City Beneath the Sea (1962)
Article 5619 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-14-2019
Directed by Guy Verney and Kim Mills
Featuring Gerald Flood, Stewart Guldotti, Denis Goacher
Country: UK
What it is: Limited run TV serial

A reporter and a photographer stow away in a stolen submarine and end up in an underwater city run by an evil scientific genius.

Seeing as how I’ve covered several of the Quatermass TV serials, I feel entitled to cover other British limited run TV serials that have sufficient fantastic content, and this one fits the bill. Mind you, it’s not up to the level of the Nigel Kneale Quatermass episodes; this one is a bit stodgy and predictable. The story is somewhat Vernian in feel, and had the evil genius of this story been more of an antihero (like Captain Nemo) rather than an obvious villain, it might have been more intriguing; as it is, you’ll be better off concentrating on the secondary characters who don’t seem to see the evil genius for what he is and seeing how long it goes on before they see the light. The special effects are fairly ragged, but then, what do you expect for a TV show of this era? It’s passable, but not really compelling.