Noah’s Ark ****½

 

by Allan Fish

(USA 1928 100m) not on DVD

Bring on the tonnes of water

p  Darryl F.Zanuck  d  Michael Curtiz  w  Anthony Coldeway, Darryl F.Zanuck, De Leon Anthony  ph  Hal Mohr, Barney McGill  ed  Harold McCord  m  Louis Silvers  art  Anton Grot  spc  Ned Mann

Dolores Costello (Mary/Miriam), George O’Brien (Travis/Japheth), Noah Beery (Nickoloff/King Nephilim), Louise Fazenda (Hilda/Tavern maid), Guinn Williams (Al/Ham), Paul McAllister (Minister/Noah), Nigel de Brulier, Myrna Loy,

Here’s one for the justification category, the greatest Cecil B.de Mille production which Cecil didn’t actually have anything to do with.  Even now, writing on a cold Monday night, I’m thinking to myself “how do I justify including this here?”  I know, deep down in my heart of hearts, that’s it’s terribly melodramatic, terribly pompous and terribly verbose.  And yet each time I come back to it I enjoy it all the more.  There are some who raise de Mille’s most laughable epic, Samson and Delilah, into the pantheon, so this is my Samson.

            As if to further emphasise the debt to de Mille, Noah’s Ark follows a structure used at least twice before (in his silent The Ten Commandments and Manslaughter) of paralleling a modern story with an ancient one.  On one hand a group of passengers on board a European train are caught in a train crash and the horror of World War I.  In the ancient story, a young virgin is chosen as a human sacrifice to the Gods of Akkad at the behest of King Nephilim and Noah prepares for the coming flood. 

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