I Watch Films: City Under The Sea
City Under The Sea (1965)
At the start of the 20th century in Cornwall, Ben Harris, an American mining engineer, discovers a body washed up on shore. At the nearby inn he encounters Jill Tregellis, the innkeeper’s daughter; Harold Tuffnell-Jones an artist; Herbert, Harold’s comic relief chicken; and a mystery figure who vanishes. Later that night weird gill-men kidnap Jill. Ben, Harold, and Herbert (?) follow her to the caves under the inn and are sucked down under the sea.
The Captain (Vincent Price) explains what’s going on. The city was built in ancient times, but the inhabitants devolved into gill men. In 1803 a group of smugglers found their way down, led by the Captain. The atmosphere keeps them from aging. It’s all powered by a volcano but is now unstable and they need a modern engineer to fix it; namely Ben. Also down there is the Reverend Ives who vanished a few decades ago. They can’t go up to the surface as they’d die in the sunlight.
Their efforts to understand what’s going on and sporadically escape take up most of this film, which has a few moderately good effects. Still, if you don’t like Vincent Price giving lengthy explanations of what’s going on this film will probably drag.
Watch This: Some fun undersea nonsense
Don’t Watch This: Very silly, long, not especially good
underwater stuff
