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Saturday, March 28, 2020

CITY BENEATH THE SEA (1953)

Even with a decent budget from Universal, director Budd Boetticher can’t do much with this C-Grade material about palsy-walsy deep-sea divers Robert Ryan & Anthony Quinn taking their ‘Ugly American’ act (they're meant to be irrepressible) to Kingston, Jamaica on an underwater search for a million bucks in sunken gold bullion. The trick of the thing, and it’s not a bad setup, has them unaware they’re being sent to the wrong location on purpose to satisfy an insurance claim. Behind the scenes, both the company man and the ship’s captain who supposedly sunk with his ship separately know the correct coordinates and soon have Quinn & Ryan working against each other to find it first. TechniColor and some unusually well-handled backscreen projection out at sea only add to the frustration of a lousy script, a lack of sex appeal or chemistry with boat owner Mala Powers (imagine Georgia Engel of the old Mary Tyler Moore Show, but brunette), and half-baked voodoo worshipers threatening to revolt against divers defiling their sacred underwater city. The only likeable people around are local go-fer Calypso, nicely played by Lalo Rios (familiar from good roles in THE LAWLESS/’50*; THE RING/’52; TOUCH OF EVIL/’58) and Woody Strode, awesome as ever even if his Boss does call him 'Boy.'

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: *To help make up for the casual racism seen here: As mentioned above, Joseph Losey’s little seen/underappreciated THE LAWLESS, strong stuff on SouthWest bordertown racial prejudice.

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