D: Felix E. Feist C: Peggy Shannon, Sidney Blackmer, Lois Wilson

A pre-code movie – but not pre-code enough. Seems like God’s still around. Or maybe he isn’t. After all, as the pre-main-title reminds us, he did promise never to send another flood. Mind you, not five minutes of stock-footage (it’s there too, and it’s grand!) In fact, I don’t remember seeing so many visually exciting special effects in one movie, in sharp contrast to the overrated WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE. They make up the first 20 minutes of its 70 minutes running time, which is of course as it should be in a disaster movie. Usually, the problem with these films is that after the initial cataclysm, there really isn’t much to look at. And sure enough, soon we’re down to the endless fight for survival by the limited cast of a Corman movie (hero, idolizing youngster, coward, nagging wife, gangster, gangster’s moll, good-time girl with a heart of gold). Only, this time around, the fight is for the women. Some are nicer about it than others, but that is the bottom line (for the future of the human race, of course). There are great moments, which would probably offend a post-code and post-post-code audience – like the old coot bidding on the Venus of Milo, expressing his intention to jerk off to her, the black man next to him affirming that he’ll only pay two bits for her: “Yowser, her arms are broken!” Our hero loses his family, but is richly compensated by a professional swimmer in a pre-bikini, occasionally losing the top. Unfortunately, his family is still alive, and this is where the movie might have risen to true pre-code greatness. After all, his boring wife, who is mainly into the children, doesn’t seem too opposed to the idea of a ménage-de-trois. It’s a new world, right? Well, I guess you can’t have everything!

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