Chase_Witherspoon
Undersea adventure is reminiscent of "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" (complete with a feathered friend named Herbert) and "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", when Hunter and Tomlinson venture into a mysterious subterranean lair after their female companion (Hart) is abducted and taken captive by an aquatic man-best (looking much like the gill-man from "Creatures from the Black Lagoon"). They soon encounter an underwater civilisation led by the maniacal doctor (Vincent Price), obsessed by a painting of a mysterious woman, and with a somewhat reluctant crew who have inadvertently discovered a fountain of youth. But the city is rocked by frequent volcanic shocks that threaten to sink the undersea world.Inferior retread of the formula undersea sci-fi adventure features pedestrian performances by a capable cast that also includes John Le Mesurier as a long-held captive rector, who has seemingly lost the incentive to contemplate escape, let alone survive the impending volcanic disaster.Widescreen underwater inserts look photographically disjointed, and there's even a brief scene in which a member of the crew in scuba diving apparatus is clearly visible above a pair of agitated gill men. A rousing finale somewhat redeems the picture, but it was too little, too late in my opinion. Dated effort might still appeal to older kids, and mercifully at barely 80 minutes, it narrowly avoids becoming a soporific experience.
Cosmoeticadotcom
War-Gods Of The Deep is one of those films whose title really makes no sense, but is right in keeping with the whole tenor of the film. It was made in 1965, the first of the famed American International Pictures post-Roger Corman Edgar Allan Poe-themed horror and sci fi films of the 1960s, that started with The House Of Usher in 1960, and was a part of the Big Four of horror and sci fi films of that era. The three other competitors in the field were the giant monster films from Japan (Godzilla, Mothra, Gammera, etc.), the stop motion action-adventure-monster films of Ray Harryhausen, and the British Hammer Studios horror films. That War-Gods Of The Deep was set in England, even though made by AIP, and featuring two American B film superstars like Vincent Price and Tab Hunter, and based upon a poem by American poet and writer Poe, is just one of its many ironies. Yet, that still does not explain its odd title. The alternate title was The City Under The Sea, which makes sense, since that's what it is about, a city reputedly called Lyonesse- not any War-Gods. It was based upon the Poe poem The City In The Sea, which is quoted by Price at film's start and end, and begins:Lo! Death has reared himself a throne In a strange city lying alone Far down within the dim West, Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best Have gone to their eternal rest.Suffice to say, the poem was not one of Poe's great classics, and the film derived from it is not one of AIP's better Poe themed films. War-Gods Of The Deep was the final film in the storied career of Jacques Tourneur, probably the greatest B film director in cinema history, and one of the true masters of the black and white medium. While better known for his classic films produced by Val Lewton (Cat People, I Walked With A Zombie), Tourneur proved he could make great horror films on his own. In 1957 he directed the British horror classic Night Of The Demon (Curse Of The Demon in the U.S.), and even in this color film, with its thin premise of a sunken city off the Cornish coast, unaging sailors from the Eighteenth Century, who do not age because of an imbalance of oxygen from an undersea volcano and some nonsense about ultraviolet light on the earth's surface in daylight (huh?), Gill-Men who are third rate Creatures From The Black Lagoon, and other assorted lunacy- such as a British comic foil for Hunter who carries about a chicken with the male name of Herbert, the film actually entertains, even if it lacks real chills.The film has several layers to it. Watching it today, one must bear in mind, with the film over four decades old, yet the story is set in the more distant past of 1903, with characters who came from their even more distant past of decades, and even over a century, earlier, that this was made right at the beginning of notions of Postmodernism; which shows mostly that PoMo and B film psychology are kissin' cousins. What this says for both mindsets and pulling the wool over one's eyes is open for debate. The film also makes great use of its recycled AIP wares from prior movies. AIP reputedly never trashed old sets, and art director Frank White makes the most of the sets and miniatures that comprise the underwater city. The film also seems to be a scrapbook of ideas from other, better films, like the aforementioned Poe films, and The Time Machine. But, it also recalls the stellar Forbidden Planet by having the underground city being powered by huge pumps and machinery built by a long destroyed society that is no longer, having degenerated into the Gill-Men. The underwater cinematography by Neil Ginger Gemmell and John Lamb is also excellent, for a B film, even though the divers are all manifestly in a pool no more than fifteen or twenty feet deep, not leagues under the sea for the surface can be seen a few feet above the divers' heads. There are even some chuckles to be had when Harold sticks his chicken Herbert inside his diving helmet. The rest of the cinematography, by Stephen Dade, is merely solid, although there are some moody moments captured seemingly inadvertently, with miniatures.
dbdumonteil
Jacques Tourneur began his career in his father Maurice's native France with moderately good comedies such as "Toto",reached his peak in the forties and the fifties with such classics as "cat people" "out of the past" "nightfall" or "curse of the demon".In the late fifties ,"Timbuktu" and" la battaglia di Maratona" a sword and sandal flick indicated a neat decline."The city under the sea" , inspired by Edgar Poe ,recalls Roger Corman's contemporary works (but does not cut them) while looking sometimes like a poor man's "journey to the center of the earth" :Herbert plays the role of the goose Gertrude in Levin's Verne adaptation.The screenplay is rather mediocre ,compared with Tourneur's previous works ,and many good ideas are not fully exploited (the picture of the woman or the time which stood still in the city under the sea).The settings are rather nice ,particularly the huge hand;on the other hand ,the "fishmen" are Mardi Gras and the battle between them and the humans is much too long.If you have never seen a Tourneur movie,you'd better choose something else.Take "cat people" "Berlin express" or "Curse of the demon" instead.
raypdaley182
This is an oldie and it's never going to win any awards. Certainly not for plot, special effects or acting anyway.Take 2 Americans living in a remote Cornish Village by the sea, mix in some local legends & superstitions about a sunken city and smugglers, add the over the top acting of horror legend Vincent Price, David Tomlinson (better known for Bedknobs & Broomsticks) and John Le Measurer (better known for Dads Army) and you have "City Under The Sea".Price leads a group of former smugglers in an underwater city who raid the surface by night for all they can not salvage from the sea. On one of these raids a book is stolen containing a drawing of a women who looks just like Prices dead wife and he sends someone up to kidnap her, thinking his wife has returned from the grave.Obvious her American friend goes off to rescue her with Tomlinson in tow as the comic relief, playing an incompetent coward with a chicken called Herbert for company.Based on something written by Edgar Allen Poe (not the 1st time Price has done something by him either!) there clearly wasn't much to work on to create the basic framework of this movie.We have the underwater city, the inhabitants are all over 130 years old due to something in the air but this also renders them unable to go above the surface in the daylight as ultraviolet light will age and kill them.This eventually proves to be Prices fate after the American man & Tomlinson rescue the girl and escape to freedom. Generally weak film with a poor ending. A short cameo by Tony Selby (known for "Get Some In" & "Dr Who") is easily missed.Better left unwatched.
