Below the Sea

1933 "Drama of Romance and Danger on the Bottom of the Sea!"
6| 1h18m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 28 March 1933 Released
Producted By: Columbia Pictures
Country:
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
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A wealthy woman funds an underwater expedition to explore for marine life, but what she doesn't know is that her "colleagues" have other intentions.

Genre

Adventure

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Director

Albert S. Rogell

Production Companies

Columbia Pictures

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Below the Sea Audience Reviews

Fluentiama Perfect cast and a good story
Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.
Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
Gary Brandner Ralph Bellamy looks uncomfortable playing a tough deep-sea diver instead of his usual dork-who gets-dumped. He is Mac McCreary, a pipe chomping man of action in this one. His sneaky partner is Karl Shlemmer, former German U-Boat captain, who knows where the gold is and doesn't plan to share it with anybody. Fay Wray is the rich babe who finances the expedition on a boat that looks like a royal yacht. Then there is Lily, a tough waterfront babe who adds little and somehow gets lost along the way. If you can believe all this, how about Miss Wray--rich, beautiful, educated--falling for hunky but dumb, poor, and inarticulate Bellamy? The ending (HERE'S THE BIG SPOILER) is reminiscent of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre when the almost retrieved gold falls back into the ocean, never (for unexplained reasons) to be found again.
Robert J. Maxwell Something about a U-boat that sinks with a million dollars in gold bullion. After the war, the skipper enlists the help of an amoral floozie and an expert underwater diver (Ralph Bellamy) to retrieve the gold. They inveigle their way into the crew of a ship that is on a scientific expedition, with Fay Wray a prominent scientist and underwater photographer. The ship sails to the location of the gold. The scientists go about photographing underwater beasts from their diving bell while the undercover gold seekers continue their conniving. Bellamy, a thorough scoundrel, finds himself strangely attracted to Fay Wray. And who wouldn't? Bellamy must have seen her in the previous year's "King Kong," popping up out of the water en déshabillé, tumbling out of her torn slip. The libidinous swine.Fear not, though. He teaches her how to use his diving suit -- one of those old-fashioned encumbering types with a round metal headpiece, now replaced by SCUBA gear. In return, she teaches him how to be a gentleman.Towards the end of this shipboard romance/adventure, the German skipper and the amoral floozie double cross Bellamy by drugging him, then setting off to recover the gold and make an escape by themselves. Meanwhile, below the sea, the diving bell containing Fay Wray and some inconsequential male member of the cast is attacked and brought into lethal embrace by a giant octopus. Bellamy recovers from the drug in time to don his suit, drop to the sea floor, and amputate the octopus's arms with a cutting torch. He and the others barely escape. But the German doesn't escape at all. A loop of the heavy retrieval chain wraps around his ankle and when the trunk of gold falls apart, everything is yanked overboard. Full fathom five, the skipper will now guard the gold buried in mud for all eternity, while Fay Wray will live happily ever after with Ralph Bellamy, at a point in his career when he was capable of getting the girl.I felt kind of sorry for the octopus. Did you ever see a movie in which an octopus was presented in a positive light? No. No, you didn't. On a beach near Pago Pago a recently speared octopus (fe'e) was thrown into my lap. There it lay, too pooped to move, but flashing different colors in a frantic but futile effort to match its surroundings, an agony that lasted almost five minutes. I would have released it, having been in its position a thousand times myself. I'm convinced that they have feelings too. Later, it was unceremoniously boiled stiff and then eaten in chunks dipped into its own ink. There's not enough to this movie to either recommend it highly or to criticize it harshly. It must not have taken long to write since the plot progresses by the numbers. But it's kind of fun to watch the ship at sea. I would guess those scenes were shot off Catalina. Bellamy tries on a gruff, half-articulate personality that doesn't seem genuinely his, and Fay Wray is shrill but beautiful.Not a masterpiece but a diverting Hollywood product of the early 30s.
ksf-2 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.
arthursward 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.