User reviews

Back in the 70'Schick-Sunn Classic Films was based out of Salt Lake City, Utah where they did many documentaries and a TV series (Grizzly Adams) I had the opportunity to work on many of their films. Sometimes as an animal trainer/actor/stuntman and other crew member. We had a lot of fun in the making of "Noah's Ark" where I played one of Noah's sons as will as handling some of the bigger animals (Lions/Bears etc.)I always liked this film as it was done with a lot of research and people who went to Mount Arat to find the Ark.All the actors we're local actors from SLC Utah. The film did not get much exposure and I have not seen it since it was released in the 70's.

Seriously, this is one of the first movies I have a conscious recollection of seeing, 1976 sounds about right (I would have been nine). Mom probably saw the G rating and decided this would be a diverting way to keep us out of her face for a couple hours one Saturday afternoon.

I have no memory of the film's story (though presented as a documentary the bulk of it is about as factually based as your standard Godzilla movie) though certain visual images like the pathetic Ark model used bobbing around in a tank look familiar. No, the moment etched into my brain like battery acid was when some idiot playing an ancient explorer climbing Mount Ararat in search of the Ark takes a dive off a cliff.

The event both horrified me as a budding young outdoorsman, but was so patently obviously FAKE that my two brothers and I couldn't shut up talking about it and laughing about how stupid yet cool it was at the same time for the rest of the weekend -- A glorious bit of cognitive dissonance for a 9 year old mind to entertain. Then again Star Trek, the Six Million Dollar Man, cartoons, everything that was cool sort of had a dumb, fake side to it. The moment stuck with me for 34 years so it must have been impressive at 1:85:1 in a theater.

I never encountered the movie again until a buddy with a shared taste for the bizarre loaned me his long out of print tape. The movie itself is competently made but has all the overkill of a propaganda film, which is an apt way to describe the content. The film doesn't posit the theory that the Ark might be on Mount Ararat, the film regards it as a foregone conclusion with the actual location of the remains of the Ark simply being a formality yet to be dealt with. Eventually somebody will find it, you see, and then everyone will know. Uh huh.

There's also some shameless Bible-thumping going on, with what we would now regard as religious overtones to nearly every aspect of how this unlikely story is told, all of it narrated with grave authority by Brad Crandall, the voice of a number of these low budget pseudo-documentaries. As far as science or a study of history it's pretty absurd, but in terms of tapping in to a basic need within humans to be entertained by ridiculous garbage this movie has some legs. Put it on a double bill with CHARIOTS OF THE GODS in a little art house venue next to the medical marijuana store and it would sell out every night, likely to the same crowd every night. Pot heads eat this stuff up like Doritos.

It's all so sincere, so cloyingly convinced, so eager for its viewers to be swept up in rapt awe at what is essentially a hoax (another reader here comments on that aspect). But it's still entertaining with a sort of bizarre poker faced hamminess about it that only somebody really challenged by the mysteries of life would be tempted to take any of it seriously. Even as nine year olds, me and my brothers knew this was just too fake. Nice to find out we were right on the money.

4/10

Brad Crandall hosts this film directed by James L. Conway, which presents speculation on how Noah's ark may be found on Mount Ararat in Turkey, and how various expeditions are trying to prove this as fact, going so far as claiming that some wood pieces are from the ark itself, but only carbon dating can prove such a thing.

Brad Crandall's distinctive voice (very deep and matter of fact) suits this film well, and it did hold my interest for the most part, though some re-enactments of Noah's escape from the flood may be viewed as hokey, I enjoyed the approach for the nostalgic value it provides, and the earnestness with which it is told.

Only available on VHS, let's hope this can one day see an HD release, perhaps paired with other such Schick Sunn Classic films.

I have this on tape and I'm not sure why. I enjoy watching it but I don't believe it. I do find it amusing how several other reviews refer to it as "Christian" when the story of Noah predates Christianity by 2 thousand years or more and is included in the Jewish and Muslim teachings as well - shows what they know (or do not know)about the bible and theology. In any case, whether or not you are a believer, this movie is totally unconvincing. I do not understand how so many people could have climbed the mountain with the sole purpose of finding the ark, and yet not one photograph or piece of video of the ark, exists after all of these endeavors. Oh the movie claims a guy found it and drew maps but he died, a guy photographed it from a helicopter but he was murdered etc. but the most amusing story is that of two atheists that were led up by a Christian and saw it. They became so outraged they wanted to destroy it and kill the Christian! But... one asked the other "If we kill him how will we find our way back...?" so they spare this hapless person's life in exchange for his guidance and silence! Yea right! "How will we get back?" - let's see, you're up on a mountain... seems to me you head in a downward direction and you'll be "back" when you get to the bottom! The man finally breaks his silence on his deathbed. Right! I think Bill Cosby's story of Noah is more credible than this one. This movie could not convince even the most gullible viewer but for some reason I find it entertaining. Perhaps the absurdity of it amuses me, I don't know, it might be convincing if we were still living in 1976 when it was made but not today.

This movie was a lot like the earlier von Däniken books and movies like "Chariots of the Gods". But instead of attributing the mysteries of the world to space aliens, this movie started with existing Bible stories about the Great Flood. So instead of promoting space alien sensationalism, this movie exploits literal Bible belief.

As a child watching the movie, the documentary tone was interesting, but even then its "science" seemed backed up by people seeking to match a story to anything they could discover, rather than explain evidence they could find. If the movie was unconvincing to even me as a child, it didn't do its job as a documentary. The movie has nothing to prove -- a Bible literalist would believe the movie's claims before seeing it, and no one else would find the movie credible. It lacks even camp entertainment value.

My dad took me to see this film in 1976. I was 5, and bored to tears. You know a movie is bad when at 5 one can differentiate a toy boat in a disturbed bathtub from an ark on an angry ocean.

My dad was responsible for a lot of awful movies as a young child. It is amazing I grew up to love films after some of the things he dragged me to. Runners up include Pete's Dragon, and Popeye.

Curiously, I have kept an eye out for In Search of Noah's Ark, hoping to catch it out of the blue on television over the years. But, alas, no luck. I'm surprised there are so many people who remember this movie. Wow. Now I don't feel so alone.

I looked it up here on IMDB, because I remember it as the worst movie I ever saw ! The 4.6 Rating surprised me as way too high. If you love infantile dialog, grammar school special effects, and illogical fake facts, this is the film for you. It's truly laughable. As I know the theater where I saw it, with some friends, was filled with uncontrollable laughter! I do recall the first outburst of laughter in the theater was right towards the beginning when after a number of nonsensical supposedly logical "facts", they said something to the effect of "That scientifically proves without a doubt the proof that there was a historical Noah." One of only a few movies in my whole life, (I'm 70) where I walked out before the end. I was in good company, as by the time I left most others had emptied the theater before me.

This was played of as sort of an epic adventure, and 95% of the thing is like a newscast, focused on the anchorperson. (ie a man sitting at a desk talking....) This was perhaps the most boring thing I ever saw, and the subject matter IS of particular interest to me....

It's really a neat little film, unless you're a pseudo intellect-bore who's trying to impress everyone like bgard08 did. Yes, there was a discredited individual, but much of what is stated (albeit in 70's docudrama style) is still fact...ie: evidence of a flood, the story, other sighting if the ark etc...

As for the Shroud....anybody who actually knows what he's talking about...knows that the 'conclusive' tests have ALSO now been discredited....and done so by members of the very team that performed the Carbon test as well as the creator of test. This is a fact. They are waiting to re-do with a piece of the main Shroud. So, don't be so damn smug , ya jackass.

What I read at the time is that there is indeed a great boat-like thing up on that mountain. Apparently someone built something that they thought the Ark must have looked like up there, presumably hauling it up the mountain in pieces. Must have been a swell job. Apparently it's still up there, causing confusion.

The article I read (maybe in Newsweek) said that the bogus ark wasn't built there to deceive anyone, but was done as an act of religious devotion. It makes a good deal of sense. As for the original Flood, the Mesopotamian region has flooded now and again with sufficient ferocity to support any sort of a Deluge story you'd care to write about.

The movie wasn't distributed through regular channels. The promoters simply chose a theater in each town and rented it out for a few nights. They ran the advertisements themselves.

My aunt (who is a "Jesus freak")took me to see this movie at the theater back in the 70's and even at a young age (6 or 7) I was in awe. Sure some of the science in the video may be biased, but it was the thrill of the "what if's" that made this move great. The whole world tells the story of a flood, and regardless of whether it was a localized flood, or a universal one, the mere thought of the Ark of Noah still being in existence was thrilling.

Much of what was talked about in this movie is in fact "fact". Much of it of course is speculation, but as with science fiction, what was science fiction in the past is now fact. Archeology is the same way. Problem is, to may modern scientists choose to ignore the obvious, or choose to withhold from public view, anything that refutes their beliefs. Who knows what ancient mysteries the earth still holds!

I vaguely remember seeing this movie on TV as a kid. And while I only remember a few actual scenes - I distinctly remember buying into everything the movie said at the time, only to realize years later that pretty much all of it was bull-plop.

A lot of what the movie said was simply false. There have never been any confirmed expeditions that actually found anything remotely resembling Noah's Ark in Turkey or anywhere else.

Other things the movie presented were not exactly false - but nonetheless extremely deceiving. I remember a number of scenes in which a toy boat of the same supposed dimensions of the Ark bobbed in a bathtub while crew members shook the bathtub to simulate waves which would amount to 40-foot tidal waves if the toy Ark were actual size. Lo and behold - the toy Ark didn't sink, thus confirming (at least in the narrator's view) that such a design of real size could survive actual 40-foot tidal waves. Nice analogy - but total rubbish nonetheless since a basic principle of increasing size and mass is that while the strength of an object increases proportionately with its surface area, its weight increases proportionately with its entire volume. It's why you can drop an ant from a height that would amount to a 1000-foot drop for a person, and it will scamper away without so much as a sore ankle. And of course the dedicated scientists who made this movie placed toy boats of different designs into the same bathtub as a control group to demonstrate that only the toy boat that looked like the Ark wasn't crushed by the proportionate 40-foot tidal waves produced by jiggling the tub. And after that world peace broke out, Hillary volunteered to go to jail for violating federal security laws, and Trump released all of his tax records.

While the movie itself is quite bad, it is nonetheless an interesting example of how and why false information spreads so rapidly, and that it is a twofold phenomenon - those who disseminate false information, and those who believe it.

This movie is one that I vividly remember as a child. I have recently ordered it for my children to watch it and greatly like the movie. It shows and discusses points that are covered in the Bible. It would be nice if we could get a modern research team up on the mountain to view and explore the sites and document it all again. I recommend this movie to anyone who is interested in the Ark and believes in the Bible. I wish I could have found the movie several years ago. I was in Turkey back in 1988 and at that time being in the military we were not allowed to go to the site. I would have liked to have a copy of the movie to show to some of the people I worked with there that had never heard of it. I do believe that the documentary depicts what is there. Although it never really shows any proof, many images from space and aircraft have at times shown sightings of the outline of the ark. If you look at the stats. The top 3,000 feet of the mountain, from 14k to 17k is under a large snow and ice cap. If it is as the Bible says then when it rested on top of the mountain, then at that altitude, the rain and moisture would have frozen the ark into the mountain. Somewhere under the ice and snow I am sure it rests today.

Ignoring the rest execrable "science" on display in this witless film, this movie was a part of a hoax. The individual who brought down pieces of the alleged Ark actually cooked them in his oven at home to "age" them. Naturally the credulous producers took him at his word.

I suppose this film is worthy for the undiscriminating, desperate Christian viewer, but all others should avoid unless a good laugh (a la "Plan 9 from Outer Space") is what you are looking for.

Of course, if you are the sort who still believes the Shroud of Turin is real, then you won't care.

This film needs to be categorized as "fiction."

Thank you.

Cheers.

This movie is really dated but it is incredible evidence.

A must see movie

. There's so many different accounts in this movie.

You've just got to watch it.

I promise you'll never be the same.

But watch with an open mind.

Don't make a decision as to how real it is beforehand.

These people just wanted to see if there really is/was an ark and there IS. They even do this experiment trying to disprove that the ark would float but it shows it floated fine. I recommend it. Highly.

Re 'The individual who brought down pieces of the alleged Ark actually cooked them in his oven at home to "age" them'.

You're thinking of George Jammal, who appeared in CBS's 'The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark' in 1993 - and, yes, ultimately proved to be a hoaxer.

Jammal wasn't in the 1976 film.

The 1976 film is still certainly worth a watch today...in fact, I wouldn't mind seeing a remake of it, re-examining the accounts of eyewitnesses sources from 1976 and investigating claims of sighting which have taken place over the past 25 years.

This was the first of the great 1970's Sunn Classic Picture films and what a subject. Was there really a man named Noah? Did God really destroy the world with a universal deluge? Finally are the remains of the Ark still on Mount Araratt today? The re-enactment of the flood is very well handled and you will really get hooked into solving this mystery of the ark no matter what your religious views and beliefs are. They tell of a boy named George Hagopian who visited the ark as a boy in 1902 and told his story before he died in 1972. He said his uncle boosted him up and he actually walked on the roof! Imagine that! I was also impressed by the story of the Russian aviators who found the ark while flying over Mount Ararat in 1916. The Czar sent a special expedition to the Ark and they found it and took photos and even went inside it and found hundreds of stalls and cages. Unfortunately, this evidence was lost when the Godless Communists took over the government. Another intriguing story was that of George Greene. He was an oil worker flying in helicopter who took six photos of the ark sticking out of a glacier. Unfortunately, he was murdered and the photos disappeared without a trace. We know they existed, however, because there were over thirty people who signed statements saying they had seen them and described exactly what they showed. A satellite even took a space picture of a stange formation on the mountain that could be the Ark. Since this movie was made, there was a man who took two pictures on the mountain that seemed to show the Ark broken in two. Does it really exist? This movie examines this fascinating possibility and its lots of fun. This is the only Sunn Classic film that I know of that is out on video and I recommend it highly.