The Johnstown Flood (1926)
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Directed by: Irving Cummings
Starring: George o'Brien, Janet Gaynor, Florence Gilbert Studio: Fox Studios IMDB Rating: 7 There are several interesting elements about The Johnstown Flood film and the recent restoration done by Robert Harris and James Mockoski in conjunction with the George Eastman Museum. Made by the Fox Film Corporation in 1926 and directed by Irving Cummings, The Johnstown Flood is an epic melodrama that reenacts the devastating flood that rocked a Pennsyvania town in 1889. Prior to this restoration, the film had been unseen in its entirety for decades. Harris and Mockoski’s restoration masterfully pieces together the entire film, even leaving several frames of untouched film to illustrate the sad state in which the film existed for nearly 90 years. The images are crisp and clean, ‘velvety’ even, as described by Mocoski. Restoration for restoration’s sake is only one important piece of The Johnstown Flood, however, because the film itself, like many films lost or partially missing, capture moments of film history that are priceless and irreplaceable.
For many viewers unfamiliar with the film, one of many Fox films that were largely destroyed in a 1937 warehouse fire, The Johnstown Flood launched the careers of both Janet Gaynor and George O’Brien. The two are not widely known today, but Gaynor won the first Best Actress Academy Award for Sunrise (’27) and O’Brien had a long career as a movie cowboy. Gaynor was just 20 years old when she made The Johnstown Flood, while O’Brien was a veteran of bit parts, but the love tringle in the film that included Florence Gilbert, galvanized fans and crafted their screen personae. In fact, Fox reunited the pair two years later in Sunrise, a film that is arguable the greatest film ever made. |
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In building a melodramatic love story to drive towards the inevitable disaster, director Cummings and writer Edfrid A. Bingham were able to cast good versus evil to help explain one of the greatest disasters in American history. Gaynor’s waif-like character, madly in love with the righteous lumber manager played by O’Brien, were both in stark contrast to the lumber baron choosing profits over human lives. In many ways the film is two parts, the first the love story and the second the damn break that floods the town.
William Fox, the head of Fox Studios, committed to spare no expense in creating special effects that capture the destruction and devastation of the flood through an intricate combination of matte paintings, miniatures, and in-camera visual effects. Together, the effects must have overwhelmed a 1920’s audience and still largely hold up today. Water crashes through railroad cars, houses and forests, destroying everything in its path. People are swept away and consumed by the roaring rapids, decimating a small town in the process. The cutting between broad effects, close-up devastation and miniatures becomes seamless, creating chaos and destruction in a truly biblical level.
The effects, the birth of 2 stars and the elegance with which the whole film is created and tied together render it a wonderful example of mid-20’s epic filmmaking, where studios and directors were all out to top one another. The Johnstown Flood deserves to be placed alongside films by D.W. Griffith, C.B. Demille and Rex Ingram, but without this restoration that would have been impossible.
The Johnstown Flood is being released on physical media by The Film Preserve LTD and The Maltese Film Works and is available wherever Blu-rays are sold.
William Fox, the head of Fox Studios, committed to spare no expense in creating special effects that capture the destruction and devastation of the flood through an intricate combination of matte paintings, miniatures, and in-camera visual effects. Together, the effects must have overwhelmed a 1920’s audience and still largely hold up today. Water crashes through railroad cars, houses and forests, destroying everything in its path. People are swept away and consumed by the roaring rapids, decimating a small town in the process. The cutting between broad effects, close-up devastation and miniatures becomes seamless, creating chaos and destruction in a truly biblical level.
The effects, the birth of 2 stars and the elegance with which the whole film is created and tied together render it a wonderful example of mid-20’s epic filmmaking, where studios and directors were all out to top one another. The Johnstown Flood deserves to be placed alongside films by D.W. Griffith, C.B. Demille and Rex Ingram, but without this restoration that would have been impossible.
The Johnstown Flood is being released on physical media by The Film Preserve LTD and The Maltese Film Works and is available wherever Blu-rays are sold.
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