Noah's Ark

(from 2014)

In a post that now shortly follows this in the reprint cycle, I described how my path to recovery from illness involved watching old rock and roll films. Following a traditional pattern, the next stage was to go back into history and watch some of my large collection of silent movies. Silent cinema is viewed by some cineasts as “pure cinema” but of course – joy of joys - it had its fair share of clunkers. And this post is going to be all about one such movie – Noah’s Ark. Forget Russell Crowe in the latest version – this was the movie to die for. As some extras did. Literally.

I had a cut-down 8mm version of this movie a million years ago which I regularly used to show at certain gatherings. More true life confessions about that later.

My collection of film books includes several by the Medved brothers – including The Hollywood Hall of Shame. A most entertaining read. And Noah’s Ark is there – right at the beginning. I think they are a little unfair – I can think of more worthy contenders for trash – but I can see what they mean.

To begin with, a lot depends how good you are on your Bible stories. The makers of Noah’s Ark obviously fell asleep rather a lot when in Sunday School, because their basic story went along these lines:

Once up a time men were very wicked. They built a tower with its top in the heavens. They also worshipped a golden calf. So God spoke to Noah through a burning bush and told him about a flood. The actual flood details and blueprint for the ark were delivered by fire thumping into a mountainside to produce tablets of stone. Unlike the version in the Ten Commands, two tablets were insufficient, so the film makers had Noah’s tablets turn the page as the fiery commands were given. Do you know – I never realised that the ‘codex simplex’ went back so far into history. It is remarkable what Hollywood can teach you. Oh yes – and when the people came to destroy the Ark, a pillar of fire protected it... There’s also a nod towards the Bible story of Sampson. I could go on. But I‘ll be good. Or maybe I won’t.

If none of that seems unusual to you, then YOU probably fell asleep in Sunday School too – assuming you ever went.

The press releases screamed how a deluge of water drowned A WORLD OF LUST. In case the viewer was a little unsure about the latter, the film obligingly spent a considerable amount of time depicting said WORLD OF LUST. This high moral position dealt with both the Hayes Code and the viewers’ predilections quite satisfactorily.

There were some sequences originally filmed in two-tone color – sadly now missing from current prints. To ensure the extras had the right pre-deluvian flesh tones, they were all sprayed with something akin to prune juice each day before filming. And the actual flood is still quite spectacular today, because in a sense, it was real.

A series of reservoirs had been built in the Hollywood hills to hold goodness knows how many tons of water, and a Temple of Moloch set had been constructed in a huge studio tank – filled to the brim with worshipping and celebrating extras (trivia time – one was a young and uncredited John Wayne). At a given moment, the waters came down with maximum force, destroying the temple – and according to modern day reports, killing three extras, and maiming several others. The cameras kept on rolling and the footage of course was used in the finished movie.

Many years ago I used to do a one hour talk all about the biblical flood.

The veracity of the Bible account is not our concern here – but I put on what was then a full audio-visual experience. There were well over 100 slides – shown on a rotary slide projector. There was movie film – yes, my cut down 8mm version of Noah’s Ark – shown on an old Russian Luch projector – very reliable but weighing a ton. If it fell off the table it would break your foot. Then there was a cassette recorder with sound effects including Beethoven’s storm sequence from his 6^th (Pastoral) to fit the flood waters. Added to this was a light, a microphone – which had to double for the recorder – a sheaf of notes – a mass of cables mimicking spaghetti - and me.

It was one of those performances at which I marvel now. There was SO MUCH that could go wrong. Generally it didn’t, but I am sure that half the thrill for the audience was waiting to see what went bang, or didn’t go at all, and how many pounds “O” would lose while trying to keep his vocals at an even keel while the production threatened to replicate the last moments of the Titanic all around him.

When good sense finally pensioned off my talk, the short bit of 8mm film came into its own in another context. With my trusty heavyweight cine-camera, I would regularly film people’s weddings – and some of those 8mm films, now transferred to DVD video are still trotted out in some households to embarrass the grandchildren.

One couple got married in mid-summer on one of those days when the heavens just opened. It was all umbrellas and mud spattered dresses and veils flapping madly in the wind. I dutifully filmed it all – no concessions to careful camera angles and soft-focus – if this was how it was, well – this was how it was! And, my sense of humor being what it was, at the editing stage I was able to intercut all sorts of spectacle from my Noah’s Ark film. So the bride appeared clutching her head covering – cut to violent flash of lightening depicting the wrath of God... Bride and groom struggled through mini-floods to get into bridal car – cut to cascades of water onto luckless extras in the Temple of Moloch before being swept away to their doom.

I was really pleased with my efforts.

I don’t think they’ve spoken to me since...