Review: The City Under the Sea

Vincent Price is a nutty captain who kidnaps Susan Hart because he thinks (wait for it) she’s his dead wife reincarnated. Oh, and he also resides and rules over a cavernous underwater city where the strange oxygen (and apparent lack of UV rays) has allowed Price and his fellow smugglers (not to mention the Gill Men whom were the previous inhabitants of the city prior to Price’s arrival and who do Price’s bidding) to have not aged a day in the more than a century they’ve been down there. Unfortunately, the city is also powered by a nearby volcano which has recently proved unstable, and is of great threat to the city. He has also kidnapped Hart’s companions hunky Tab Hunter and cowardly animal lover David Tomlinson, the former posing as a geologist who promises Price that he can solve his little volcano problem. John LeMesurier plays an increasingly absent-minded Reverend who has been down in the city a long time, but tries to help our heroes escape.

Though very loosely based on an Edgar Allen Poe poem (i.e. Price reads portions of it at the beginning and end. That’s it), this 1965 AIP film was directed by B&W horror specialist Jacques Tourneur (the excellent Val Lewton chiller “Cat People”, the solid noir “Out of the Past”, and the hilarious AIP horror spoof “Comedy of Terrors”, with Price), not Roger Corman. In fact, it plays less like a Corman/Price/Poe film than a 60s underwater fantasy adventure like “Fantastic Voyage”, only lesser. Unlike most people, who prefer the film’s comedically-inclined opening, I found the first quarter a bit of a slog to get through. Hunter and Hart are awful, bland leads (Hunter’s apparent ‘talent’ still escapes me), and whilst Tomlinson is one of the best at what he does (just look at his work in the underrated Disney flick “Bedknobs and Broomsticks”), the lowbrow comedy scenes were rather uninteresting and cheesy to me. Once Price turns up (not his best work, but well-cast), and we get to see some of the interesting if cheap sets and gill man costumes (not as bad as I’d heard), the film perks up a bit. There’s some interesting (if scientifically batshit) notions about the strange oxygen present in the film’s underwater setting, that whilst never convincingly explained, are still fun to ponder. I mean, at least at this point, it seemed to be going somewhere, whereas early on it was just plodding and dull. Nice small part for veteran British character actor Le Mesurier, apparently in for Boris Karloff.

However, the opening portion, more akin to a lame-arse, cheaply-made ‘spooky house’ horror/comedy from the 30s or 40s, is an ordeal. I much prefer the Corman/Price/Poe films to the Jules Verne vibe going on here, I must say. And it’s a bit of a sad swansong for the genuinely talented Tourneur, whose last film this was. He tries to make more of the film than the studio’s allotted budget probably afforded him. Scripted by the well-respected Charles Bennett (The Hitchcock masterpiece “The 39 Steps”, and “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea”), allegedly greatly re-written by the slightly lesser Louis M. Heyward (Producer of the “Dr. Phibes” films and co-writer of “The Conqueror Worm/Witchfinder General”, a well-respected horror outing with Price). I’m actually betting Heyward, maligned as he has been (including both star and director here, apparently), was responsible for the film’s latter stages, which I liked. The rather lovely colour cinematography by Stephen Dade (“The Angry Hills”, “Zulu”) helps fancy things up a bit.

Rating: C+