The First Disaster Film Ever Made Was Lost for Nearly Half a Century (2024)

The disaster film has long fascinated the movie-going public, a window into destruction on a massive scale from the safety of a theater seat. And Hollywood has taken great glee in just how that destruction is meted out: earthquake, fire, asteroid, alien invasion, even sharknado. You name the cataclysmic event, someone has committed it to film. But every Dante's Peak, Armageddon, and The Towering Inferno owes a debt to the film that started it all, a classic that came out the other side of its own disaster, considered lost for almost a half-century. That film is 1933's Deluge, the first full-length disaster film.

Deluge

A massive earthquake strikes the United States, which destroys the West Coast and unleashes a massive flood that threatens to destroy the East Coast as well.

Run Time

70 minutes

Director

Felix E. Feist

Release Date

August 13, 1933

Actors

Peggy Shannon, Sidney Blackmer, Lois Wilson, Matt Moore, Fred Kohler

Civilization Falls to 'Deluge'

Warnings ring throughout New York City, ordered by scientists that discover a violent storm is headed towards the city, which they attest to disruptions with the natural barometric patterns. In fact, they believe something even worse is nigh, and their beliefs are confirmed when an eclipse of the sun sets off destructive events across the world. Unending earthquakes have hit Rome and London, and have destroyed the entirety of the United States west coast, killing millions. Tsunamis caused by the devastating tremors threaten to take millions more.

To escape the oncoming tsunami approaching New York, Martin Webster (Sidney Blackmer) and his wife, Helen (Lois Wilson), take their children to a high rock formation. Martin doubles back to gather more food and clothes, but his timing couldn't be worse: the destruction of New York begins while he's en route. Earthquakes take down the buildings of New York's famed skyline, and large tsunamis strike the city, making short work of those still standing. Martin manages to return to where he left his family, which now stands as an island, only they are nowhere to be found. Believing they have died, the distraught Martin does what he can to survive, building a shelter and hiding his supplies in a tunnel.

Disaster Brings Out the Worst in Man in 'Deluge'

Meanwhile, on another island, Jepson (Fred Kohler) and Norwood (Ralf Harolde) come upon an unconscious Claire Arlington (Peggy Shannon), a world-class swimmer who has washed up just outside their cabin. The men feud over her as she recovers, but when Claire is attacked, she flees and swims away. The men are outraged, and it drives Jepson to kill Norwood, and then goes searching for a boat to chase after Claire and bring her back. Claire ends up on Martin's island, and Martin takes the exhausted Claire back to his cabin. Soon, their friendship becomes something more.

Ah, if only Martin knew that his wife was on the same island, one of a group of survivors who band together to form a town and start civilization back up. Tom (Matt Moore), the de facto leader of the town, finds Helen after the disaster and takes her and the children under his wing, but is refuted by Helen after proposing, as she is convinced Martin is still alive. Back to Jepson, who has made it to the island and finds Martin's tunnel. He then runs into Bellamy (Philo McCullough) and his gang of thugs, driven out of the newly formed town for committing rape and theft, and joins them. When he finally does find Martin and Claire, Jepson overcomes Martin, kidnaps Claire, and returns to Bellamy's hideout. But just as Jepson is about to rape Claire, Martin sneaks in and rescues her.

The pair flee to Martin's tunnel, but are followed by Jepson and Bellamy's gang, who set a fire at the entrance of the tunnel to force them out. His plan doesn't work, so he enters the tunnel to confront Martin and Claire. As the two men fight, Claire kills Jepson with a spiked club. They are then rescued by a group of men from the town, who tracked Bellamy and his gang to the tunnel. They return to the town, and Martin is reunited with his family. Martin then proceeds to tell Helen about Claire, and tells her that he loves both of them and will not choose between them (it takes a bigamy man to do so), and neither woman is willing to step back for the other. Awkward. As for the town, Martin establishes a monetary system in a successful effort to cut down ugly disputes, and is soon elected mayor. Then Claire sees Martin with Helen at a town meeting, and realizes that she can't be with him. Heartbroken, she returns to the sea, with Martin on the shore watching her swim away.

'Deluge' is More Than Just a Disaster Movie

Deluge was groundbreaking, literally, not only as the first disaster movie, but as the first time a major metropolitan center of the day and age gets leveled on screen. The Empire State Building tumbles to the ground, a tsunami sends the Statue of Liberty to a watery grave, and the streets are torn asunder. We take it for granted today, where giant ice spikes rip apart roads and landmarks are thoroughly destroyed, but for the time, it's pretty impressive. The practical effects of the obliteration of New York stand out, a bold first attempt at staging disaster on such a large scale, aided by a miniature set some 100 feet wide, with crude travelling mattes that placed people into the devastation. Per the previously cited AV Club, the footage was sold to B-movie producers and recycled in serials well into the 1940s. The wave that crashes into New York in The Day After Tomorrow would seem to borrow the moment from Deluge, proving its impact on the genre well into today.

But Deluge is something much, much more. The disasters that befall the globe all occur in the opening moments of the film, while the bulk of it focuses on the aftermath, and what man becomes when everything is taken away. Fun fact: it's not pretty. Being a pre-Code film (and likely one of the stronger reasons for its enactment), the film paints a pretty vivid picture, one that is dark, hopeful, and, given its bigamy bend and how Shannon parades about scantily clad, scandalous. Those dark elements are dark, with Bellamy's gang preying upon survivors, raping and murdering women (off-screen, but there's no question that they have taken place), Norwood and Jepson's molesting of Claire, and a partial glimpse of a victim that is among the most disturbing images of that era. Yet knowing that the survivors are finding a way to rebuild civilization offers hope.

This would all be for naught had Deluge remained lost, one of many classic-era films never to be seen again. But thanks to horror/sci-fi archivist Forrest J. Ackerman, an Italian-dubbed print was found in 1981. The quality was decidedly poor, but it was all that was thought to have existed of the genre-launching film. Then came 2016, when Lobster Films unearthed a 35mm nitrate negative, complete with an English soundtrack. Lobster had a 2K restoration scan done on it, and Deluge was reintroduced to the world in all its glory, a Hollywood ending for an end-of-the-world classic.

Deluge is available to stream in the US on Kanopy.

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