War-Gods of the Deep (1965) – Review

Thanks to filmmaker Roger Corman, actor Vincent Price became almost synonymous with American author Edgar Allan Poe – starring in several successful films based on Poe’s works – but it was this connection that American International Pictures hoped to capitalize on when they produced City Under the Sea,

While somewhat named after the Edgar Allan Poe poem “The City in the Sea” this film was only loosely based on the source material, and when it was released in the United States the title was then changed to War-Gods of the Deep, divorcing it even further from Poe’s poem.

It was not just the popularity of the Roger Corman Poe pictures that inspired American International Pictures to fund what would become War-Gods of the Deep, it was the successful adaptations of several Jules Verne stories such as Disney’s adaptation of Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea that got this one greenlit. And it was this combination of influences that gave Jacques Tourneur’s film more of a Verne aesthetic rather than an Edgar Allan Poe one, in fact, not much in this film has a Poe feel at all, other than some Gothic settings amongst the sunken world. The plot of this film kicks off when American mining engineer Ben Harris (Tab Hunter) discovers a body washed up on the beach while working on the Cornish coast in England, which leads him to consult with fellow American Jill Tregellis (Susan Hart), whose father runs the local hotel, and a rather eccentric artist by the name of Harold Tufnell-Jones (David Tomlinson). Harold has a pet chicken named Herbert and the two of them provide the film’s comedy relief. Later that night, after dealing with a strange encounter with what appeared to be an inhuman thief, Jill is kidnapped and it’s up to Ben, Harold, and his chicken to follow the trail through a hidden passageway and a series of dark caves to rescue her.

“I didn’t think a journey through a mysterious whirlpool was on the agenda, but here goes.”

To call this film an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The City in the Sea” is a stretch of truly Herculean proportions as the poem told the story of a city ruled by a personification of Death, with the last lines of the poem speaking of the devil’s gratitude to Death in allowing him to come forth and rule over Earth, needless to say, nothing of the sort happens in this movie. What we do have is a sunken city built by a race of ancients who survived by evolving into some form of gill-men, and they are overseen by a group of smugglers led by the cruel and tyrannical Captain (Vincent Price) who hid down there in 1803 and have since become immortal due to a strange mixture of oxygen and volcanic gasses. And while Price isn’t actually playing the literal incarnation of Death, he does claim a rather strange position over the gill-men “I am their king, no, more than their king, they believe that I am Death. Death looks gigantically down from my tower, and they are right, I am Death because the means of death is in my hands.”

“Now, let me read from this volume of Poe so we can class up this picture.”

Screenwriter Charles Bennett was the first one attached to write the script but when AIP wanted him to come to Britain to work on it further, they would not pay his airfare, so the script was then rewritten in Britain by Louis M. Heyward and this is when comedic elements found their way into the script, such as the chicken and introduction of the character played by David Tomlinson. This tonal shift resulted in a film that is rather bi-polar in its structure, with Vincent Prince in one corner being all Gothic and brooding while in the other there is David Tomlinson carrying around a live chicken and offering such suggestions to the hero “Let’s sit here and wait for something pleasant to happen,” when there is a damsel clearly in distress. It’s also hard to take this scenario seriously when the aforementioned gill-men are about as convincing as participants in a grade six school play, we are decidedly not talking Creature of the Black Lagoon calibre of make-up effects.

“Hey Carl, let’s go out for fish and chips after the show.”

Stray Observations:

• David Tomlinson’s character dragging along a chicken on this subterranean adventure is very reminiscent of the Norwegian guide and his goose in Journey to the Center of the Earth.
• Corals and a variety of tropical fish are seen during this underwater adventure which are decidedly not native to the coast of Cornwall.
• In what could be considered a neat meta-moment, Ben and Harold come across the first edition of an Edgar Allan Poe book that contains the poem “The City in the Sea.”
• An immortal villain capturing a girl he believes to be his reincarnated love has been used quite often, from the original 1932 The Mummy to Francis Ford Coppola’s version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

“For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”

This was director Jacques Tourneur’s final film and though he is known for crafting great art with little money, Val Lewton’s Cat People a primary example of this, this kind of underwater adventure tale needed to have a bigger budget if it were to stand up next to the likes of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center the Earth, and while the sets are quite beautiful, and wonderfully lit by cinematographer Stephen Dade, it’s clear to any viewer that this was a threadbare production and unable to realize even this minimalist script. This left all the heavy lifting to Vincent Price, hoping he could make this film seem grander than it actually was, something he did well in a similar film based on Jules Verne’s Master of the World, where he once again he played a madman leading a small group of fanatical followers.  Sadly, raining death from above, as he did in that movie, was also not in the budget of this film.

“Someone get me an airship or a submersible!”

Jacques Tourneur’s War-Gods of the Deep was not only saddled with a small budget he was also stuck with a rather bland hero in the form of “slab of beef turned actor” Tab Hunter and a fairly boring damsel in distress as well, thought to be fair, Susan Hart was given much to work with.  The tensions between AIP producer Dan Haller and his British counterpart George Willoughby concerning the direction in which the film was going – i.e. the added comedic bits – may have been a major factor in this film’s failing to gel with audiences but it did give us great David Tomlinson performance, who breathes life into the movie whenever Vincent Price is not on screen. Things are not helped by the film concluding with an incredibly dull action sequence, with our heroes being slowly chased across the bottom of the sea as a volcano threatens to erupt.

Overall, War-Gods of the Deep gives the audience another exceptional performance by the legendary Vincent Price but aside from that, there isn’t much to recommend to anyone who isn’t a die-hard fan of the genre.