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 have always wondered about the disappearance of "Deluge". Why for so many years, seemingly since it's release in 1933, this film vanished from the face of the earth. After seeing it, courtesy of the efforts of Mr. Wade Williams & Co., I'm still puzzled, but I have a theory. In 1933, "the code" was enacted that pretty much took care of sex and violence in Hollywood. While not an explicit film by any means, "Deluge" does deal fairly frankly with sexuality, lust and rape. I wonder if RKO discovered they had a film that they could not re-release, much like the fabled lost Warner Bros. comedy "Convention City". It's a shame for, while it is a dated film, I find it quite unique and surprising for it's era and a fairly successful attempt to create something different in an era when films were already becoming cookie cutter by-products of the studio machine (not that many of those cookies aren't tasty, mind you). And even though the only available copy at this writing is dubbed into Italian, I don't find that a hinderance. An excellent job was done in subtitling the film, and much of the film is visual anyway. One thing that is somewhat bothersome: IMDb lists the running time as 70 minutes--the tape's running time is 59 minutes. What's missing?? Something so heinous that even the Italian censors couldn't let it be shown? The mind boggles! By the way, I have recently heard that the French film archive holds a copy of this film as well...I wonder....in Anglais, mais non?

As a young man in the early 30's I attended a small theater in Brooklyn, NY showing the film Deluge. The memory of the devastation depicted in the film has remained with me through the years. I feel that a similar film made today, with all the special effects, would not have the impact felt at that time.

Of course there are many films from that era which are well remembered today while Deluge did not stand the test of time that I feel it deserved.

Years later I read an article concerning films that were lost due to deterioration and Deluge e was mentioned. We can all be indebted to IMDb for providing an opportunity to rediscover films such as Deluge.

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 saw this film in England in 1934 at the age of 16 and was highly impressed with the special effects. Oddly enough Sydney Blackmer played the hero in this although in many other films he was cast in villainous roles. Remember him as the "kindly" neighbour in Rosemary's Baby?

I had read the book only a year or so before seeing the film and was absolutely flabbergasted with the disaster scenes. In view of our knowledge of global warming, a remake might well be highly topical and thought provoking.