Comments on: Life among the ruins

By: Brett Holman

Brett Holman — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 06:40:15 +0000

Well, what’s a disaster movie without a corny love sub-plot? They’re a bit less traditional in post-apocalyptic movies though, I suppose …

Thanks!

By: Roger Todd

Roger Todd — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 22:51:33 +0000

Some time ago, I managed to track down ‘Deluge’ on VHS (ugh!), and NTSC to boot, plus the only version of this American film known to exist is a truncated print dubbed into Italian! The scenes showing the disaster are spectacular, and have a ‘Things To Come’ connection – the special effects supervisor of ‘Deluge’ was Ned Mann, brought to England by Korda to supervise TTC…

For some marvellous stills and a behind-the-scenes photo, see:

http://www.jimusnr.com/Deluge.html

Oddly, if you right-click each image and copy ‘n’ paste the URL into your browser, you can see much larger versions of the images, like so:

http://www.jimusnr.com/deluge6.jpg.JPG

Now that’s what I call creating special effects, none of this sitting around in front of computer screens!

The first part of the film is great fun, but once New York has been annihilated by earthquake and tsunami, ennui sets in… But yes, it is definitely a post-apocalypse film, in that the disaster takes place at the start, with the bulk of the film devoted to depicting the lead characters’ struggle for survival (and a dead corny love plot).

By: Brett Holman

Brett Holman — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 08:29:33 +0000

Thanks, Nemo! I did think of Deluge (based on the novel by S. Fowler Wright) but had thought it was only an (apocalyptic) disaster movie. But you're quite right, from that description it's definitely post-apocalyptic too -- even if the reviewer isn't impressed by the depiction of post-deluge society. That may just mean that we now have an idea of the conventions of the post-apocalyptic genre, and so if a plot doesn't conform then it seems off to us. So Deluge could be considered an intermediate stage between the earlier, whimsical tales and Things to Come (which looks much more 'modern').

By: Nemo

Nemo — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 23:02:34 +0000

There is a pre-THINGS TO COME serious post-apocalyptic film called DELUGE (1933). I haven’t seen this myself, but there is an extended discussion of it at the link below (the discussion is probably more entertaining than the film):

http://www.ohthehumanity.com/review.php3?ID=405

Incidentially, 35 years after this film Sidney Blackmer, who played the lead , played half of an elderly couple of Satanists in the classic ROSEMARY’S BABY.