Below the Sea (1933)

Absolutely brilliant

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

While "Below the Sea" is a relatively low-budget film and Ralph Bellamy seems oddly cast as a real rogue, this is a dandy adventure film--one I almost gave an 8. But, occasional lapses (such as the doll that was used in underwater shots in an aquarium full of gold fish or a small octopus!) keep me from giving it a higher score because of a few rough edges.The film begins with a prologue where a German sub is sunk in 1917. However, two members of the crew survive--and they know that the sunken ship was carrying gold! Here is where you get an idea of what sort of hard-edged film it is--as the Captain shoves the only other survivor off a cliff in order to preserve this secret! Many years pass and the Captain is working to get a diver who can help him retrieve the treasure. The man he gets, Steve (Ralph Bellamy), is a real creep--and the slimy pair also work with a nasty dame to get the gold. But, this expedition is doomed and the ship sinks! A few years pass. Now, the Captain and Steve try another approach--they latch on to a scientific expedition funded by an unusual heiress (Fay Wray) and you'll just have to see what happens next yourself.There was a lot to like in the film. As I mentioned above, there is a real hard edge to the film you just won't find in Post-Code films (films made after mid-1934)--when Hollywood was forced to make its films more family friendly. I like this edge--particularly at the incredibly cool (and rather gruesome) ending! I also loved that for once Fay Wray was given a real decent part--not some screaming lady or bubble-head but a woman who is all woman! Well worth your time.

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.

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.