Most of the time when a film is held up in release you know the studio has lost faith in it. Made in 1963 according to the Citadel film series book on Vincent Price the film did not come out until 1965.It wasn't a terrible film, but it was exceedingly dull in spots and exceedingly stupid in one aspect. Of course anything with Vincent Price being sinister will have some good points.Set in Cornwall at the turn of the last century, the City Beneath The Sea is about a local legend of a lost city off the coast that became lost during an earthquake. Some might call it Atlantis, but the locals use the Arthurian legend name of Lyonness.Young heiress Susan Hart disappears and her lawyer and a visiting artist find a secret passage from her home. Tab Hunter and David Tomlinson play the pair of hunters respectively.Folks originally lived there adapted and became water breathing gill men. How later arriving humans like Vincent Price and his pirate crew subjugate them is never explained and is beyond me. But one thing does happen these folks live very long like the inhabitants of Shangri- La. And they have the same weakness that those Shangri-La characters do.In a much better film, Journey To The Center Of The Earth one of the characters carried his pet goose until the villain ate him. I thought that was a stupid plot gambit then and I think David Tomlinson carrying the pet rooster Herbert was even more ridiculous. After a while his silly twit Englishman got downright annoying.Vincent Price's fans might show a little strain with this one.

"War-Gods of the Deep" (1965)--cool title, dumb movie. Rarely does a movie fail this badly. Nearly everything this movie tries falls flat on its face. For example, David Tomlinson (from "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" and "Mary Poppins") is supposed to provide comic relief with his pet chicken from this otherwise serious story. Maybe we would have needed comic relief had the events been even remotely exciting, but they're not. But even if they had been exciting, Tomlinson's quirky character is not funny, just annoying. His attachment to his chicken is not endearing, it's foolish. Every plot line that is remotely interesting--an impending volcanic explosion, men who live forever underwater, an ancient civilization, a woman who looks like the captain's dead wife--are all inexplicably dropped. It's almost like the director and cast accidentally got hold of the outline of the movie rather than the actual script. Not fun, not funny, not exciting.

WAR GODS OF DEEP contains fantastic adventures full of sea-monsters in a lost continent placed underwater . Set on the Cornish coast in 1903, the film starts when a body is washed ashore on a remote seacoast little town , it originates an investigation by an American named Ben Harris (Tab Hunter). He goes to the home where the dead had been an advocate and encounters tracks that indicate that the gorgeous Jill (Susan Hart) may be in deadly risk . Establishing menace and seeing off a suspicious strange monster like a gill-man who he trapped in the act of robbing a portrait of Jill but he gets escape . In the overnight Jill is abducted and Ben and Harold (David Tomlinson ) chase him. Finding a tunnel system going under the sea they walk across a dangerous rout . The duo discovering an underwater band of smugglers who never age residing in a lost underwater city along with their gill-man slaves . The group of people find inhabitants of the lost world that are ruled by one megalomaniac named Sir Hugh (Vincent Price)who has discovered the secret of eternal life but is desperate to avoid his world being destroyed by an eruption caused by a relentless volcano . Sir Hugh governs over the gill-men as slavers and wishes to rule the human beings and the creation a totalitarian state.Based on Edgar Allan Poe writings with interesting screenplay by Charles Bennett . This fantasy picture packs thrills, weird sea monsters, lively pace and fantastic scenarios located undersea . Vincent Price is the real star of this production and its chief attribute such as Robur the conquer . The tale is silly and laughable but the effects and undersea scenes are quite well. Among the most spectacular of its visuals there are a deeply shrouded caverns full giant sculptures in Persyian style . Some illogical parts in the argument are more than compensated for the excitement provided by Vincent Price acting and the sea-monsters appearance , though sometimes are a little bit shoddy . Cheesy underwater city with mediocre matte painting .Filmed in glimmer cinematography by Stephen Dade on location in Cornwall Coast, Cornwall, England, Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, UK (studio). Colorful and stirring musical score by Stanley Black . The motion picture is produced by American International (James H Nicholson , Samuel Z. Arkoff) in average budget and middling directed by the classic director Jacques Tourneur in his final feature . He is an expert on terror cinema (Cat people , Curse of the demon, I walked with a Zombie) and adventures (Flame and the arrow ) . ¨City under the sea¨ will appeal to youngsters who swallow whole and sit convulsed in their armchair and of course Vincent Price fans.

1903: The Cornish coast. Dashing mining engineer Ben Harris (likable Tab Hunter) and jolly artist Harold Tufnell-Jones (an amusing David Tomlinson) discover a crumbling underwater society ruled by the ruthless Sir Hugh (the always terrific Vincent Price) while poking around a cave in search of sweet fair damsel Jill Tregillis (fetching Susan Hart). The former smuggler inhabitants never age and exploit gill-men creatures as slave labor. Moreover, there's an active volcano which threatens to erupt at any moment. Director Jacques Touneur, working from a fanciful and eventful script by Charles Bennett and Louis M. Heyward that's loosely based on an Edgar Allan Poe poem, relates the engrossing story at a steady pace, evokes a pleasingly eerie and mysterious atmosphere in the opening third, elicits sound acting from a game cast, and stages the lively and exciting last twenty-five minutes depicting the inevitable climactic eruption of the volcano and our protagonists being chased underwater by Sir Hugh and his flunkies with considerable brio. Moreover, there's a nice sense of imagination evident throughout, the amphibious seaweed-covered humanoid fishmen are pretty gnarly looking, the sets are fairly lavish, and the special effects might be crude by today's more sophisticated standards, but still possess a certain funky charm just the same. Stephen Dade's sumptuous widescreen cinematography gives the picture an impressively expansive and picturesque look. Stanley Black's moody and robust score likewise hits the bull's eye. A fun flick.