Deluge (1933)

'Deluge' is a film I had wanted to see for some time, it is a 1933 RKO produced pre-code apocalyptic-disaster film whose special effects were so good (by the standard of the times) that they were cut and reused in other films into at least the 1940's (mostly model work). Adapted from the 1928 S. Fowler Wright novel of the same name with the setting moved from The Midlands of England to the greater New York City area, 'Deluge' tells the story of some survivors of a global geography altering catastrophe that includes earthquakes, tidal waves and floods, as well as for some reason an unexpected eclipse.

We have two principal characters, Martin (Sidney Blackmer) a New York City lawyer who was vacationing in the country with his wife and two children (both under 4 or so) when the disaster hits (this appears to have been in late April or early May based on a make shift calendar we see mid way through the film), and Clair (Peggy Shannon) a competitive swimmer who was also in the country with friends when the disaster hit (she was there because her planed publicity stunt swim was canceled do to unusual weather). The two meet up, Clair on the run from hulking goon Jepson (Fred Kohler) who wants to rape her, the subtext in the this film of sexual restraints unleashed is surprisingly strong and very pre-code, while Martin is setting up a base camp at a rock quarry after believing his family killed (they of course are not and he is reunited with them late in the film).

Jepson teams up with a group called 'The Bellamy Gang', raiders and rapists who are the surviving dregs of the old civilization, and they trap our two leads, who by this time have fallen in love with each other, in a cave for an old fashioned standoff. The two do better then all right and kill Jepson and most of the others even before the arrival of a posse from a nearby surviving settlement who were out to get the no-gooders. Said posse, made of a mix of surviving locals and vacationers from the city take the couple back to town, which by implication appears to be a resort community in the Catskills. Martin spends the last 10 or so minutes of the film being named the towns new leader and trying to figure out how he can make polygamy work now that he knows his wife survived.

This is an interesting and unusual film, not complicated in plot or deep with its characters but a strange cinematic artifact very specific to the time and place where it was made. I was really struck by the beauty of the actress Peggy Shannon and wondered why I hadn't seen her in other things so I did a little research. A former Ziegfield Follies girl Shannon had been groomed by Paramount Pictures as a new "It Girl" to replace Clara Bow, only Shannon developed a drinking problem and her career took a downward track. She was found dead in a chair at her apartment age 34 in 1941, the victim of a heart attack brought on by rough living. Three weeks later her second husband cameraman Albert G. Roberts would commit suicide by gunshot in that same chair. A sad and haunting coda to what could have been a great career. For her unusual film 'Deluge' I give ***