Zeus

Below The Sea (1933)

• Director
  • Albert S. Rogell
• Writer
  • Jo Swerling(story)
• Stars
  • Ralph Bellamy
  • Fay Wray
  • Frederik Vogeding

  Ralph Bellamy is incongruously cast as a he-man deep sea diver in the Columbia meller Below the Sea. The plot is set in motion by former U boat commander Frederick Vogeding, who seeks out a fortune in gold and jewels which sank to the bottom of the sea during World War I. There's plenty of wet and wild action towards the end, with Bellamy battling the villains, the elements and a fake octopus to retrieve the loot and rescue the leading lady. At the time he filmed Below the Sea, Bellamy was being rushed from one picture to another at Columbia. When he took a gander at the script and discovered that it was wall-to-wall fistfighters and heavy lifting, the exhausted Bellamy insisted that he be doubled in the more strenuous scenes. Columbia president Harry Cohn agreed, on one condition: that Bellamy not tell the studio's reigning action star Jack Holt, lest Holt demand his own stunt man. From this point onward, all of Bellamy's contractual negotiations at Columbia would invariably end with Cohn screaming "And remember: DON'T TELL JACK HOLT!"