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Academy Award Winner Janet Gaynor appears in her first major role as Anna Burger, a love-struck teenage girl smitten with the dashing, but unavailable Tom O’Day, played by George O’Brien. Tom is an engineer for the Hamilton Lumber Company and engaged to the owner’s daughter Gloria, played by Florence Gilbert. He warns the owners of the imminent failure of the dam, only to be ignored, leaving it up to Anna to try to save her community from impending disaster. The Johnstown Flood captures one of the great American tragedies, when over 2000 lives were lost in 1889 because of the inaction of a wealthy group ignoring the dangers of the dam they’d failed to maintain. Almost a century old, The Johnstown Flood has been newly restored from unique surviving film elements. It’s a thrilling drama and a prime example of the cutting edge special effects techniques that emerged at the end of the silent era. The all star cast also features George Reed, Walter Perry and Max Davidson, with cameos by Clark Gable, Carole Lombard and Florence Lawrence. The Johnstown Flood is a classic silent film and essential to every film enthusiast’s collection.

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Addiction, nonmonogamy, and female sexual liberation: decades before such ideas were widely discussed, Dorothy Arzner, the only woman to work as a director in 1930s Hollywood, brought them to the screen with striking frankness, sophistication, and wit—a mature treatment that stands out even in the pre-Code era. Fredric March (in one of four collaborations with Arzner) and Sylvia Sidney turn in extraordinary performances as the urbane couple whose relationship is pushed to the breaking point by his alcoholism and wandering eye—leading them into an emotionally explosive experiment with an open marriage. Exposing the hypocrisies and petty cruelties simmering beneath the surface of high-society elegance, Merrily We Go to Hell is a scathing early-feminist commentary on modern marriage. BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack • Dorothy Arzner: Longing for Women, a 1983 documentary by Katja Raganelli and Konrad Wickler • New video essay by film historian Cari Beauchamp • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing • PLUS: An essay by film scholar Judith Mayne Top About this item Similar From the Brand Reviews Merrily We Go to Hell (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]