Déluge

The history of this once-lost classic film (now available on DVD) is fascinating, but it's nothing compared to the film itself.

Running about 70 minutes, this disaster movie gets right to with the destruction of most of the world by earthquakes and tsunamis. Much early footage shows the flooding of New York City and the toppling of skyscrapers. Yes, these are obviously models and yes there is a good deal of rear projection, but just go with it. It's pretty impressive.

After the apocalypse, it seems old mountain areas have been spared and there are survivors. Martin (Sidney Blackmer) has been separated from his wife (Lois Wilson) and kids. Claire (Peggy Shannon) has washed up on a beach and found by a demented loner Jepson (Fred Kohler). There's also a ragtag village in the mountains run by Tom (Matt Moore) and a group of marauders whose main goal seems to be stealing women.

All these disparate people come together after Claire escapes from Jepson and is rescued by Martin. Jepson joins up with the marauders and they go after Martin and Claire. Enter Tom and the villagers.

The ending is a real surprise and raises the question of what laws and rules should survive the Apocalypse and carry over into the New Society. What is man's purpose after civilization has been destroyed? How does man move on? Peggy Shannon and Sidney Blackmer are good in a very understated way. So are Matt Moore and Lois Wilson. This is definitely a must-see for fans of science fiction and disaster movies, but keep in mind the small budget this film was made on. You'll be thinking about this film long after it has ended.

I saw this soon after a print was discovered in an Italian film vault. No one had subtitled it as of yet. The theater, Film Forum, here in New York City, hired an Italian translator to keep the audience up on the dialog and story.

It's remarkable how many films from the past 20 years were prefigured by this film. In a way, the "Day After Tomorrow" could be considered a remake. The destruction of New York is quite harrowing, actually more harrowing then the stupid "Day After Tomorrow". The special effect people orchestrated numerous shots that show masses of people perishing in the collapse of the city. And it's not in that distanced way that removes the human element from the horror. Actors are integrated into the effect work in creative ways. A recent example would be the monster films of Shusuke Kaneko. After the city has completely crumbled, the ground breaks open and the wreckage falls into a crevice. Then a tsunami inundates the remaining ruins! Yikes!

The rest of the film is done in a typical early 30's melodramatic style. Judging from the other comments here, the translator sort of soft-pedaled the racy parts. The film didn't hold up very well here but I think this could very well be the first post-apocalyptic film ever made.

I only heard about this movie about two weeks ago as I was checking some distributors of science fiction movies. I enjoy sci fi movies of the 60's and before so this fell right into my lap.

I bought this movie as a matter of fact today and have seen the collapse of New York 3 times today. No doubt I will be seeing it a few more times before I can put it to rest.

Seeing the destruction of New York puts a lump in my throat. Even though this movie is what is considered a disaster film using paper mache models, it looks quite impressive and real. The special effects don't leave too much to the imagination. See the Empire State Building crumble in a flash as well as every other skyscraper and then watch the city get washed over by the Hudson River.

This movie is quite tragic. Here we have a hero (Sidney Blackmer) who was very good to his wife and children and supposedly they had been lost by the earthquake and tidal wave.

Then he meets the swimmer (Peggy Shannon). They have their trials because like any other disaster movie, there are the good guys (the people who are trying to rebuild their lives and help each other, respect each other), and then there are the renegades who try to force their will on others through violence and gangs.

Big-budgeted disaster films, showing cataclysmic destruction of the earth by natural forces, have long been popular with the movie public. Many of these films include post-apocalyptic plots of the world's few survivors. Cinema's first "disaster" movie was August 1933 "Deluge."

RKO Radio Pictures' distributed the Admiral Production film. Admiral was a second-tier studio, but was able to fund a relatively large budget for the 'Grade-B' movie. Film critics praised the special effects occurring in the first third of "Deluge." "These effects are undoubtedly quite an achievement for the early 1930s," writes Mark Welsh, "even if the crumbling buildings are still obviously models, but the drowning of cities by mighty waves is fairly credible." So impressive were those early effects that RKO rented "Deluge's" footage to other studios to use in such films as 1935 'S. O. S Tidal Wave' and 1949 'King of the Rocket Man' among others. The 2004 disaster movie 'The Day After Tomorrow,' uses almost the exact gigantic wave action scenes in the same city, New York City, as the 1933 Admiral picture. The extensive use of its footage in other movies explains why "Deluge" was withdrawn from the market and was considered lost until an Italian print was discovered in 1981. A full English version emerged in 2016 and was fully restored.

As a 'post-apocalyptic' film, "Deluge's" catastrophe came about by a combination of an extreme low pressure system and a massive earthquake off the Eastern shore at the same time, creating floods throughout most of the world. Only higher elevations had remained dry, although they too have been damaged by the quakes. The movie focuses on the Webster family, Martin (Sidney Blackmer) and wife Helen (Lois Wilson), who are separated by the rising seas. Martin is separated from his family and is alone in a seaside (now high up) shack when he finds professional swimmer Claire (Peggy Shannon) passed out on the shore. She had just escaped the clutches of two ravenous men and has swum miles to arrive at the footsteps of Martin's abode, where the two fall in love. They end up in a former vacation resort town where the pair discover a surprise that'll change their relationship. Says film critic Danny March, echoing the consensus of "Deluge's" achilles heel: "the massive special effects sequence that starts the movie had a lot more thought put into it than all of the characters who wandered around after."

Actress Peggy Shannon's tragic life was all too common in early Hollywood. As a former Ziegfeld chorus girl on the Broadway stage in the 1920's, Shannon was spotted by Paramount Pictures and tabbed to be the next Clara Bow "It" girl. Hours after arriving in Hollywood, she replaced Bow after the star had a nervous breakdown a couple of days before filming 1931's 'The Secret Call.' With a whirlwind schedule of several movie appearances in such a short stretch, Shannon began to hit the bottle to decompress after 16-hour work days. By the time she appeared in "Deluge," her reputation as a difficult and temperamental actress was well known throughout Hollywood,. After a couple years on the stage back East, she returned to film, but with minor roles.

Her husband, Albert Roberts, returned to the couple's North Hollywood apartment from a fishing vacation in May 1941 to see Shannon slumped on the kitchen table, a cigarette in her mouth and an empty glass in her hand, dead. An autopsy revealed she expired 12 hours earlier brought on by a heart attack with a damaged liver. Husband Roberts was so distraught over her premature death at 34 that three weeks later he shot himself in the same chair Shannon had died. He left a suicide note exclaiming, "I am very much in love with my wife, Peggy Shannon. In this spot she died, so in reverence to her, you will find me in the same spot."

I read about this movie years ago but thinking that no prints existed, only recently looked for a rental copy. It was much better than reviews lead me to believe. The destruction of New York City was quite convincing especially when the earth opened up and the ocean rushed in. The screenwriters were smart not to offer any explanation for the disaster. Perhaps this was due to time and budget constraints. The scientists' bewilderment added to the tension.

The survivors' story was credible even though the lead characters were somewhat stupid. Martin and Claire spent the night in a tunnel knowing full well that armed men were coming for them at first light. They could have easily escaped during the night.

The story had several gaps probably due to lost or deteriorated film. How did Martin become separated from his wife and children? Why did each think the other was dead? The Statue of Liberty was still standing at the end of the storm sequence. Did it survive?

The Italian dialog was distracting and the English subtitles did not convey everything that was spoken. There was something said about Louisiana sinking and New Orleans being flooded. When survivors in the settlement cannot raise anything on the radio, a boy says to an adult, "Now you can be the fire chief". I'm going out on a limb and say the boy is referring to comedian Ed Wynn who portrayed the Texaco Fire Chief on an early radio program. This must have been very confusing to foreign audiences.

The actress who played Claire, Peggy Shannon, was strikingly beautiful with a modern look not normally seen in movies of that period. How sad that she died of alcoholism just 8 years after the movie was released.