Beyond dark, rocky shores, his face awash in the glow of an active volcano, there dwells Vincent Price in 1965's City Under the Sea (aka War-Gods of the Deep). The final feature film of director Jacques Tourneur (Cat People, Out of the Past), it's far more beautiful than most of Price's Edgar Allan Poe movies of the period. Loosely inspired by Poe's "The City in the Sea" (very loosely), the writing isn't top notch, but atmosphere and performances just about make up for it.
Two Americans find each other living in Cornwall, a young engineer called Ben (Tab Hunter) and a heiress called Jill (Susan Hart). After finding a body on the beach, Ben goes up to the big manor house to talk over the matter. He finds Jill with a silly old painter played by David Tomlinson.
Someone thought it was a good idea to introduce Tomlinson with a low angle shot of him sitting on an armoire wearing a kilt. It was actually a bad idea.
This movie came out a year after Mary Poppins. Having Tomlinson onboard evidently made someone think the comic relief needed to be punched up and he's saddled with a lot of dopey lines. Even so, he's less annoying than Ben who tonally shifts all over the place. But once they find themselves trapped under the sea, Tomlinson's character thankfully shows a little mettle.
Jill is pretty and a nice enough subject for Price's mad obsession this time. He plays Sir Hugh, a sea captain who became stranded in the underwater city more than a hundred years earlier. The chemicals in the atmosphere have prevented him and his crew from aging.
The visuals in this film are really good and it's a delight just to hide behind a pillar of rock with Tomlinson and Hunter while a pirate crew talk killing amid strange horned statues.
City Under the Sea is available under the title War-Gods of the Deep on Amazon Prime.
No comments:
Post a Comment