Below the Sea

The film opens with a sea battle, and a submarine going down, and for a large part of the remainder of the movie, we follow captain Schlemmer(Fred Vogeding) and Steve McCreary (Ralph Bellamy) as they try to bring its contents back up years later. Our female lead Diane Templeton is the lovely (and in this one, also educated and wealthy) Fay Wray. She will provide the ship and the money for her undersea research, or so she thinks. She had been making movies for 10 years by this time, although it was only Bellamy's second year. In 1933, Wray would make eleven films (wow!) Writer Jo Swerling had written numerous adventures from the 1920s to the 1970s, including portions of Gone With the Wind, and It's a Wonderful Life. Good strong script, mostly good acting; A couple scenes are a little fuzzy and out of focus, but it was 1933. Also a little naughty for its time, especially in the photography dark-room. Interesting discussion of evolution from Diane Templeton, as she shows McCreary around some laboratory. Good action film. Per IMDb, it appears to have been re-released in 2005, but I was not able to find it available on barnes & noble, ebay, or amazon.com in any format. The web page for "nothings new video" says they are no longer in operation.

Below the Sea (1933)

** (out of 4)

A German sub goes down carrying gold during WW1 and years later the commander (Fredrik Vogeding) and a scuba diver (Ralph Bellamy) head back to see if they can locate the treasure. The two exploit a woman (Fay Wray) who believes they are just going to sea to use a new diving bell, which can help them discover new things on the ocean floor. This film is pretty damn bland and boring but it does have a couple great sequences including the ending, which goes from camp to high adventure as a gigantic octopus attacks the diving bell and Bellamy must fight it. Seeing this fake looking octopus fighting Bellamy is worth sitting through the 78-minute running time. Also worthy is a great sequence out at sea where a ship gets caught in a storm but the opening sinking of the sub is also handled very well. All three actors deliver fine performances but the screenplay really lets them down because all they do is constantly fight, argue and make up and this gets very tiresome very quickly.

And what it is is a cheap Columbia B, off the Harry Cohn assembly line, but diverting and exciting in spots. Greedy, amoral Fredrik Vogeding knows where a million dollars' worth of gold bars are hidden below the sea, and he engages heiress Fay Wray and engineer Ralph Bellamy to find it. Bellamy, playing wildly against type (though his milquetoast type hadn't really been established yet), is surly and hard-bitten, yet eventually falls for Wray, in one of those I'm-kissing-you-whether-you-want-it-or-not sequences that happened from time to time in the '30s. There's a tense blown-up-sub sequence, and a tense fight with an octopus, and some underwater photography that's perfectly decent for 1933. And I was impressed with the nastiness of Vogeding, whom I wasn't familiar with at all.

Having made it a point to see all the available Fay Wray films that have survived, I can tell you with certainty that you will never see her looking more beautiful than in her role, here. A radiant presence in a world of dangerous characters, she plays a moneyed adventuress bankrolling a 'scientific' expedition to document marine life. Unknown to her is the real purpose of her crews' intentions. Surprises abound in this 'A' title from Columbia Pictures. I had a hard time telling the full scale from the miniature set. And for humor, Fay lectures Ralph Bellamy about becoming a gentleman, as he descends a ladder, and she'll lean WAAYY over to make sure she has his attention. Another delight from the pre-code era. Highly recommended.

It's 1917. A German U-boat is sunk with a chest full of gold bars. Survivor Captain Von Boulton pushes the only other survivor off a cliff. He becomes the only one who knows the boat's final resting place. It's 12 years later. The Captain with Lily's financial help tries to recover the gold. It goes badly. A few years later, Von Boulton under the false identity of Schlemmer and diver Steve McCreary (Ralph Bellamy) continue their search for the gold. Scientist Diana Templeton (Fay Wray) is their unwitting funder of the expedition.

This opens with a great battle against a submarine. It always helps to use the real thing. I'm not sure if Lily's ship is necessary. I'd rather get to Fay Wray a lot sooner. The first ship is interesting but all that could be folded into the second ship. As for the underwater filming, it looks like it's done in a water tank. The filmmaking technology is nowhere near modern water-tight cameras. It does look fake and I don't mean just the fake giant octopus. Fay Wray is terrific. I do still wish the underwater scenes could be better but it's as good as it could be for its time.