Word: japheth
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...essence, their arguments are: 1) God directed that Noah's sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, should found three different races; 2) God gave the races separate languages at the building of the tower of Babel to ensure their staying apart...
...great fear was art that did not honestly jibe with its model, life. "Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham and, I think, Japheth. The only thing Ham noted was that his father was a drunkard; he completely lost sight of the fact that Noah was a genius, that he built an ark and saved the world. Writing people ought not imitate...
They are perhaps meant to seem agelessly racial. Noah may be hooted at when he first reveals God's warning of the Flood; but he is to be feared and obeyed, and can force a reluctant Japheth-who resents God's cruelty in letting other men drown-into the Ark. Odets tells, too, of family weaknesses: a Noah who drinks, a Ham who wenches, a Shem who loves money, and of a cooped-up family's bickerings. But these people also have their loyalties and affections, and out of the Flood a despotic Noah learns humility...
Writing in his accustomed idiom of the lower East Side, Odets has made Noah (played by Menasha Skulnik) a symbol of fatalistic determinism while his son, Japheth (played by Mario Alcalde), represents the viewpoint that God wants men to work out their own fate. This clash (played by a rudder for the Ark, which Japheth insists upon and which Noah calls a sinful negation of God's Will) is not a startling new theme, but is well dramatized and well acted...
...Deluge!! "Bette Williams in her greatest-ever role as Noah's wife. Shut up in a floating menagerie with a wild-eyed, 600-year-old prophet! Is he saint or maniac? You'll never forget Shem, battling against the fire in the blazing hold; or Ham rescuing Japheth from the maddened gorilla they dare not kill! . . . Marvel at Lassie as she rounds up the escaped leopards fighting on the roof...