Totally agree! Without CGI in the past, filmmakers had to work hard to give movies great effects. The result is that the effects are better than CG stuff!
The high speed cameras used to slow down the action and make the miniature effects more realistic were incredibly expensive in 1933, and there were only three channels for sound (voice, music, effects). Imagine watching this movie, then going across the street to see King Kong in the same day.
Since forever, it seems, moviemakers have had the urge to destroy New York. Their argument seems to be: "Destruction is visually satisfying, and to make the strongest possible impression on Americans, one must destroy their icons. Not only once, but as often as possible."
City destruction, yes. Those scenes of people running? No, that'll never look good with only practical effects. Combining CGI and practical effects would be the best solution.
@leDespicable CGI looks good in those cases, but relying on it especially for water and simulating destruction always feels uncanny. I don't think there's been a movie that uses both CGI and assets to their best
The incredible special effects were accomplished under the supervision of Ned Mann. He did such a fantastic job that the Korda brothers, director Zoltan Korda and producer Alexander Korda, hired him to handle the special effects for the British features THINGS TO COME (1936), THE MAN WHO COULD WORK MIRACLES (1937), THE DIVORCE OF LADY X (1938), and a few others. If there had been an Oscar category for Best Visual Effects, DELUGE would have been nominated.
those miniatures are great, im curious as to how they were made, alot of them crumble and collapse so realistically as opposed to falling over like the stacked cardboard boxes in other films
0:40 There goes the Chrysler Building. 1:08 There goes a building in Times Square. 1:15 There goes the Empire State Building. 1:18 Looks like the spans of the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges have given out but the suspension towers remain standing. 1:25 There's the Statue of Liberty. 2:49 There's Grand Central Station (or what's left of it I should probably say). Now the tsunami is destroying the parts of the station that the earthquake didn't. 4:25 There's Lady Liberty again. Now she's the last recognizable thing in the damaged city. I hope that ship heading right towards her doesn't crash into her pedestal, which would cause the statue the giveaway and sink the ship. There's probably a few other famous New York skyscrapers that I missed, but either didn't know the names at the top of my head or were too damaged from the earthquake to recognize.
The amazing thing is, all this is just the beginning of the film, the rest is about the survivors. As Samuel Goldwyn said: "What we need is a picture that starts with an earthquake and builds to a climax."
The way the water flooded into the city and how the water washed up against the Statue of Liberty reminded me of 2 scenes from The Day after Tomorrow. But that's pretty impressive for a movie destruction scene in the 1930s!
Seeing the 9.6 earthquake in San Andreas where there are still buildings standing, while this film basically destroys everything even strong structures such as the Empire State Building, I would guess this quake would be at 50.0 magnitude. Even 10.5 or 10.9 (in 2012) could not produce that scale of destruction.
The scale is logarithmic, magnitude 50 implies such a ridiculously large number that I don't think you were aware of that fact. Leveling NYC probably doesn't need any super strong fictional earthquake, ESB might be strong but non-seismic buildings like it aren't going to survive something like a 8.5. The buildings in San Francisco should be much stronger, they actually were build with large earthquakes in mind.
New York City could not survive a 7.5 earthquake due to the fact that you have a lot of levels underground underneath buildings throughout the city that are probably 10 to maybe twelve stories under the streets of New York City and to top it off too. A lot of those buildings are substandard where they probably could not survive a 5.3 shaker that would shake for about maybe one two maybe three minutes that's probably not going to happen in the future but it possibly can be.
Meesmoth a 50? Bruh the meteor that killed of the dinos was a magnitude 15 theres no possible way a 50 could do that a mag 50 would probably rip apart the earth
Just imagine if King Kong was up there at 1:15. "Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes, it was this damn earthquake killed the bea-" (gets crushed by the insane earthquake)
Always wanted to see this movie (the FX mainly) ever since I was a kid. Thx uploader, this is one of the awesome things about TH-cam, finally being able to see great stuff.
If water droplets get too close to the camera it can ruin the sense of scale in flooding scenes. So they added a bit of detergent to the water to make whitewater, which makes the waves look bigger.
maybe you could remake by making it not black and white that wouldve make it better but i dont really care that no matter how bad or unrealistic a destruction scene is for me is still a destruction scene so it is still a good scene
This looks way more devastating and scary than plain CGI. imagine if they combined this technique with today's technology it would make for one hell of an effect!
You know VFX creators don’t care anymore when a movie from the 90s that is pretty much all practical effects looks better than the CGI in the majority of movies we see today
the only thing similar is the new york city tsunami day after tomorow doesnt have a earthquake and deluge doesnt have the world freeze over nor does deluge have a bunch if tornadoes
New York City has suffered for so long and so many times. Tsunami, earthquakes, comet crash, snowstorm, destruction by aliens, zombie attacks, nuclear blasts, deadly viruses etc.
Well looks like Titanic's sister ship, RMS Olympic, made a cameo appearance in this film during the tsunami scenes. Notice the four-funnel liner that looks similar to Titanic, and we all know only Olympic left in service, her career was still ongoing at that time. She was retired in the late 30s (can't remember the exact year), so the ship featured in this film is clearly Olympic.
Actually, yeah, it is most probably the Olympic. There were no other 4 funnel liners during that time that match the general description of that ship. The german, french, and cunard ships all had different funnels so it could not have been them, so it must have been olympic. The closest other ships I could find would be those Union Castle ships, but those ship's funnels had a darker colour.
I want to see this movie, but its very hard to find. This is the first disaster movie ever made, and the effects is very impressive for its time. Even some disaster movies today looks even more fake than this with its poor quality CGI.
first of all WOOOW never ever SEEN THIS OR HEARD OF IT UNTIL NOW!!! 1933??? my granny was born in 1931 and my grandfather was born in 1930 😳😳😳😳 my moms parents!! the effects are insanely crazy for this to be a 91 year old film!! what even blows my mind is the people who watched this film have passed away meaning we won’t ever see someone say “I was this age when this came out in the cinemas, the audience was screaming grasping almost passed out” nothing well maybe my great uncle on my fathers side which is my grandfather’s brother he was born in 1918 n is still alive today but idk if he’s seen this movie probably!! but wow the effects are super awesome I wanna make a disaster movie one day so I was doing research on earlier disaster films rather then the ones I grew up on this is dope now I wanna watch the entire movie
You don't know that this was the 1st disaster movie, you can't compare today's effects with back then, the acting was much better back then, no fake effects or green screen!
I may be 32 years old and a lover of old movies, but in all honesty, I have NEVER, repeat NEVER even heard of this movie, let alone watch it... until today (Wednesday, July 26, 2023)! I do admit though, the effects are impressive! What's disappointing is that other disaster movies after this one didn't have as good effects, even Earthquake which came out 4 decades later!
This is probably the best destruction scene of a city in the history of media. No Michael Bay like destruction, no over the top CGI, this is pure epicness! This is 1000000x better than The Day After Tomorrow.
It’s an interesting little movie. This scene comes at the beginning - the real focus of the movie is what comes after, how civilization can recover can overcome the inevitable battle of good vs bad.
They could’ve done it sparely, ‘cuz the more you show it, the effects start to wear out and you can see right on through. Less is more! Still better than with CGI.
If I was King Kong watching this from the perch of some bridge over the East River, I'dprobably shrug my shoulders and go book passage on the next boat heading to Skull Island.
On the one hand, it's cheesy and you can easily tell the buildings are just hallow models. And still, somehow CGI isn't all that much better. At the end of the day, practical effects win over CGI.
new york...king of city in the world..from..1920s..30s..40s...50s...60s...70s...80s...90s....and now 2000s...no1 big and glamors city in the world...from malaysia
Wow, I am impressed. Roland Emmerich has nothing on this. Well, I do like the flooding in Moonfall. But, this is great stuff. I love the shots of victims getting pulverized on upper floors as the buildings they are in collapse. If todays films could deliver this style of effects, like in the Good Ole Days of Toho, I would be delighted. CGI is so boring. Wasn't that the Public Library at 2:49?
I have to admit, for 1933, this is an awesome destruction.
The high expense, more astounding the sheer *time,* it took to make these scenes proves there used to be talent in hoIIywood.
Me too
@@kriskaiser33 it's long time ago of this place in New York!
Totally agree! Without CGI in the past, filmmakers had to work hard to give movies great effects. The result is that the effects are better than CG stuff!
Without this film, there would not be ANY major disaster movies!
Wow, considering this is nearly a 90 year old movie, the effects are spectacular!
It becomes even more impressive considering that this movie was made on a budget of less than $200k .
@Christophe Leclair bruh what
Now it is 90 Years old
That is because it is R E A L !
The high speed cameras used to slow down the action and make the miniature effects more realistic were incredibly expensive in 1933, and there were only three channels for sound (voice, music, effects). Imagine watching this movie, then going across the street to see King Kong in the same day.
Money well spent! Time to end the day with supper at the soup kitchen
Since forever, it seems, moviemakers have had the urge to destroy New York. Their argument seems to be: "Destruction is visually satisfying, and to make the strongest possible impression on Americans, one must destroy their icons. Not only once, but as often as possible."
honestly, i prefer real life sets being destroyed rather than cgi.
Yeah cgi looks kind of ugly most of the time
Always. Even in 2020, CGI looks fake because it can never simulate depth well. It's a cartoon.
City destruction, yes. Those scenes of people running? No, that'll never look good with only practical effects. Combining CGI and practical effects would be the best solution.
@leDespicable CGI looks good in those cases, but relying on it especially for water and simulating destruction always feels uncanny. I don't think there's been a movie that uses both CGI and assets to their best
The Day After Tomorrow: 1933 edition.
You read my mind. Deluge was ahead of its time showcasing New York devastated by a tsunami. Day After Tomorrow before Day After Tomorrow
And Also 2012 for some earthquake L.A scenes
The incredible special effects were accomplished under the supervision of Ned Mann. He did such a fantastic job that the Korda brothers, director Zoltan Korda and producer Alexander Korda, hired him to handle the special effects for the British features THINGS TO COME (1936), THE MAN WHO COULD WORK MIRACLES (1937), THE DIVORCE OF LADY X (1938), and a few others. If there had been an Oscar category for Best Visual Effects, DELUGE would have been nominated.
Thank you. This is very impressive and I'm glad to have your input!
those miniatures are great, im curious as to how they were made, alot of them crumble and collapse so realistically as opposed to falling over like the stacked cardboard boxes in other films
Deluge was the first film to capture the total destruction of New York City, it was filmed entirely in Los Angeles.
This is amazing filmmaking. Just think about the fact that this was shot nearly 90 years ago.
0:40 There goes the Chrysler Building.
1:08 There goes a building in Times Square.
1:15 There goes the Empire State Building.
1:18 Looks like the spans of the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges have given out but the suspension towers remain standing.
1:25 There's the Statue of Liberty.
2:49 There's Grand Central Station (or what's left of it I should probably say). Now the tsunami is destroying the parts of the station that the earthquake didn't.
4:25 There's Lady Liberty again. Now she's the last recognizable thing in the damaged city. I hope that ship heading right towards her doesn't crash into her pedestal, which would cause the statue the giveaway and sink the ship.
There's probably a few other famous New York skyscrapers that I missed, but either didn't know the names at the top of my head or were too damaged from the earthquake to recognize.
I know that it's late but I think that in 3:15 the two tallest remaining buildings are Woolworth and Equitable Building.
3:16 remnents of chrysler and empire state building
The Public Library gets it at 2:49
GREAT EYE... YOUR ON POINT 👑🦁
3:45 the Woolworth building (without a roof) collapses
Those poor model makers ! Seeing all their hard work crumbling into dust !
The amazing thing is, all this is just the beginning of the film, the rest is about the survivors. As Samuel Goldwyn said: "What we need is a picture that starts with an earthquake and builds to a climax."
The way the water flooded into the city and how the water washed up against the Statue of Liberty reminded me of 2 scenes from The Day after Tomorrow. But that's pretty impressive for a movie destruction scene in the 1930s!
Magnitude 20.999 Earthquake 1:54
Seeing the 9.6 earthquake in San Andreas where there are still buildings standing, while this film basically destroys everything even strong structures such as the Empire State Building, I would guess this quake would be at 50.0 magnitude. Even 10.5 or 10.9 (in 2012) could not produce that scale of destruction.
The scale is logarithmic, magnitude 50 implies such a ridiculously large number that I don't think you were aware of that fact.
Leveling NYC probably doesn't need any super strong fictional earthquake, ESB might be strong but non-seismic buildings like it aren't going to survive something like a 8.5.
The buildings in San Francisco should be much stronger, they actually were build with large earthquakes in mind.
New York City could not survive a 7.5 earthquake due to the fact that you have a lot of levels underground underneath buildings throughout the city that are probably 10 to maybe twelve stories under the streets of New York City and to top it off too. A lot of those buildings are substandard where they probably could not survive a 5.3 shaker that would shake for about maybe one two maybe three minutes that's probably not going to happen in the future but it possibly can be.
They are overdue an earthquake so it will take their minds off the Covid 19 pandemic.
Meesmoth a 50? Bruh the meteor that killed of the dinos was a magnitude 15 theres no possible way a 50 could do that a mag 50 would probably rip apart the earth
This film was an adaptation of the 1928 science fiction novel "Deluge : A Romance" by the British SciFi author Sidney Fowler Wright.
Yes, and that was followed by a sequel entitled Dawn. Both are well worth reading. Wright was also a fine writer of short stories.
The collapsing buildings look great much effort must have gone into their construction!.
Just imagine if King Kong was up there at 1:15.
"Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes, it was this damn earthquake killed the bea-" (gets crushed by the insane earthquake)
Basically 2020 in one day
Wow, I've never seen this before! Epic effects for the time. Heck, better than most of the 50s and 60s. Came out the same year as King Kong.
Always wanted to see this movie (the FX mainly) ever since I was a kid. Thx uploader, this is one of the awesome things about TH-cam, finally being able to see great stuff.
If water droplets get too close to the camera it can ruin the sense of scale in flooding scenes. So they added a bit of detergent to the water to make whitewater, which makes the waves look bigger.
What I wouldn't give for a remake of this. Still destroying models without cgi, but instead of 1933 NYC, it would be 2019 NYC
ah, just wait a few decades. you won't need any special effects at all.
@@SpaceHunterM harhar.
@@SpaceHunterM hahaha
maybe you could remake by making it not black and white that wouldve make it better but i dont really care that no matter how bad or unrealistic a destruction scene is for me is still a destruction scene so it is still a good scene
Wow, I didn't know about this predictive programming. And in 19-33 too.
This looks way more devastating and scary than plain CGI. imagine if they combined this technique with today's technology it would make for one hell of an effect!
I wouldn’t say that lol
This technique is way too basic however, but they could imitate it if that’s what you mean
You know VFX creators don’t care anymore when a movie from the 90s that is pretty much all practical effects looks better than the CGI in the majority of movies we see today
@@TrickyPJM752 uh, yeah they do. What are you talking about
@@zenthous9568 Look at She-Hulk or Black Panther compared to Independence Day (1996)
I disagree with some comments and find it more effective than much CGI of today. Peggy Shannon gave a fabulous performance in this movie.
this celery stick I just ate agreed with me though
1933 Statue of Liberty 🗽 tsunami
I've been looking for this scene since forever
This makes Roland Emmerich's disaster sequences (ID4 to 2012) seem elementary.
And this was made in 1933. Deluge is precursor to Roland Emmerich's The Day After Tomorrow
the only thing similar is the new york city tsunami day after tomorow doesnt have a earthquake and deluge doesnt have the world freeze over nor does deluge have a bunch if tornadoes
no they don't. that's just silly.
New York City has suffered for so long and so many times.
Tsunami, earthquakes, comet crash, snowstorm, destruction by aliens, zombie attacks, nuclear blasts, deadly viruses etc.
Why do I giggle when I hear and see the looped people running in terror?
I guess the special-effects-chief Ned Mann would be chief of Spielbergs Dreamwork nowadays :-)
Well looks like Titanic's sister ship, RMS Olympic, made a cameo appearance in this film during the tsunami scenes. Notice the four-funnel liner that looks similar to Titanic, and we all know only Olympic left in service, her career was still ongoing at that time. She was retired in the late 30s (can't remember the exact year), so the ship featured in this film is clearly Olympic.
it's only a model.
It doesn't look like Olympic in the least bit though. The superstructure looks nothing like her.
Not exact, but I thought the same as you - a four-funnelled liner with White Star colours, must be 'Olympic-class'.
I see TITANIC 1912
2:11
3:35
I thought the titanic sank
Actually, yeah, it is most probably the Olympic. There were no other 4 funnel liners during that time that match the general description of that ship. The german, french, and cunard ships all had different funnels so it could not have been them, so it must have been olympic. The closest other ships I could find would be those Union Castle ships, but those ship's funnels had a darker colour.
1:32 DAY AFTER TOMORROW
Still holds up to some of the stuff I see today tbh
I want to see this movie, but its very hard to find. This is the first disaster movie ever made, and the effects is very impressive for its time.
Even some disaster movies today looks even more fake than this with its poor quality CGI.
Actually the first disaster movie was The Comet from 1910.
Deluge (1933)
th-cam.com/video/6d35Got0OKQ/w-d-xo.html
Also check out the re-creation of the San Francisco earthquake as depicted in THE SHOCK (1926).
@@IAmJimRetzer The movie "San Francisco" from 1936 has the best depiction of the 1906 quake
@@54GodzillaFan can you send me please ? :)
How that tiny building fall and crack like that I'm so impressed, I think building mad of from powder or something 😁
I’m here because of corrider crew, this looks sick for 1933
This must have been something for people in 1933 to see looks great wow
Imagine if this had won an oscar for special effects.
This looks like it would've been tons of fun to make.
Impressionnant. Il paraît que ce film avait disparu. Quelle chance pour nous de pouvoir en profiter.
Very good ! The tidal wave is excellent.
1:14 Empire State Building
1:25 Statue of Liberty
4:25
2:51 Grand Central Terminal
Man that must of been a 12 on the Richter scale!!!
first of all WOOOW never ever SEEN THIS OR HEARD OF IT UNTIL NOW!!! 1933??? my granny was born in 1931 and my grandfather was born in 1930 😳😳😳😳 my moms parents!! the effects are insanely crazy for this to be a 91 year old film!! what even blows my mind is the people who watched this film have passed away meaning we won’t ever see someone say “I was this age when this came out in the cinemas, the audience was screaming grasping almost passed out” nothing well maybe my great uncle on my fathers side which is my grandfather’s brother he was born in 1918 n is still alive today but idk if he’s seen this movie probably!! but wow the effects are super awesome I wanna make a disaster movie one day so I was doing research on earlier disaster films rather then the ones I grew up on this is dope now I wanna watch the entire movie
Farmers: We covered it! We know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two! We are Farmers Bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah!
😆
I gotta say, model building destruction is a whole lot better than CGI destruction.
Incredible with mode fast 2x
Felix E. Feist is the early 20th Century version of Michael Bay... This is a Michael Bay preview that we weren't ready for...
muchos planos de esta escena estan mucho mejor logrados que peliculas actuales
0:34 - 0:35 you can obviously see a cut there.
They finally found the English print of this movie?
You don't know that this was the 1st disaster movie, you can't compare today's effects with back then, the acting was much better back then, no fake effects or green screen!
thank you great almighty film historian I had no idea whatsoever
SpaceHunterM l just know these things, my dad watched TCM and the History channel.
*lol*
Mark Peters this aint the first disaster movie the first one ive heard of is from 1910
This sequence has several shots using travelling mattes, which are the film version of green screen chroma-key used in video.
I saw this movie. It was called The Day After Tomorrow (huge wave hitting New York).
I like how the clips where there are people screaming and running are actually just sped up footage of people walking on the streets.
Damn these effects were awesome for it’s time
I may be 32 years old and a lover of old movies, but in all honesty, I have NEVER, repeat NEVER even heard of this movie, let alone watch it... until today (Wednesday, July 26, 2023)! I do admit though, the effects are impressive! What's disappointing is that other disaster movies after this one didn't have as good effects, even Earthquake which came out 4 decades later!
how did they make it so realistic!
1:33 - that must be how she finished up buried on the beach!
Greek mythology: Sinking of Atlantis
1933: Sinking of New York
2012: Sinking of Los Angeles
Los efectos especiales son magníficos y son de hace 90 años atrás.. Y esta película es de la misma casa productora de King Kong RKO RADIO.
2:09 really like how well designed those ocean liners are
I wish people still destroyed models for movies
Considering this movie is pushing 90 years ago, that would have been state of the art special effects back in those days.
It is a very disturbing scene. No one could have survive that scale of destruction.
Many did,and they rebuit
This is probably the best destruction scene of a city in the history of media. No Michael Bay like destruction, no over the top CGI, this is pure epicness! This is 1000000x better than The Day After Tomorrow.
I think some of this footage was used at the end of the cliffhanger serial, "King of the Rocket Men" from 1949.
It’s an interesting little movie. This scene comes at the beginning - the real focus of the movie is what comes after, how civilization can recover can overcome the inevitable battle of good vs bad.
Special effects are really awesome judging from the period when this movie was produced.
Wow! They went all in and did the work. I hope it wowed audiences.
0:15 There it goes Earthquake New York
1:19 There is at Massive Tsunami New York
Fascinating to watch pre-CG practical FX at work, particularly when the art of FX was still in relatively early infancy!
WOW! This is incredible. I didn't Knowles this movie!!!!!
Wow, this is crazy impressive.
That's pretty impressive considering the time!
This 90 old film is great
Statue of liberty🗽 WIN
Way better than "2012".
Pretty good effects for 1933, but did they have to make the buildings out of cake?
They could’ve done it sparely, ‘cuz the more you show it, the effects start to wear out and you can see right on through. Less is more! Still better than with CGI.
Who this is way ahead of it's time?...the special Effects are Great 👍
Well done movie. I'm impressed
If I was King Kong watching this from the perch of some bridge over the East River, I'dprobably shrug my shoulders and go book passage on the next boat heading to Skull Island.
Honestly, this scene is much better than CGI.
Yes
Just like New York got destroy by the waterfall from The Day After Tomorrow (2004) right.
san andreas 1933 version
On the one hand, it's cheesy and you can easily tell the buildings are just hallow models. And still, somehow CGI isn't all that much better.
At the end of the day, practical effects win over CGI.
dang this is actually better than CGI, but i wonder what would it look like in the movie 2012
1:15 Empire State Building gets destroyed
How have I NEVER HEARD OF OR SEEN this movie!?!? Pretty damn good for 1933.....I bet it blew minds left & right back then!
new york...king of city in the world..from..1920s..30s..40s...50s...60s...70s...80s...90s....and now 2000s...no1 big and glamors city in the world...from malaysia
Guy: All east river bridg--
Building: Ight imma collapse.
In 1933 NYC and NY has been hit by an earthquake and a tsunami hit the city
Did this actually happen?
no
Master piece for 1933
heavy "Big O" energy
The soundtrack!
Holy crap that was awesome
kenny everett video show brought me here (1978) :-)
And you thought Deep Impact was the first time NYC was hit by a tsunami ....
Forgetting about The Day After Tomorrow massive storm surge/tsunami wiping out NYC
What happened
i love times like this
100 times better than today's indian films
Wow, I am impressed. Roland Emmerich has nothing on this. Well, I do like the flooding in Moonfall. But, this is great stuff. I love the shots of victims getting pulverized on upper floors as the buildings they are in collapse. If todays films could deliver this style of effects, like in the Good Ole Days of Toho, I would be delighted. CGI is so boring. Wasn't that the Public Library at 2:49?