The City Under the Sea (1965)

User Rating:

5.1/10   

Director:

Jacques Tourneur

Writers:

Charles Bennett (screenplay) and
Louis M. Heyward (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

26 May 1965 (USA)

Genre:

Sci-Fi | Adventure | Fantasy

Tagline:

A fantastic journey to a lost empire one thousand fathoms beneath the sea!

Plot:

Set on the Cornish coast in 1903, the film features a group of people discovering an underwater society...

Plot Keywords:

Smuggler | Underwater City | Brunette | Prisoner | Frogman

Cast

Vincent Price	...	Sir Hugh, The Captain
David Tomlinson	...	Harold Tufnell-Jones
Tab Hunter	...	Ben Harris
Susan Hart	...	Jill Tregillis
John Le Mesurier	...	Rev. Jonathan Ives
Henry Oscar	...	Mumford (as Harry Oscar)
Derek Newark	...	Dan
Roy Patrick	...	Simon

Also Known As:

City in the Sea (USA)
War-Gods of the Deep (USA)

Runtime:

84 min | Portugal:81 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Argentina:13 | Australia:PG | UK:U | USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Cornwall Coast, Cornwall, England, UK

Company:

Bruton Film Productions

Trivia:

John Le Mesurier replaced Boris Karloff.

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: After a tremor, the Captain looks outside the window at the Gill Men and says "Look at them. They're frightened". While the two Gill Men are swimming around, you can see a modern scuba diver with shorts and flippers swimming above them.

Quotes:

The Captain: Atlantis? Perhaps; a name is as good as another.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Killer Eye (1999)

Ageing 100 years all of a sudden...

This film shows a badly kept secret: how not to age regularly. It also shows in the end, in a masterful camera and special effects work, the sudden ageing of The Captain, thus proving that even men who do not age eventually become fools.

The film is under pare with similar B-films, possibly due to repetitive underwater scenes. As action scenes go, we've seen better, even by 1965 standards.

It has three important points in it's favour, though: the beautiful girl, shown as often as possible in daring low-cut decoletee dresses; the rich, historically accurate interiors of the isolated mansion; and the reproduction of the classic Cretan frescoes that help the spectator to have the feeling of time-travelling after the descent into the underwater grotto. Also, there is the opening reading of Poe's poem, "City In the Sea"... Ah, yes, as they say in the credits, «not to forget Herbert», a rooster that comes out of its basket at the most inappropriate moments for the owner, Harold - a Scott played tongue-in-cheek by David Tomlinson, thus adding a few surprise comic relief moments to a somber tale of mystery.