Deluge (1933, Felix E. Feist)

If it weren’t for the “fallen woman” third act, Deluge would probably stay afloat at the end. Instead, it flops out in the really protracted finale, which involves a survivor camp deciding on a credit system in an effort to get capitalism back. It’s a real let down considering the second act is all about roving rape gangs and the first act has a giant flood devastating the planet, right after some text explaining what we’re about to watch is fictional because God promised not to flood us again so it can’t possibly happen.

The special effects at the beginning, save the running crowd composite shots, are pretty impressive. There’s maybe one shot they hold too long and the miniature becomes too obvious, but otherwise the effects are good. And they’ve got these great transitions where the foreground crumbles and then the static background turns out to be an effects shot just waiting to get started.

Sadly there are no effects sequences after the opening and it turns out we’re not following the various scientists we’ve met—Edward Van Sloan runs the Astronomical Solar Society (making him head A.S.S.), which actually tracks the epicenter of the earthquake circling the globe on its way east. Samuel S. Hinds is the weather forecaster who opens the movie, having no time for silly questions while the barometer is dropping to alarming lows. Whether they’re good or not, Van Sloan and Hinds at least command attention. Once the story moves on to its eventual protagonists… well, they aren’t good and they aren’t commanding.

The film introduces top billed Peggy Shannon real quick during the pre-disaster sequence. Got to get in a leg shot and the implication of toplessness right away because Deluge is Pre-Code and you don’t want to cheat the audience, apparently. Shannon’s a professional swimmer who gets grounded because of the apocalypse. Then she disappears from a while and the human action becomes Sidney Blackmer, wife Lois Wilson, and their two adorable kids. Right after they’ve said their prayers, Wilson realizes this storm isn’t going away anytime soon so she gets scared. Blackmer then decides it’s time to hide in the nearby quarry. The logistics turn into a very questionable parenting exercise.

Post-flood the happy family is separated. Blackmer is all by himself in a cabin while Wilson and the children end up in a settlement, where she catches the eye of leader Matt Moore. Shannon will also catch the eye of a willful survivor, in her case Fred Kohler, who at the very least isn’t going to let anyone else rape her except him and definitely no one gets to kill her. Turns out the rape gangs tend to kill off their victims too.

Thanks to her professional swimming, Shannon ends up with Blackmer, where they almost immediately shack up before Blackmer decides she’s more than just a warm body and he wants to marry her seeing as how his family is gone. Except Kohler’s on their trail.

Meanwhile, it’s been like a month and Moore has decided no women get to be single in the settlement and Wilson’s either got to take him as her new husband or get out of town. Moore’s the good guy, mind you; he’s doing Wilson a favor.

Frankly, once Deluge starts doing the post-apocalyptic rebuilding thing—simultaneous to it having no more action sequences—it starts going downhill. It’s initially interesting in how it presents all the men, good and bad, as potential rapists and murderers, but the resolution’s at best inert but mostly tedious and predictable. The movie also makes sure to remember to be occasionally racist, though I suppose not as racist as it could be, as it uses the one Black male survivor as a joke instead of a threat.

Also Nobert Brodine’s day-for-night photography is really bad and it’s important for it not to be. Good editing from Rose Loewinger, okay enough direction from Feist—(Ned Mann directed the special effects sequences)—but Deluge’s only ever got so much potential. And it ends up flushing all of it for the unimaginative, unbelievable melodrama finish. Though maybe the real problem is Blackmer’s an abject charm vacuum so it’s hard to believe Shannon or Wilson ever could have a thing for him, last man on Earth or not.

Back Page (1934, Anton Lorenze)

It makes sense director Lorenze never made any other films after Back Page because there’s no easy way to describe the disinterested direction. Well, outside Lorenze and cinematographer James S. Brown Jr. using the same exact camera composition for what seems like ninety percent of the film. When there’s an actual reaction close-up of someone (besides lead Peggy Shannon, who gets them occasionally), it feels like a momentous occasion, like Lorenze is finally going to take an interest.

He does not.

And it’s fine. Back Page is only sixty-five minutes, which is how long lead Shannon has to carry the thing on her charm alone.

Shannon is a big time New York newspaper reporter who gets canned for doing a story about a rich guy (Richard Tucker) writing to his mistress she should kill herself and then she kills herself. Shannon just refuses to learn the first rule of newspapering—rich white men are not accountable.

Her work buddy Russell Hopton sets her up with a job out in nowheresville California running a tiny newspaper. Hopton knows the newspaper owner (Claude Gillingwater) and knows he won’t hire a woman, so it’s good Shannon’s name is “Jerry” so everyone assumes she’s a dude.

Shannon does have to talk Gillingwater into a trial run before it becomes really obvious she knows more about how to run a newspaper than Gillingwater ever did, plus she isn’t going to kowtow to the local businessmen just because.

Pretty soon—like after a terrible scene introducing Shannon to the office staff (Sterling Holloway is profoundly, exponentially bad to the point Fred Bain’s editing can be described as misanthropic for subjecting the audience to more Holloway)—Shannon discovers there might be something hinky going on with local Scrooge Edwin Maxwell and the oil well he suspiciously encouraged the town to invest in.

Also it turns out Gillingwater’s got some arrangements with Maxwell he hasn’t told Shannon about and then Hopton shows up to throw an addition spanner in the works.

Outside Holloway none of the acting is particularly bad. Not even David Callis, who starts as a buffoonish business owner but ends up being one of the better characters. A better director would’ve helped Callis (and probably Holloway) but the script is fairly tepid too.

Shannon’s reasonably engaging and always sympathetic throughout. And she and Gillingwater are genuinely cute. Shame the same can’t be said about her and Hopton. Though Hopton’s definitely the weakest performance outside Holloway.

Luckily, it’s only sixty-five minutes and only tedious for ten of them.