and overproduced, but an impressive feat of large-scale staging and special effects…which came at a heavy cost. I expect it’s impossible to spot him, but John Wayne played one of the extras during the flood sequence, and he, of course, was not among the handful of bit players who tragically drowned while the scene was being irresponsibly filmed. Originally released with about a half-hour extra footage than what has survived on the current restored print.

38/100