MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

mhesselius This is a very disappointing effort by producer-writer Darryl F. Zanuck and Michael Curtiz in his American directorial debut. The film is obviously an attempt to replicate the DeMille formula of selling pre-code cheesecake in a biblical package. Which is OK if you have some original ideas. But this film has very little new to offer, and steals not only from DeMille, but from Rex Ingram's THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE and Frank Borzage's SEVENTH HEAVEN.The WWI story is blatantly derived from FOUR HORSEMEN, and carries over some of that film's problems. The idea that war can have a moral impact and yet remain immoral in the abstract doesn't cohere; and the portrayal of Travis (played by George O'Brien) and his buddy Al (played by Guinn Williams) as untroubled by moral misgivings about taking part in an apocalyptic war undercuts the anti-war message Zanuck seemed to be striving for.The maudlin sentiment - Al has a picture of "Mother" in his helmet - and facial mugging of the actors gives NOAH'S ARK the appearance of a film made ten years earlier. And the scene in the biblical section of a sightless Japheth divinely led to his lover Miriam (Dolores Costello) works no better than Charles Farrel's blind search for Janet Gaynor in SEVENTH HEAVEN.However, criticism of the incompatibility between the the modern and biblical sections is not valid. Both stories have apocalyptic themes; the comparison of God's decision to destroy "all flesh" in the flood, and the endgame specter of ten million dead in WWI would not be lost on audiences of 1929. Also the melodramatic tale of lust that leads the villain Nickoloff to condemn Travis' German wife to execution as a spy does roughly parallel King Nephilim's determination to sacrifice a virgin to an idol in the biblical section.More jarring than the parallel stories - or the ridiculous leopard skin costumes worn by Noah's sons - is the inclusion of spoken lines in the modern section. The actors' slow, careful, halting enunciation, and the drivel that come out whenever they open their mouths, kills the pace of the film and shows why Murnau believed the transition to sound was premature.The saving grace of the film is the spectacle of the ancient city and the flood itself, but the sets in the biblical section bear more than a little resemblance to the Babylonian sets in Griffith's INTOLERANCE, and the flood could not help but be realistic since Curtiz saw fit to let loose tons of water on extras who didn't know it was coming.

MARIO GAUCI The film which cemented versatile director Curtiz' reputation in Hollywood is a part-Talkie spectacular which, despite the title, is not entirely concerned with the famous holocaust depicted in the Old Testament. Rather, it purports to parallel the Deluge with the massive losses in human life incurred during the so-called Great War; in that respect, NOAH'S ARK survives not merely as a solid example of late 1920s film craftsmanship but also as a heartfelt morality play delineating the long-lasting effect of that particular combat upon society – pity that, for all its good intentions, a second (and infinitely harsher) World War would be waged in the space of just 11 years! Anyway, to get back to the topic at hand, I knew the film enjoyed a considerable reputation among epic productions of the Silent era but, aware of the fact that the Biblical tale was only illustrated in the form of a vision (lasting for about 40 of its 100 minutes) embedded within the main plot, I had expected to be disappointed by it. However, we open on a remarkably elaborate prologue (superbly-edited in the contemporary Soviet style) and the WWI sequences themselves are well done (featuring even a spectacular train crash early on) and prove surprisingly absorbing in their own right (especially the interaction between the four protagonists – Noah Beery, Dolores Costello, George O'Brien and Guinn "Big Boy" Williams). Incidentally, all four (and a few others) play additional roles in the Noah story; this section is done on a truly grand scale, in clear imitation of Cecil B. DeMille (with a couple of obvious nods to THE TEN COMMANDMENTS [1923] which, coincidentally, I watched 2 days later!) – with the flood itself still highly impressive after all these years and undoubtedly deserving to be ranked among the finest sequences in all of cinema (though controversy still rages about the apparent disregard for the consideration and safety of those involved – with three extras reportedly drowning and several more getting injured during its shooting)!

tedg This may be the strangest movie you will ever see that was not intended to be strange. It was directed by the fellow who a generation later would make "Casablanca." It was written as a sort of writing masterpiece by a nearly illiterate fellow who would later become a master of the studio system, a real power. Its strange in so many ways. It folds a collection of Old Testament stories centered on Noah's flood with a simple morality play set in and about WW I. Its a very, very strange superposition that doesn't in any way make sense. The sheer audacity of someone who thought it would is astonishing. Many people were killed in each, I suppose. Some central characters in both stories are played by the same actors, which makes the supposed similarity between the two threads gobsmackingly puzzling.Moreover, all the Bible parts are wrong, assuming "right" means that you care about what is actually written. Since virtually no one does — this section of the Bible is hard to make sense of, being itself an unhappy mix of bits from diverse and sometimes contradictory sources.Its part silent, and part talkie.And its unhappily wrong in its expectations that the world war depicted would — by virtue of God's grace — be the last war. Its heart wrenching.A specific irony is that a sort of Jewish queen is played by a woman, who in the modern drama is German. The patriarchs are stereotypically Jewish looking, but the main characters are northern European. Cinematically, its grand. The modern sequences are clumsy, but the Bible sequences are pretty impressive, simply because of the scale.There really were thousands of extras. And they really did get deluged, in scenes that have them fighting for their lives. Some of the effects are goofy, but others are clearly done in reality: buildings collapsing on people.Toward the end of this, you feel that God, having gotten impatient with all the mucking around with grandly confused narrative, has decided to wipe out the whole movie.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Matt Barry NOAH'S ARK is the first epic "talkie," though most of it is silent. I got to see a restored print by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and really enjoyed it. Michael Curtiz directed. (Curtiz later directed CASABLANCA and some of the Elvis Presley films.) George O'Brien stars, with Myrna Loy, Noah Beery and John Wayne.