Not A Poe Film

WAR GODS OF THE DEEP-1965-After Ben Harris (Tab Hunter) finds the body of Mr. Penrose washed ashore, he's attacked by a scaly creature. Later a sailor talks about an undersea city called Lyonese. Ben meets Penrose's daughter Jill (Susan Hart) and her eccentric friend Harold (David Tomlinson who complains about a sketch he made of Jill having disappeared. Ben thinks it's all connected somehow. At night Jill is captured by the same creature that attacked Ben. Following, Ben and Harold find a secret passage that leads to some caves and they see a man chained to a pole who drowns when the cave fills with water. Later they meet The Captain (Vincent Price) who rules over an underground city threatened by a volcano. He and the rest of the populace are all over 100 years old! They live near the legendary lost city where the sea creatures are the last inhabitants. To top it off The Captain thinks Jill is his late wife. The trio want to leave but aren't allowed. They plan their escape which leads to an unusual and long underwater chase/fight in clunky diving suits. They make it back to the surface but The Captain and his gang follow them. The volcano makes some statues break up and fall trapping them and The Captain. After another encounter with “the gill men”, they get to the surface. So does The Captain who quickly ages and dies. The volcano erupts and destroys both cities. 

These days WAR GODS OF THE DEEP is known CITY IN THE SEA. British writer Charles Bennett, who wrote several films for Alfred Hitchcock, wrote the original screenplay which was heavily rewritten by producer Louis Heyward in England where this was filmed. It seems to try and capitalize on the AIP-Poe films Vincent Price was starring in at the time and uses lines from the poem “City In The Sea” by Poe at the beginning and end. 

This was the last film directed by Jacques Tourneur (CAT PEOPLE, I WALK WITH A ZOMBIE) who had worked previously with Price on THE COMEDY OF TERRORS in 1963.

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