UN DRAME AU FOND DE LA MER (1901)
aka Drama at the Bottom of the Sea
Article 4168 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-27-2013
Directed by Ferdinand Zecca
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: A drama at the bottom of the sea

Two deep sea-divers fight over a fortune in jewels.

IMDB classifies the movie as a fantasy, and it is included in the Walt Lee guide, hence its inclusion in my hunt list. It is, however, a false alarm. Basically, two deep sea divers descend into a scene where several dead people lie around. They find a treasure, fight over it, and one of them prevails. That’s about it, and unless the deep sea diver technology was too advanced for this period of time, there’s no fantastic content, though there are special effects. Still, I can understand how it got misclassified, with the possibility of submarines or mermaids popping into the story. Though I wouldn’t call the special effects strictly realistic (they don’t really look like they’re underwater, for one thing), they are pretty creative. No, there’s not really much of a story, but it’s only about one minute long, so what do you expect?