City Under the Sea
| City Under the Sea | |
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| Directed by | Jacques Tourneur |
| Produced by |
Daniel Haller executive Nat Cohen uncredited James H. Nicholson Samuel Z. Arkoff Nat Cohen |
| Written by |
Charles Bennett Louis M. Heyward David Whitaker (additional dialogue) |
| Based on | the poem The City in the Sea by Edgar Allan Poe |
| Starring |
Vincent Price Tab Hunter Susan Hart David Tomlinson John Le Mesurier |
| Music by | Stanley Black |
| Cinematography | Stephen Dade |
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Production
company |
Bruton Film
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| Distributed by |
American International Pictures (US) Anglo-Amalgamated (UK) |
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Release date
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Running time
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85 min. |
| Country | United Kingdom USA |
| Language | English |
City Under the Sea (released as War-Gods of the Deep in USA) is a 1965 science fiction film. It was directed by Jacques Tourneur (his final film) and starred Vincent Price, Tab Hunter and David Tomlinson.
The plot concerns the discovery of a lost city beneath the sea off the coast of Cornwall. Price is the captain overseeing a group of sailors who have lived there for more than a century where the peculiar mix of gases has allowed them to extend their lifespan.
The film was made in the tradition of the period fantasies started with Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954). The film attempted to capitalize on the series of Edgar Allan Poe films that had been made by Roger Corman, starring Price. To this extent the film took the title of a Poe poem, "The City in the Sea", and attempted to exploit the Poe films trend, even though the film is only loosely based on the poem with a recitation of the poem at the end of the film.
Around the turn of the century, American mining engineer Ben Harris is working on the Cornish coast in England when he finds a body washed up on the beach.
Ben makes inquiries at the nearby hotel. While talking to the hotelier’s daughter, fellow American Jill Tregellis, and an eccentric artist, Harold Tufnell-Jones, a mysterious intruder appears but disappears.
Later that night Jill is kidnapped by gill men. Ben, Harold and Harold's chicken follow the trail through a secret door into the caves under the house where they are sucked into a pool.
They emerge in a cavernous city on the ocean floor. The city was built by a race of ancients who survive only as a breed of gill men. The city is now inhabited by a group of smugglers led by the cruel and tyrannical Captain who hid down there in 1803 and due to the strange mixture of oxygen have not aged in over a century. However, the volcano that powers the city has become unstable. The Captain now imprisons them until Ben can come up with a means of maintaining it.
Dan, one of the Captain's men who wishes to leave, offers to help the two escape, provided they use their influence to secure him a full pardon for his past crimes of smuggling. The Captain finds out and reveals that because of the gas they've breathed for so long, exposure to sunlight would cause them to age rapidly and die. Dan is then sent to the surface as a means of execution while Ben and Harold are granted an audience with Jill. Whereupon they meet Rev. Jonathan Ives, who had vanished several decades ago from the surface.
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Wikipedia