Michael Curtiz was not strange to dramas based on Bible texts. Already in 1922 he had made "Sodom and Gomorrah" in Austria, a melodrama that combines the story of a girl who is induced into prostitution by her adoptive mother, with the biblical story of Lot and her family in the corrupt city of Sodom. Upon emigrating to the United States, Curtiz would repeat the strategy with less luck in "Noah's Ark," by integrating the story of two friends that war unites and separates, with the didactic irruption of the biblical story of the universal flood (in the filming of which three extras drowned). But this new foray lacks the passion of the "mise-en-caméra" of the Austrian film. In the end, "Noah's Ark" is a disappointing melodrama that claims to be pacifist, but is pro-war all the way. In the edition I saw, the film contains a score with US marches, and the insufferable Guinn Williams, one more time playing a brute. It is surprising no one mentions the homosexual overtones in his relationship with George O'Brien. Silent expensive, inflated junk.
Review of Noah's Ark
