A team of international scientists and engineers attempts to build a tunnel under the ocean.A team of international scientists and engineers attempts to build a tunnel under the ocean.A team of international scientists and engineers attempts to build a tunnel under the ocean.
George Arliss
- Prime Minister of Great Britain
- (as Mr. George Arliss)
Walter Huston
- President of the United States
- (as Mr. Walter Huston)
James Carew
- Jim Barton
- (uncredited)
Pat Fitzpatrick
- Geoffrey - As a young child
- (uncredited)
Jacqueline Giovanni
- Young Girl
- (uncredited)
Helen Haye
- Oil Magnate
- (uncredited)
Bryan Herbert
- American Reporter
- (uncredited)
Dennis Hoey
- Worker
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaOne of the plot elements that crops up in the movie is a volcanic area that the tunnelers run into about halfway across the Atlantic. This makes sense, as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a very active area. The neat part in relation to the movie is that while the existence of a "Ridge" on the seafloor was known at the time, it was not known that it was so active. It wasn't until the Heezen/Ewing/Tharp mapping of the ocean floor in the 1950s that people discovered that Seismic activity and "Seafloor Spreading" due to magma seepage were going on. That was about 20 years after the makers of the film surmised Magma pockets near the Mid-Atlantic.
- GoofsAlthough the story takes place over a period of about twenty years, none of the principal players shows any sign of aging, despite all the ordeals encountered.
- Quotes
Richard 'Mack' McAllan: There are bigger things than money.
Airways Magnate: We don't deal in 'em.
- Crazy creditsAt the end of the opening credits, a card comes up with "Gaumont-British Picture Corpn. Ltd. were fortunate in securing the services of Mr. George Arliss and Mr. Walter Huston for the parts of Prime Minister of Great Britain and President of the United States."
- ConnectionsEdited from Der Tunnel (1933)
Featured review
Decently Done Futuristic Look At The World And Technology Through The Eyes Of 1935
This movie is set in "the future" - at least the future as it was envisaged in 1935, when it was made. It's actually never really established when this is set, but all things considered it had some pretty impressive predictions of futuristic devices (as well as, inevitably, a few misses.) So ,for example, there's reference to a tunnel having been built under the English Channel between Britain and France (which we today call the "chunnel") in 1940. That's several decades too early, but it gives us a reference point; the movie is set later than that (probably significantly later than that.) There's also apparently fairly widespread use of television, and even video-messaging "Skype-like" devices. Mind you, the movie misses the Second World War as far as we know. Helicopter-type airplanes never did become the rage, and there also seems to be an assumption of the survival of the "British Empire" - as late in the movie the King of England is referred to as the "Ruler of the British Empire" - a phrase that would have disappeared from the lingo not too long after this movie was made really. Still, it's a pretty impressive bit of future-gazing.
The story revolves around an engineer who has invented a new kind of steel that's strong enough to allow for the building of a tunnel under the Atlantic Ocean between England and the United States. The scenes set inside the tunnel while it's being built are starkly impressive - looking like one would expect such a massive works project to look like. The work is dangerous, which is well portrayed, and a lot of men lose their lives working on the project. That, in a way, becomes the real subplot of the movie.
A lot of lives are lost in the tunnel, but lives are also lost because of the tunnel. McAllan (Richard Dix) for example - the engineer in charge of the project - sacrifices literally everything (up to and including his own family) for the sake of this project. The project takes over his life. He eats, drinks and sleeps the tunnel. There's nothing else that even remotely competes with the tunnel in his life. That leads to all kinds of personal melodrama mixed in with the technical scenes about the building of the tunnel.
Maybe I'm looking at this too much with almost 80 years of distance, but as I watched this and the negative effects the tunnel was having on so many lives, I couldn't help but think of this as a classic white elephant public works project. It's almost 5500 kilometres from London to New York City as the crow flies. Who would use this tunnel? What possible practical use would there be for it? Yes, it creates some jobs - so the unions support it. It makes money - so the corporations support it. Because it does both - the governments support it. And for the sake of national pride - the people support it. But for what? Apparently there's an international threat brewing from a coalition of "Eastern nations." How will the tunnel help with that? I guess the Americans could ship arms and men to England through the tunnel (if the threat is from Eastern Europe) or Britain could do the same for America (if the threat is from Asia) but this still seemed to be a waste of time, energy and lives.
But that's 80 years later. It didn't make for a bad movie, but I would have liked a clearer explanation of why the thing was being built in the first place. As it is, it was apparently being built - just because we can! (6/10)
The story revolves around an engineer who has invented a new kind of steel that's strong enough to allow for the building of a tunnel under the Atlantic Ocean between England and the United States. The scenes set inside the tunnel while it's being built are starkly impressive - looking like one would expect such a massive works project to look like. The work is dangerous, which is well portrayed, and a lot of men lose their lives working on the project. That, in a way, becomes the real subplot of the movie.
A lot of lives are lost in the tunnel, but lives are also lost because of the tunnel. McAllan (Richard Dix) for example - the engineer in charge of the project - sacrifices literally everything (up to and including his own family) for the sake of this project. The project takes over his life. He eats, drinks and sleeps the tunnel. There's nothing else that even remotely competes with the tunnel in his life. That leads to all kinds of personal melodrama mixed in with the technical scenes about the building of the tunnel.
Maybe I'm looking at this too much with almost 80 years of distance, but as I watched this and the negative effects the tunnel was having on so many lives, I couldn't help but think of this as a classic white elephant public works project. It's almost 5500 kilometres from London to New York City as the crow flies. Who would use this tunnel? What possible practical use would there be for it? Yes, it creates some jobs - so the unions support it. It makes money - so the corporations support it. Because it does both - the governments support it. And for the sake of national pride - the people support it. But for what? Apparently there's an international threat brewing from a coalition of "Eastern nations." How will the tunnel help with that? I guess the Americans could ship arms and men to England through the tunnel (if the threat is from Eastern Europe) or Britain could do the same for America (if the threat is from Asia) but this still seemed to be a waste of time, energy and lives.
But that's 80 years later. It didn't make for a bad movie, but I would have liked a clearer explanation of why the thing was being built in the first place. As it is, it was apparently being built - just because we can! (6/10)
helpful•52
- sddavis63
- Jul 24, 2012
Details
- Runtime1 hour 34 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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