Truly Dreadful Film

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Somewhere, somehow, somebody decided that Ralph Bellamy was perfect to play the sort of role that would have suited Humphrey Bogart or maybe Robert Mitchum in a later era. So there he is, trying to come off as a cynical tough guy, a professional diver, who signs on for an undersea expedition financed by society playgirl Fay Wray. What he doesn't know is that the captain of their ship isn't searching for exotic marine life but a cache of gold from a sunken U-boat. It's a standard grade-B actioner, down to a fight to the death with a prop octopus. But watching the easy-going, erudite Bellamy desperately trying to play a hard-boiled adventurer is worth tuning in for.

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.

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.

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.