Michael Curtiz | Noah's Ark / 1928

the look in your eyes

by Douglas Messerli

 

Anthony Coldeway screenplay, based on a story by Darryl F. Zanuck), Michael Curtiz (director) Noah's Ark / 1928

 

It’s hard to imagine this clumsily directed epic of ancient biblical times and World War I, which Alva Johnson, writing in The New Yorker was “widely conceded to be the worst picture ever made,” was helmed by the same director of the fondly remembered films The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Casablanca (1942), Mildred Pierce (1945), and White Christmas (1954).

   Obviously, Noah’s Ark isn’t the worst film ever made, and there are numerous powerful images that represent some of the most astounding scenes in film history. The movie, itself, particularly the world of King Nephilim (Noah Berry) and his golden calf-worshiping kingdom which Noah’s god punished through endless floods made history simply for its use of 7,500 extras (among them John Wayne, Andy Devine, and Ward Bond) and 600,000 gallons of water poured down upon the set so tumultuously that three extras drowned, one was hurt so badly that they had to amputate his leg, and others suffered broken limbs and various serious injuries. 35 ambulances were called in to hurry away the wounded. The star, Dolores Costello suffered from a severe case of pneumonia.

    So disastrous were conditions on the set that this movie alone led to the implementation of stunt safety regulations of 1929.

 

 

 

   The sets surrounding King Nephilim and the worshippers of the god Jaghuth were if nothing else spectacularly grand. On the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, California, Curtiz and his team not only created a gigantic ark parked against gigantic boulders, constructed the decadent city of giant statues representing Jaghuth, but also created a massive stone mill in which Noah’s son is blinded and put to work among the men who are whipped as they stumble endlessly in circles churning the grains of the realm.

      In this portion of the film Noah is commanded to build the ark to house his family and other devout believers, and to gather two of each kind of animal, which in this version of the story come willingly out of the wilderness in couples seeking refuge in an ark so large that it is unimaginable that it was created only through the efforts of Noah (Paul McAllister), Ham (Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams), and his brother Japheth (George O’Brien), the latter two of whom spend most of their time looking lovingly into one another’s eyes, while Shem (Malcolm Waite) saws down trees nearby.

    Yet soon Japheth is forced to travel to the nearby city to find and bring back his girlfriend Miriam who has been nabbed by King Nephilim’s men to be the sacrificial virgin for the annual celebration of the gods.

     She is almost sacrificed, until at the last moment Noah’s Jehovah himself finally saves her by bringing down the torrents, which also frees Japheth, who incredibly stumbles blind through the rising tides with Miriam in his arms, arriving back at the ark just in time to have his eyesight miraculously restored as the momentous doors of the ark closed and it sails off, even while the formerly proud King Nephilim clings desperately to its sides before his hand is caught in a closing window and he drops in pain into the riling morass.

     The plot is utterly hokum, but the sets are memorable if nothing else.

    The far more interesting first half of the epic concerns another time of chaos as the world stands at the edge of another disaster, this one man-made, since God has made a covenant with man never to destroy his creations again.

    This story begins in 1914 with the US playboy Travis (O’Brien) and his good friend Al (Williams) traveling aboard the Oriental Express. Also aboard is Nickoloff (Beery), an officer in the Russian Secret Services, and a young German girl Marie (Costello) traveling with a theatrical troupe.

    What none of them knows except the audience is that a bridge ahead has washed-out a fallen into a ravine below, and the train is doomed to the same ravine, killing many aboard. Both Travis and Al are among the survivors, and along with a prisoner who has now been able to uncuff himself from his dead escort, discover Marie under a beam, and free her. Together the group the trio of Travis, Al, and Marie take refuge in a nearby French lodge with most of its rooms taken, the men forced to bunk together on the lobby floor.

     Meanwhile, Nickoloff arrives and attempts to sneak into Marie’s room, presumably to rape her. Travis, however, has been watching over her and finding Nickoloff in her room begins to fight him, the two creating a major battle interrupted by French soldiers announcing the commencement of World War I.

     Travis, Al, and Marie hurry off to Paris, where the two men continue to share a room while Marie sleeps elsewhere even if by this time Travis and Marie have fallen in love.

      Despite that love affair, which eventually ends in marriage, we also quickly perceive that there is a deep male bonding, very close to homoerotic love if not actually a homosexual relationship between Travis and Al. The movie spends a great deal of time sharing images of them looking deeply into each other’s faces and establishing their comradery.

     Yet Travis’ sudden interest in Marie, and his feeling that he must protect her since, even though she speaks perfect English, she might otherwise be thought to be a German spy, forces a wedge between their close relationship. Al begins, moreover, to feel guilty for not having signed up as a soldier and finally does so, attempting to convince Travis to do the same. When he refuses, the two break from one another, Travis marrying the girl soon after.

    As he and Marie watch the American soldiers, who have now joined the war, with Travis among them, we see the tensions of both Marie and Travis, Marie desperately attempting to keep her husband close to her, while Travis feels pulled toward the military parade.

    When he finally spots Al on the march, he can no longer resist, and joins up with the soldiers, someone handing him a gun.

     The two eventually meet up in the trenches they immediately rush to one another, embracing in deep hugs, Al kissing him on the neck not unlike the deep sexual bond that William A. Wellman had established between his two World War I characters in Wings the year before this film. As film history Shane Brown describes it, “Their reaction is akin to that of two lovers who have been separated.” Even the language is suggestive, Al blurting out “I could lick the guy who said there was a yellow streak in you.” The statement is obvious expressing his determination to fight anyone who might have suggested that his friend was a coward, but in this case the word is close to his own real-actions of planting a wet kiss on his friend’s neck.

     They settle down in trench life, no better place that to snuggle up together. But almost immediately they are each assigned to separate squads one ordered to attack a German machine gun nest from the right, the other from the left.

      As Travis tosses a hand grenade into the gunnery spot, he quickly discovers that it has already been taken by Al, and that his grenade has ended his friend’s/lover’s life. Just as in Wings Travis hugs his friend close attempting to keep him alive as the other slips away into death. The sorrow he expresses might be for that of a close friend, but given the look upon his face, it is clear that he has lost the love of his life.

     The rest of the story returns to Marie who has, meanwhile, joined up with a theatrical troupe entertaining the soldiers. During one of her performances Nickoloff, who has now become an advisor to the allies, spots Marie, meeting up with her to demand that she meet him for sex. When she attempts to flee, he catches up with her, plants spy message in her suitcase, and has her arrested for espionage. Soon after, she is sentenced to a firing squad. Assigned to that squad is Travis, who despite her blindfold recognizes her, and saves his wife from execution. But almost immediately the couple and others, including the recurring figure of the preacher, find themselves trapped below a demolished building and prepare for death, the minister comparing the war and its flow of blood to the biblical tale of the flood.

     The group, however, finds men on the outside are digging their way in to save them, who, when finally breaking through announce that the armistice agreement has been signed, that war is over. The film’s narrator declares that with the end of the War peace has returned forever, that the lives lost in the War will not be forgotten—hollow news for those of us who have seen so many wars since and are facing a new international out-break even as I write.

      I should add that some of the film is in sound while parts are silent with intertitles.

      In the end, there is much to see and wonder at in this odd work, but as The New York Times reviewer Mordaunt Hall admitted, it was such a “cumbersome production, one feels that it is a great test of patience.”        

 

Los Angeles, March 18, 2026

Reprinted in My Queer Cinema blog (March 2026).