In Search of Noah's Ark

Back in the 70'Schick-Sunn Classic Films was based out of Salt Lake City, Utah where they did many documentaries and a TV series (Grizzly Adams) I had the opportunity to work on many of their films. Sometimes as an animal trainer/actor/stuntman and other crew member. We had a lot of fun in the making of "Noah's Ark" where I played one of Noah's sons as will as handling some of the bigger animals (Lions/Bears etc.)I always liked this film as it was done with a lot of research and people who went to Mount Arat to find the Ark.All the actors we're local actors from SLC Utah. The film did not get much exposure and I have not seen it since it was released in the 70's.

Ignoring the rest execrable "science" on display in this witless film, this movie was a part of a hoax. The individual who brought down pieces of the alleged Ark actually cooked them in his oven at home to "age" them. Naturally the credulous producers took him at his word.

I suppose this film is worthy for the undiscriminating, desperate Christian viewer, but all others should avoid unless a good laugh (a la "Plan 9 from Outer Space") is what you are looking for.

Of course, if you are the sort who still believes the Shroud of Turin is real, then you won't care.

This film needs to be categorized as "fiction."

Thank you.

Cheers.

This was the first of the great 1970's Sunn Classic Picture films and what a subject. Was there really a man named Noah? Did God really destroy the world with a universal deluge? Finally are the remains of the Ark still on Mount Araratt today? The re-enactment of the flood is very well handled and you will really get hooked into solving this mystery of the ark no matter what your religious views and beliefs are. They tell of a boy named George Hagopian who visited the ark as a boy in 1902 and told his story before he died in 1972. He said his uncle boosted him up and he actually walked on the roof! Imagine that! I was also impressed by the story of the Russian aviators who found the ark while flying over Mount Ararat in 1916. The Czar sent a special expedition to the Ark and they found it and took photos and even went inside it and found hundreds of stalls and cages. Unfortunately, this evidence was lost when the Godless Communists took over the government. Another intriguing story was that of George Greene. He was an oil worker flying in helicopter who took six photos of the ark sticking out of a glacier. Unfortunately, he was murdered and the photos disappeared without a trace. We know they existed, however, because there were over thirty people who signed statements saying they had seen them and described exactly what they showed. A satellite even took a space picture of a stange formation on the mountain that could be the Ark. Since this movie was made, there was a man who took two pictures on the mountain that seemed to show the Ark broken in two. Does it really exist? This movie examines this fascinating possibility and its lots of fun. This is the only Sunn Classic film that I know of that is out on video and I recommend it highly.

Seriously, this is one of the first movies I have a conscious recollection of seeing, 1976 sounds about right (I would have been nine). Mom probably saw the G rating and decided this would be a diverting way to keep us out of her face for a couple hours one Saturday afternoon.

I have no memory of the film's story (though presented as a documentary the bulk of it is about as factually based as your standard Godzilla movie) though certain visual images like the pathetic Ark model used bobbing around in a tank look familiar. No, the moment etched into my brain like battery acid was when some idiot playing an ancient explorer climbing Mount Ararat in search of the Ark takes a dive off a cliff.

The event both horrified me as a budding young outdoorsman, but was so patently obviously FAKE that my two brothers and I couldn't shut up talking about it and laughing about how stupid yet cool it was at the same time for the rest of the weekend -- A glorious bit of cognitive dissonance for a 9 year old mind to entertain. Then again Star Trek, the Six Million Dollar Man, cartoons, everything that was cool sort of had a dumb, fake side to it. The moment stuck with me for 34 years so it must have been impressive at 1:85:1 in a theater.

I never encountered the movie again until a buddy with a shared taste for the bizarre loaned me his long out of print tape. The movie itself is competently made but has all the overkill of a propaganda film, which is an apt way to describe the content. The film doesn't posit the theory that the Ark might be on Mount Ararat, the film regards it as a foregone conclusion with the actual location of the remains of the Ark simply being a formality yet to be dealt with. Eventually somebody will find it, you see, and then everyone will know. Uh huh.

There's also some shameless Bible-thumping going on, with what we would now regard as religious overtones to nearly every aspect of how this unlikely story is told, all of it narrated with grave authority by Brad Crandall, the voice of a number of these low budget pseudo-documentaries. As far as science or a study of history it's pretty absurd, but in terms of tapping in to a basic need within humans to be entertained by ridiculous garbage this movie has some legs. Put it on a double bill with CHARIOTS OF THE GODS in a little art house venue next to the medical marijuana store and it would sell out every night, likely to the same crowd every night. Pot heads eat this stuff up like Doritos.

It's all so sincere, so cloyingly convinced, so eager for its viewers to be swept up in rapt awe at what is essentially a hoax (another reader here comments on that aspect). But it's still entertaining with a sort of bizarre poker faced hamminess about it that only somebody really challenged by the mysteries of life would be tempted to take any of it seriously. Even as nine year olds, me and my brothers knew this was just too fake. Nice to find out we were right on the money.

4/10

This movie was a lot like the earlier von Däniken books and movies like "Chariots of the Gods". But instead of attributing the mysteries of the world to space aliens, this movie started with existing Bible stories about the Great Flood. So instead of promoting space alien sensationalism, this movie exploits literal Bible belief.

As a child watching the movie, the documentary tone was interesting, but even then its "science" seemed backed up by people seeking to match a story to anything they could discover, rather than explain evidence they could find. If the movie was unconvincing to even me as a child, it didn't do its job as a documentary. The movie has nothing to prove -- a Bible literalist would believe the movie's claims before seeing it, and no one else would find the movie credible. It lacks even camp entertainment value.