Writer, producer, director
Irwin Allen is probably most known as the “Master of Disaster” because of his successes with such films as
The Poseidon Adventure and
The Towering Inferno, but in the 1960s he was most notably a producer of high adventure science fiction television shows. Programs such as
Lost in Space,
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,
Land of the Giants and
The Time Tunnel
cemented him as the king of primetime science fiction, but not all his
attempts were successful, which leads us to today's installment,
City Beneath the Sea.
In much the same vein as
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
this pilot has to do with undersea exploration but comes across as more
of an overly melodramatic soap opera than anything else, which would
explain why the Network didn’t pick it up to go to series. It takes
place in the far flung future of 2053 where the massive undersea city of
Pacifica is thrown into disarray when crisis strikes the surface world
and only they can save the day.
Drilling platforms of the future!
It
seems that the United States is being wracked with earthquakes that are
causing things like drilling platforms to randomly explode, so the plan
to move the gold supply in Fort Knox to the safer vaults down in the
undersea city of Pacifica needs to be sped up. The President (
Richard Basehart) forces Admiral Matthews (
Stuart Whitman)
out of retirement to take over the operation. The problem is that
Matthews left Pacifica under a cloud of suspicion and anger and his
second in command Woody Patterson (
Robert Colbert),
who now runs Pacifica, isn’t keen on being demoted so his old boss can
have his old job back. But orders are orders so Matthews is yanked away
from his cushy corporate job to tackle this impending crisis.
Notice Irwin Allen’s use of old models of Lost in Space’s Jupiter 2 for this futuristic skyline.
Re-used
props and sets are not the only thing hampering this production as
pretty much every character has the depth of a Saharan puddle. Everyone
in Pacifica is pissed off at Admiral Matthews, and that seems to be
their sole character trait; they all resent him coming back because they
blame him for the death of Bill Holmes (
Larry Pennell),
who along with Matthews is responsible for the creation of Pacifica,
but which we will of course later discover that he was not responsible
for at all. Our cast of clichés are as follows.
Admiral Matthews, the take charge hero with a dark past.
Commander Patterson, the disgruntled second in command.
Lia Holmes (Rosemary Forsyth), wife of the dead co-creator of Pacifica who really, really hates Matthews.
Elana (Susan Miranda),
the Girl Friday to Matthews and probably the only competent person in
this undersea world. This doesn’t mean she gets out of having to wear a
very short skirt.
Aguila (Burr DeBenning),
a man biologically altered to breathe underwater but has no gills or
any outer appearance of being a fish person. Can we say “Budget cuts?”
Brett Matthews (Robert Wagner), brother to Admiral Matthews and who is so obviously up to no good that everyone must be a moron to not suspect him.
Professor Holmes (Whit Bissell), father of Lia and lone voice of reason about Matthews’ guilt over his son’s death.
Dr. Ziegler (Joseph Cotton), one of the heads of the civilian population who also hates Matthews and appears only long enough to cash a paycheque.
The
plot, if one could so far as to say this “movie” has a plot, is a
mishmash of disparate elements thrown together in such a haphazard way
that it barely holds together for its 98 minute running time. If you
then look at the "science" element of this science fiction show it is
even more insanely stupid; we learn that all the gold in Fort Knox is
being moved to this undersea city so that it can be kept safe inside
it’s titanium vault, but also coming along for the ride is a huge
shipment H120A, an incredibly powerful radioactive material which a mere
small portion of could power the world for years, and gold is the only
element that can keep it from going critical. So it is super important
that it is stored surrounded in gold. That sounds logical and safe.
"As long as we have our visors on we'll be safe...right?"
Unbeknownst
to Admiral Matthews, his brother and a shadowy syndicate of villains
have been working on a plan to loot the vault for years. An accident is
staged shortly upon the Admiral’s arrival that happens to be very
similar to the one that killed Bill Holmes; it turns out that both
incidents were part of a distraction to substitute weak titanium plates
for the proper ones which would allow Brett and his cronies to cut
through the vault walls as if they were tissue paper.
So basically Ocean’s Eleven, but at the bottom of the actual ocean.
But
wait, things get even crazier when Matthews is called back to
Washington and is informed that a planetoid heading towards Earth is
what has been causing all the tectonic disturbances. Its immense density
is three million times heavier than Earth and thus causing
gravitational havoc on our poor planet. Worse is that the projected
landfall is, you guessed it, Pacifica. So Matthews must hurry back to
Pacifica to organize an evacuation to inland locations. Bullshit. I may
not be a scientist but I’m pretty sure that if an asteroid, with three
million times the mass of our planet was to strike us, moving inland
would be about as helpful as that tiny umbrella Wile E. Coyote always
used.
You know you’re in trouble when James Darren is your science advisor.
Admiral
Matthews rushes back to Pacifica to start the evacuation process while
his brother encourages his partners that their heist plan is still good
even if an asteroid is going to obliterate the city in a matter of
hours. By now it’s been revealed to all that Mathews was not responsible
for the death of Holmes and that Quin, a flunky working under Brett, is
the murderer. This turns Lia’s hate for Mathews into adoration, because
that’s how emotions work, and thus she will refuse to leave his side
during their impending doom. Matthew’s himself will come up with the
brilliant plan to stay behind and launch Pacifica’s nuclear arsenal at
the planetoid in the hopes of diverting its path away from Earth.
They go with this plan because Bruce Willis was unavailable.
So
with the lives of everyone on the planet hanging in the balance,
Matthews has to divide his attention between missiles launched without
presidential approval and thwarting the robbery in Pacifica’s vault.
With toolkit in hand he charges off to stop the heist and eventually
kill his brother in an ironic fashion.
It would have been much cooler if he ran into Darth Vader here.
This
movie was a mess. Even by cobbled together television pilot standards.
None of the actors give even the slightest bit of a believable
performance, with most of them clearly in paycheque cashing mode. The
effects aren’t terrible for a TV production but for a show billed as
City Beneath the Sea
it mostly consists of people talking in rooms and hallways with not
much actual undersea action. And I know that most 1960s science fiction
movies weren’t bastions of scientific accuracy but this film reaches
whole new levels of stupidity with its “science.” Not at all surprised
that NBC passed on this one.
Available on Warner Archives for the morbidly curious.
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