Noah's Ark

Two years after his last European film of the 1920s, filmmaker Michael Curtiz showed his range with this ambitious Warner Bros. production magnificently restored here to its fullest possible running length. Like the earlier The Ten Commandments, the two-pronged tale visits Biblical and modern times as it draws a parallel between two fateful eras. Colossal floodwaters roil, great structures topple, Noah and his family survive the worldwide destruction -- and vast destruction of another age lashes out as national hatreds erupt and World War I doughboys charge through the machine-gun hell of No Man's Land. The much-lauded flood sequence may have brought real-life doom with it: some sources say several extras drowned.

• drama