The Johnstown Flood is a 1926 film directed by Irving Cummings.
It is a fictionalized dramatization of the infamous Johnstown Flood
of 1889, which killed 2200 people. Tom O'Day is the handsome, square-jawed chief engineer of the Hamilton logging camp and mill. Tom is in love with Gloria, niece of mill owner John Hamilton. Uncle John does not approve. Also in the picture is Anna Burger (Janet Gaynor in her film debut), daughter of one of Tom's coworkers, who is hopelessly in love with him.
There are however more important matters afoot. Tom has observed that Hamilton's dam—necessary to keep the waters high, so Hamilton can float his lumber down the river to Pittsburgh—is in urgent need of repair. However, shutting down operations to fix the dam would cost Hamilton a million dollar lumber contract, so, Hamilton, conspiring with his minion Peyton who directs operations at the dam, ignores Tom's warnings. It's a mistake.
Carole Lombard, who would become a huge star, can be seen as one of Gloria's four friends/bridesmaids. Two other future megastars, Clark Gable and Gary Cooper, are extras.
Tropes:
- Big Dam Plot: After Hamilton ignores Tom's warnings, the dam bursts, destroying the town and killing a lot of people.
- Big Heroic Run: Anna, on horseback on the way to the wedding, sees the dam starting to give way. In a big action sequence she gallops around town, screaming stuff like "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! THE DAM! THE DAM!" She is mostly too late, as the flood hits the church moments after she's made it to deliver the news.
- Blackface: Two blackface entertainers play at the local vaudeville theater.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Hamilton, owner of the sawmill and the dam, who ignores Tom's warnings and then sends goons to take control of the dam, because he doesn't want to lose the mining contract.
- Disaster Movie: The Ur-Example, coming seven years before 1933's Deluge. A dam breaks and destroys Johnstown.
- Distant Finale: The last title card says that Johnstown was rebuilt. Mr. Mandel has bought an automobile, and Tom and Gloria have a son of school age.
- Ear Trumpet: For some old-timey detail, one of the townspeople confronting Hamilton is using an ear trumpet.
- Ignored Expert: Hamilton and Peyton, not wanting to lose out on the big dam contract, ignore Tom's warning that the dam must be immediately repaired lest it break after a storm surge. Disaster follows.
- Leg Focus: A random gag has some of the men of the town, out on the street, admiring the calves of women boarding the trolley.
- Love Triangle: Tom, Gloria, and Anna who is desperately in love with Tom. If this film had been made a year or two later after Gaynor had broken out as a huge star, the ending might well have been changed.
- Mrs. Hypothetical: A love-sick Anna writes "Thomas O'Day" on a piece of paper and beneath it writes "Mrs. Thomas O'Day."
- Oblivious to Love: Tom is completely unaware of Anna's feelings for him, not even figuring it out when she brings him sandwiches for lunch at work.
- The Runt at the End: The Johnstown baseball team comes out of a building. A bunch of burly dudes, and then one short guy a head shorter than the rest.
- Scooby Stack: Gloria's four friends do this, when they are snooping through a cracked-open door to listen to Gloria and Tom's conversation.
- A Storm Is Coming: More plot-relevant than most. Tom sees gathering storm clouds, which are a problem because heavy rains could make the dam give way. At the end that's what happens.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: There certainly was a disastrous flood caused when the South Fork Dam failed in 1889. But the entire story of Tom the engineer giving warnings, Hamilton the mill owner ignoring them, the love triangle, Anna's race to warn the town, is all fictional. What happened in Real Life was that a bunch of rich industrialists led by Henry Clay Frick made alterations to the dam so they could stock it with fish for their private fishing club, alterations that greatly weakened the dam and caused the disaster.
- Wedding Smashers: An unconventional example, as it's a huge wall of water that hits the church during Tom and Gloria's wedding ceremony, mere seconds after Anna has shown up to warn them.
