Noah’s Ark **** (1928, Dolores Costello, George O’Brien, Noah Berry Sr, Louise Fazenda, Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams) – Classic Movie Review 13,529

Warner Bros’ vastly expensive, pioneering 1928 dawn of sound American part-talkie epic disaster film Noah’s Ark stars Dolores Costello and George O’Brien.

Director Michael Curtiz’s 1928 dawn of sound American part-talkie epic disaster film Noah’s Ark: The Story of the Deluge stars Dolores Costello, George O’Brien, Noah Berry Sr, Louise Fazenda, and Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams. It was planned as a silent film in 1926 but a number of talking sequences were added, directed by Roy Del Ruth. So the film features talking sequences, a synchronised musical score and sound effects along with English intertitles.

Noah’s Ark: The Story of the Deluge is a brave, exciting epic retelling of the Biblical story of Noah, Noah’s Ark and the Great Flood alongside a parallel tale of two lovers (Dolores Costello, George O’Brien), wartime soldiers and an Orient Express train crash during World War One.

Noah’s Ark is a fascianating piece of cinematic history that bridges the gap in Hollywood styles between that of the traditional silent movie spectacle and the then new talking picture (35 minutes pass silently before the first dialogue is spoken).

The movie works on an epic scale: trains crash, battles are fought and the massive floods are extremely realistic – because they were real and some extras drowned!

It is a fabulous fantasy that is however sometimes difficult to follow as the actors appear in both intercutting stories.

The soundtrack was recorded using the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system.

It cost Warner Bros a packet – $1,005,000 – to make, and it really shows. Though it cost far more than any Warner film to date, it grossed more than twice its cost, taking $2,305,000 worldwide, so the gamble paid off.

It existed in three versions, of 75 minutes, 108 minutes and another (far superior) version of 135 minutes.

John Wayne appears as an extra, along with Andy Devine and Ward Bond, among the film’s 7,500 extras. Wayne supposedly worked in the prop department.

The screenplay by Anthony Coldeway (adaptation), De Leon Anthony and Harold McCord is based on a story by the film’s producer Darryl F Zanuck.

The film premiered in Hollywood in late 1928 with a running time of 135 minutes. Warners then withdrew the film for extensive revision, removing about half and hour of footage. The film was re-released by Dominant Pictures Corporation in 1957 as a 75-minute-long silent film, with added narration, produced by Robert Youngson. 

The original 135 minutes release is believed to be lost. The film has been partially restored to the length of 108 minutes (including overture and exit music) by the UCLA Film and Television Archive in conjunction with the project American Moviemakers: The Dawn of Sound.

It was partly filmed at the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, California.

The film entered the public domain on January 1, 2024, and the 108 minute version is freely available on the Internet.

Also in the cast are Paul McAllister, Anders Randolf, Myrna Loy, Noble Johnson, Armand Kaliz, William V Mong, Malcolm Waite, Nigel De Brulier, Otto Hoffman, Joe Bonomo and John Wayne.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,529

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