Below the Sea (1933)

One thing I love about film is that sometimes a film comes along that is just an unexpected gem. Below the Sea is a great example of this. It may be a cheesy little B movie, but it is definitely a lot of fun. This movie was directed by Albert Rogell, who specialized in directing B pictures. He also directed such films as The Black Cat, In Old Oklahoma, Hit Parade of 1943 and Heaven Only Knows. This film was also the first teaming of Fay Wray and Ralph Bellamy. They would later appear together in Woman in the Dark, Woman in the Shadows, Once to Every Woman and Roaming Lady. Below the Sea was released the same year as Fay Wray's most famous role in King Kong.

The story of this film involves a wealthy woman (played by Fay Wray) who decides to fund and join a sea expedition to search for marine life. However some of the crew has it's sites on a buried treasure. Because if how unprepared she is she gets on the nerves of sea diver McCreary (played by Ralph Bellamy). However the two soon form a romance.

While nothing strikingly original, this film is a lot of fun. The humor is quite good, the characters are very likable, Joseph Walker's cinematography is fantastic, and most of all it is a fast paced fun movie.

For one romantic scene, director Albert Rogell thought it would work better if there were seagulls in the background. Food was put on the ground to attract some. However the seagulls quickly grabbed the food and flew away before the camera stopped rolling. Rogell then got angry and shouted to make the birds fly through one at a time.

Supposedly color footage under the ocean was shot for the film, but it didn't wind up in the finished film for some unknown (at least to me) reason, the film instead is completely in black and white. Critics still praised the black and white undersea cinematography at the time. The movie also became a big box office hit.

-Michael J. Ruhland

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