Die Todesfalle unter dem Meer

Before "Snakes on a Plane" and "Snakes on a Train", there was this 1974 made-for-television mid-week suspender – snakes on a submarine (Fer-de-Lance is the name of the sub). When a happy go lucky seaman returns from shore leave with a shaman's gift of live snakes, he sets off a succession of catastrophes that places the stricken sub's surviving crew in peril, and forces reluctant hero Janssen to assume responsibility for an almighty mess, a job he clearly relishes as much as a poke in the eye.

As the sub flounders on the ocean floor, the remaining crew must make repairs to extricate themselves before the oxygen levels dissipate, while silently stalked by the highly toxic stowaways. Director Mayberry takes a rather old-fashioned approach with his limited material, focusing more attention on the salvage efforts than the snake threat which becomes the sub-plot in the latter half. The performances are strictly B-grade all round, and include one of Janssen's more ambivalent characterisations (though this was his trademark) as an uninspired, less-than enthusiastic naval instructor who's reluctantly foist into the captain's seat when all the senior officers are killed off during the initial catastrophe. Hope Lange is similarly propelled into heroine status, with her medical knowledge proving critical to the defensive effort against the marauding reptiles as one-by-one, the survivors are taken out. The movie labours to a mechanical conclusion, and though not without some intellect, the action is far too sporadic and there's little suspense.

It's perhaps no surprise that this largely forgettable TV movie has been resurrected in the wake of the "Snakes on a Plane" popularity, although it's well down the hierarchy of motion picture asps. A strong cast delivers intelligent dialogue, but the one-dimensional, melodramatic treatment sinks not only the submarine, but also the movie.

Fer-De-Lance is a nice little suspenseful thriller. Snakes, called the Fer-de-Lance ("lance head" in French), is a generic name for vipers and quite poisonous. They have been sneaked on board a research submarine, coincidentally named Fer-de-Lance, by one of the crew to play a trick on the Captain. The snakes escape and bite a few of the personnel. Because of this, the sub loses control and sinks to the bottom of a South Ocean trench and also beneath a landslide. All of this happens within the first 20 minutes and the rest of the movie time is spent in the crew trying to evade the snakes and getting the sub loosened from the rocks.

This movie moves quickly and without much characterization. But that's okay, the characters, though they come from various races, mean nothing to the story. What's important is the race against time to re-surface the sub before it runs out of oxygen for the crew to breathe and before the snakes kill more crew members. What adds to the suspense is the musical score by Dominic Frontiere, which is spot on in catapulting the movie from scene to scene.

The only part of the movie that I'm critical of is the filming of the undersea scuba scenes. They are dark, sometimes out of focus and with debris flying in front of the camera blocking the action. I would think that's done to disguise the fact that the underwater set was small and a large submarine was not really used. But what was being accomplished got across to the viewer, so no harm. The movie is a nice little made-for-tv thriller.

'Fer-de-lance' or 'Snakes on a Submarine' is an unfairly neglected TV-chiller, often misguidedly pooh-poohed by glib Interweb philistines, this barnacle-tight 70s subaquatic shocker is kept excitingly afloat by the ballast of its above average cast of fine actors, including the delightful Hope Lange, ruggedly handsome Jason Evers, and authoritatively headed by the ridiculously suave and wholly likeable David Janssen as capable naval officer Russ Bogan. For reasons nonsensical, cretinous submariner Compton (Frank Bonner)foolhardily sneaks a bag of lethal snakes onboard, and before you can say 'Darwin Awards Winner' said submersible vessel is deleteriously riddled with venomous, silently striking reptiles! And for additional B-Movie bathos, the stalwart science vessel 'Fer-de-lance' disastrously finds itself perilously scuppered on a precarious rock shelf 1000 ft below the surface!

Avid TV movie-loving fans won't be able to submerge their icy terror as the luckless crew plummet ever closer to their abysmal watery doom! The intense pressures finally reaching fever pitch as these terminally toxic, sinisterly slithering stowaways start to make their poisonous presence felt! The claustrophobically creepy 'Fer-de-lance' remains a buoyant B-Movie with a fang-tastic, fear-flicked premise, a squirmingly good score by the gifted composer Dominique Frontiere, and beloved TV icon David Janssen is just the man to stamp out these ferociously fanged fugitives! And the more obsessive B-Movie fans might be interested to know that snake smuggling simpleton Frank Bonner also starred in cult psychotronic freakshow 'Equinox'.

I was 12 and the premise sounded great--a TV movie about a submarine trapped underwater with deadly snakes on the loose. I remember watching and, after a while, became increasingly bored. The script was by-the-numbers (there were no surprises or anything even slightly original), the cast looked either bored or had a sad let-me-out-of-here look of their faces (David Janssen). By the end I was fighting to stay awake! Dull dull DULL.

It's hard to believe but this was released as a theatrical feature in Europe! Some poor suckers had to PAY to see this! I can imagine the reactions where this played. This IS worth seeing if you have insomnia--this will cure you completely!

Back in 1974 when this TV-Movie first aired, I saw the first twenty minutes or so and was enthralled by the premise: A submarine trapped at the bottom of the ocean with a pack of deadly snakes slithering around. It seemed like a can't miss thriller. Because I was a kid though, I had to go to bed! I recently found the film on video and was ecstatic to finally see the whole show. However, I should have let my childhood dream of a can't miss thriller be as this movie was incredibly bad. It is very cheap looking, even for that time period and the actors play their scenes with so much indifference that it's hard to care about their plight. The biggest mistake is that the snakes are only peripheral to the plot. Most of the movie is taken up with the crew's attempts to dislodge themselves from the rocks they are trapped against, making it more of an adventure film than a thriller and it's not even a good adventure film. At least I now know why the film was so hard to find all of these years. WKRP fans might want to check it out for an early look at Frank Bonner (AKA Herb Tarlek) as the dopey sailor who brings the snakes aboard the sub.