The Vincent Price vehicle War-Gods of the Deep (1965, aka City Under the Sea) is, at its heart, about a chicken. Not a rooster, but an everyday chicken named Herbert, who is the pet of a mediocre artist. Set in perhaps the late 19th century or early 20th, we see the artist kidnapped while searching for a missing woman, and in its sudden effect on the chicken, we see how impulsive actions most often lead to deleterious effects.
But Herbert keeps her chin up, and in so doing inspires the artist, a naturally retiring, even timid, man into the rescue of the aforementioned missing woman. Despite the great mass of water above the caverns in which the chicken finds herself, and the great volcano that is threatening this underground city and its inhabitants, the occasional appearance of her head poking from her picnic basket permits her to lead the two men, who find themselves in a predicament of an imminent volcano on one side, and the threats of a smoothly mad Captain (Price) on the other, out of danger.
How can we tell the Captain’s mad? Having found his way down to the caverns 100 years ago, the atmosphere has subtly changed him and his men, so that now he’s immune to aging – but can no longer return to the surface, where he left his wife. All that is a subtle hint, but we know madness, smooth and subtle, has descended upon him when he learns there’s a chicken within his reach – one he could eat, after more than a lifetime of fish.
And he makes no move to confiscate and fricassee our heroic chicken.
Desperate to save his city, the Captain has been using another race of beings (oh, it’s logical, really, it’s logical) to steal books on tectonics, hoping to snuff the volcano, and in one book he discovers the artist’s sketch of the woman – she’s a dead ringer for the Captain’s dead wife (it’s all so apropos). Thus, he has kidnapped the woman.
Under the steady encouragement of Herbert the chicken, the artist leads the rescue of the woman, and then, as the volcano hiccups, they make a break for the surface. The path is via the sea, and our human protagonists must wear ornate diving costumes worthy of the Nautilus. For a moment, my Arts Editor and I wondered: was this when we would see our heroic hen, Herbert, sacrifice herself for the greater good? We saw no dive costume fit for a chicken!
But, no, for it turns out Herbert likes hands-on management, and shares the diving helmet of the artist. And so Herbert helps throughout the confusing battles between the escapees, the other race of men, and the immortals armed with dart guns. The jiggling of the camera and the anonymous costumes left us considerably bewildered as to who might be winning in this epic battle.
Then our protagonists return to the city (ummm?) in time for a showdown with the Captain; however, it is spoilt as the volcano, ever the screen-hog, intervenes with tremors galore, rendering most of the Captain’s men (those he hasn’t executed out of hand) hors de combat. Herbert’s very life is imperiled, but at the last moment all is risked to save her neck, and then we get a bonus: at this juncture we reach the climax of the movie: the Captain is groped in a truly Trumpian manner, as the giant hand of a stone statue falls and imprisons him.
Once again, there’s a lumbering exit from the city via the sea, another encounter with underwater warriors, with more definitive results, and a final pull from the grasping ocean. Meanwhile, the Captain meets his final fate (one would think a Trumpian goose would be enough). As he sees the sun for the last time, he withers with age and dies.
No doubt, Herbert lobbied to take a victorious peck at the Captain, but the director gave Price the dignity of his character’s death. Meanwhile, the volcano finally achieves climax in a wonderful gasp of fire and clouds; perhaps, we may hope, a new island is to be born, fit to become … a chicken sanctuary.
And if you think this review is a recommendation to see this movie, go back and read it again.
