So wacky it's hard not to watch. For one, you never know when the sound will come alive or when we'll go back to dead silence. But that fits. On land, there's a Russian revolution going on, while undersea hordes of fish-men creep across a bottom. That is, when an anemic octopus monster or a cardboard lizard monster are not flailing about. Meanwhile, aboard the submarines, lights flash, wheels whirl, and Russian peasants rush around doing something or other, earning their extra's pay. And all the time, someone with a hammer is banging on a pipe, maybe to test out the new-fangled sound technology. No, this is not planet Earth—it's some wacko world an Eisenstein admirer has manufactured out of Jules Verne.
There may even be a plot lurking somewhere beneath all the pointless action and quirky sets. Something about an evil nobleman (Montague Love) using his cossacks to overthrow Dakkar's (Barrymore) peaceable kingdom where everybody is "equal". But he hasn't figured on guys in clunky diving suits who rescue an air compressor along with the girl. The end looks like an attempt to blow-up industrial society so everyone in the last scene can spend the day on Malibu beach, while the last nobleman goes to join the fishes. Looks like a good communist society to me.
What's really memorable are those fish-men. There are hordes of them crawling soundlessly across a bottom in some twilight world. Their dark undulating mass is far creepier than the phony monsters. I don't know how Hollywood did it, but I've seen nothing like it before or since. In my book, it's the stuff of bad dreams and worth the whole crazy 90 minutes. Now, I know special effects make this antique look like the stone age. But I'll bet once you've seen this campy version, it's the one you'll most remember.
There may even be a plot lurking somewhere beneath all the pointless action and quirky sets. Something about an evil nobleman (Montague Love) using his cossacks to overthrow Dakkar's (Barrymore) peaceable kingdom where everybody is "equal". But he hasn't figured on guys in clunky diving suits who rescue an air compressor along with the girl. The end looks like an attempt to blow-up industrial society so everyone in the last scene can spend the day on Malibu beach, while the last nobleman goes to join the fishes. Looks like a good communist society to me.
What's really memorable are those fish-men. There are hordes of them crawling soundlessly across a bottom in some twilight world. Their dark undulating mass is far creepier than the phony monsters. I don't know how Hollywood did it, but I've seen nothing like it before or since. In my book, it's the stuff of bad dreams and worth the whole crazy 90 minutes. Now, I know special effects make this antique look like the stone age. But I'll bet once you've seen this campy version, it's the one you'll most remember.