Today’s Sunday Matinee is a apocalyptic disaster film from 1933 Deluge. The movie was a modest hit when it was released but it after it’s special effects footage was reused in a couple of Republic serials the movie became one of the unfortunate lost films. In 1981 an Italian dubbed version was found and that is how it’s been viewed since until now.

Kino Lorber is releasing a brand new 2K restored print on Blu-ray February 21. This new print was discovered in the archives of the Centre National du Cinéma et de L’Image Animée in France. The print was restored and the movie was given a limited theatrical release (as usual no where near here) and now folks can finally see the movie the way it was originally 84 years ago.

Reports are coming in around the world of massive climate changes. Earthquakes are destroying countries and tsunamis have been created threatening New York City. The West coast is totally wiped out. Martin Webster (Sidney Blackmer) is trying to get his wife Helen (Lois Wilson) and their two children to safety when they get separated and the earthquakes and tsunamis hit New York.

In the aftermath Martin believes that Helen and the kids are dead. Meanwhile world class swimmer Claire (Peggy Shannon) finds herself on an island with two unscrupulous men. When she manages to flee one of the men follows. Claire finds Martin and the two fall in love. Meanwhile Helen and the kids are still alive but believe that Martin is dead.

This is one of the first movies to show the total destruction of New York City. Hollywood has been imitating it since. The movie isn’t bad, the post destruction stuff is mostly melodrama but the destruction scenes are fantastic. The copy used since the 1980s was dubbed in Italian so if you wanted to watch the film you had to read subtitles and watch a bad dub. It’s awesome to finally have the film restored.