City in the sea
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | City in the sea |
| Original title | City under the sea |
| Country of production |
UK USA |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1965 |
| length | 93 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Jacques Tourneur |
| script |
Charles Bennett Louis M. Heyward David Whitaker |
| production | Daniel Haller |
| music | Stanley Black |
| camera | Stephen Dade |
| cut | Gordon Hales |
| occupation | |
| |
City in the Sea is a British-American science fiction film from 1965. The film will be the last feature film to be directed by director Jacques Tourneur . The script is based on the poem City in the Sea by Edgar Allan Poe .
action
The young American Jill Tregellis owns a hotel on the Cornwall coast . One day the corpse of a hotel guest whose face is contorted with fear is washed up on the bank. The dead person is found by Ben Harris, another hotel guest, who immediately informs Jill and her friend, the artist Harold Triffin-Jones. The three of them come across a mysterious creature in the hotel, but one that can escape.
During the night, Jill disappears from the hotel. Ben and Harold go on a search and find a trail of seaweed. You follow the trail and discover a passage to the lost city of Lyonesse. The underwater city, under the rule of the captain, is surrounded by active volcanoes. The captain had Jill kidnapped because she looks very much like his late wife. The captain also had the dead hotel guest kidnapped because he fears for the well-being of his city and urgently needs a seismologist.
Thanks to a special gas mixture, the residents of Lyonesse are immortal. Only those who are guilty of a crime must die and be executed by the mysterious creature. Clergyman Jonathan Ives is charged. He is saved by Ben and Harold. Together with Jill, the three escape the city that is destroyed by an erupting volcano. The captain can also escape the catastrophe, but dies when he reaches the surface of the sea.
Reviews
The Lexicon of International Films described the film as "a science fiction film based on a poem by Edgar Allan Poe, overloaded, stretched and profusely melodramatic."
The film magazine Cinema stated: "The director Jacques Tourneur (" Katzenmenschen "), who died in 1977, is regarded as a master of elegant genre film. This last cinema work also started very chic. Later, cheap decorations spoil the fun." The magazine drew the conclusion: "After a great start, the thing is boiling."
Time Out London magazine described the work as a tasteless adventure, a sad disappointment with occasional imaginative moments, but surprisingly little atmosphere. The occupation is bleak except for Price, with the story being carried on quickly enough.
Dennis Schwartz wrote in the online portal "Ozus' World" that the film was a bit of a disappointment.
background
The premiere of the film took place in the USA on May 26, 1965 under the title War Gods of the Deep . It didn't appear in the UK until a month later. In Germany, Tourneurs work was first broadcast on October 18, 1969 on television in the former GDR (broadcast title Die Stadt unter dem Meer ). In Germany, the film was shown for the first time on June 4, 1972 on ARD .
The film was shot on location on the Cornwall coast and the underwater scenes in the Bahamas .
The work was not only Tourneur's last directorial work on a motion picture, it was also the last film by actor Henry Oscar.
For the scenes of the downfall of the city of Lyonesse, footage from the Japanese film U 2000 - Dive of Horror by Ishirō Honda was used.
Web links
- City in the sea in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- US movie poster
Individual evidence
- ↑ City in the Sea. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Critique of Cinema
- ↑ Review of Time Out London (engl.)
- ↑ Dennis Schwartz on Ozus' World (engl.)