War-Gods of the Deep (aka "City Under the Sea")
Starring: Tab Hunter, Vincent Price, David Tomlinson, and Susan Hart
Director: Jacques Tourneur
When beautiful Jill (Hart) is abducted by a strange creature, the odd trio of a dashing young geologist (Hunter) and an eccentric artist (Tomlinson) and his pet chicken set
out to rescue her. In the process, they find themselves in the remnants of a long-lost civilization where The Captain (Price) rules over a band of cut-throats and an army of monstrous gill-men.
This is another one of American-International's loose adaptations of an Edgar Allen Poe work, and it's one of the better ones. The steam-punk vibes of the ancient pumps and the diving suits left by whoever originally built the city are very cool looking. Price and his immortal pirates make for interesting foils to the heroic, square-jawed good-guy of Hunter, and Tomlinson does a fine turn as the comic relief. And Hart... well, Hart looks great in a low-cut dress, and one certainly understands why everyone wants her.
This film is a fun "lost civilization" yarn that presents all the standards of that genre. It might have rated a 7 if not for an protracted, muddled and very, very boring underwater "chase scene", where our heroes stumble around in dive suits as the bad guys and gill-men give chase. It's a scene that goes on and on and on, and I doubt it was even all that thrilling in 1965. If the film was trimmed by three or four minutes (all taken from there), it would be vastly improved.
October 17, 2006
