City Beneath the Sea

About a fantastic city beneath the sea.

Everything about this film, the effects, the sets, the casting, the actors, are all fine, but with the one tiny problem area of Robert Colbert and the terrible lines he has and the terrible acting he gives.

An early character building scene in this film has Colbert respond to Stu Whitman by saying "that's right we all take orders ... just like Bill Holmes did". It sounded terrible!

But having said that. This is pure Irwin Allen showmanship of the best kind. As others have pointed out, Richard Basehart and the flying sub make this feel like an up-dated Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and who could blame Irwin for wanting to bring back Voyage?

But non-Voyage things such as Stu Whitman and Robert Wagner (Beneath The 12 Mile Reef and The Towering Inferno) make this great entertainment. Also the Richard LaSalle score and big sets with blinking light Time Tunnel computers. I have actually made about 30 viewings of this film over the years.

One of my very favourite movies ever (despite Robert Colbert).

Why that dramatic remark! Simply because "City Beneath the Sea" was the only scifi movie/series pilot like it ever really developed for television. Everyone else was exploring the final frontier of space. The space age was booming, Skylab and the Shuttle right around the corner, why think about the future one could build underwater? Who would go for that? Irwin Allen did, and unfortunately no one really gave a damn because with the effort (pre-conception reel, all star cast etc.) lavsihed on "City Beneath the Sea", it deserved more attention than it got. I won't waste time giving a synopsis, others have done so very well with that, and yes I do realize how dated this movie is but I would love to have seen the continual adventures of the 21st century underwater city denizens, how their culture developed, their issues, and the intrigue. The 80's and 90's gave us horrid movies like "Deep Star Six", "Leviathan" and the schitzophrenic but likeable "Seaquest DSV" for underwater thrills when all we really needed was a fertile and stable base to work with, like Pacifica "the" City Beneath the Sea.

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed and Produced by Irwin Allen. Warner Brothers telefilm for NBC broadcast. Screenplay by John Meredyth Lucas, from Irwin Allen's story; Photography by Kenneth Peach; Edited by James Baiotto; Music by Richard LaSalle. Starring: Stuart Whitman, Rosemary Forsyth, Robert Wagner, Richard Basehart, Robert Colbert, James Darren, Edward G. Robinson Junior, Whit Bissell, Joseph Cotten, Sugar Ray Robinson, Burr DeBenning, Paul Stewart and Charles Dierkop.

TV movie provides paychecks for innumerable TV has-beens. A highly improbable science-fiction adventure concerning a planetoid hurtling toward the Earth. Safekeeping of gold and H128 reserves are jeopardized at a 21st Century underwater community.

cheesier than Switzerland and Wisconsin combined - wooden acting that even porn actors would wince at -laughable effects and set models. All the male actors have brillo pad hair and talk like Frank Drebbin. The brassy incidental music is more intrusive than the Original Star Trek. Think Hart to Hart meets low budget James Bond under the sea. Watch it very drunk or with the sound down and invent your own dialogue-- it can only be an improvement. Hard to believe this film was actually made. 10 lines is a lot when such a film could be summed up in one word -avoid. Alternatively you could compare and contrast the plot development, portrayal of women, models, and national pride exhibited in this and, say,Aliens or Avatar.

Set in 21 st century where a group of colonists live at an underwarter city called Pacifica under command of Admiral Matthews : Stuart Whitman , formerly it was an underwater scientist installation become a location inhabitable . The commander : Stuart Whitman is assigned by USA President : Richard Bashart to custody gold bars from Fort Knox as well as a powerful new radiaoactive stuff and some nuclear missiles. But then things go wrong when an asteroid heads towards Earth , threatening an imminent and total destruction . Theirs was the most dangerous mission in history ...to save the World from total destruction!

Irwin Allen typical movie with usual elements as fantastic submarines , World conflicts , catastrophes and spectacular intrigue . It results to be a pilot episode of a series set in 2053 and that didn't follow due to no much success of this telefilm. This time dealing with the attempt to rob the Fort Knox treasure custodied in a city beneath the sea named Pacifica and to eliminate the World threat of a meteor heading for Earth to destroy it . City beneath the sea 1971 benefits itself of a fine cast but is marred by taking stock-shots , flying subs , scale models , atrezzo and several props from the earlier shows , with stock-footage from Irwin Allen films and TV series , especially from Voyage to the bottom of the Sea and Lost in space . Here stands out a good main and support cast , some of them Irwin Allen's regular and with plenty of familiar faces , such as : Rosemary Forsyth , Burt DeBenning , Richard Basehart , Robert Wagner , James Darren , Whit Bissell, Paul Stewart , Charles Dierkop, Tom Drake ,and special guest star for Robert Wagner among others .

The motion picture was professional but regularly directed by Irwin Allen in his usual style . This great producer/writer/director made a number of successful TV series and movies and considered to be the original father of the disaster genre . As Irwin made the following ones : "Poseídon", "Beyond the Poseídon" , "Five Weeks in baloon" , "Voyage to the bottom of the sea" , "Towering Inferno" and his main flops : "The Swarm" and "When time ran out" . And outstanding with his popular TV series as "Land of Giants" , "Lost in space" , "Voyage to the bottom of the Sea" , and "The Time Tunnel" , the latter starred by James Darren , Robert Colbert and Whit Bissell who also performed thus City beneath the sea 1971 .