Though planned as a star vehicle for Tallulah Bankhead, it is Charles Laughton’s performance that dominates Devil and the Deep, a Pre-Code marital melodrama.
Grade: C+
| Devil and the Deep | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster
|
|
Detailed Plot
Charles Sturm (Laughton) is a naval commander whose jealousy and abuse makes life miserable for his wife Diana (Bankhead). Although his suspicions are baseless, Sturm has his subordinate, Lieutenant Jaeckel (Cary Grant), transferred.
After Charles falls into fit of paranoid rage and strikes Diana, she wanders off into the streets during a festival and soon encounters another officer, Jaeckel’s replacement, Lieutenant Sempter (Cooper). Learning of their affair, which is real, Charles plots terrible revenge.
The night Commander Sturm’s submarine is to sail, Diana goes aboard to warn Sempter of the impending danger. However, when Sturm arrives, he orders the sub out to sea before Diana can return to shore.
Sturm deliberately maneuvers into the path of oncoming ship, which rams and sinks the sub. Several compartments are flooded, but the crews get out in time.
Trapped, the survivors gather in the control room; Sempter and Sturm square off, asserting command, while Diana exposes Sturm’s madness.
Sempter then takes organizes the crew’s escape, and Diana and the crew exit through the sub’s trunk.
Refusing to leave the ship, Sturm stays behind and lapses into insanity. He opens a watertight door to let in the sea, laughing maniacally as the water rises.
In the happy end, Sempter, cleared by court martial, reunites with Diana.
Laughton would win the Best Actor Oscar in the following year, for his performance in the British biopic, The Private Life of Henry VIII.
This was Cary Grant’s second film at Paramount, a studio in which Gary Cooper was the majir star This is the first of two films in which Grant and Cooper appear together, and while they have no scenes together here, they share the screen in one scene in their next film, the 1933 Alice in Wonderland.
Directed by Marion Gering, the film is based on Maurice Larrouy’s novel, “Sirenes et Triton.”
This and all the other films Bankhead had made in 1932 were commercial flops. The outspoken actress famously later said, “Dahling, the main reason I accepted the part was to f–k that divine Gary Cooper!”
Credits:
Directed by Marion Gering
Screenplay by Benn W. Levy, Story by Harry Hervey, based on Sirenes et Tritons by Maurice Larrouy
Cinematography Charles Lang
Edited by Otho Lovering
Music by Herman Hand, Rudolph G. Kopp, John Leipold
Production and distribution: Paramount Pictures
Release date: August 12, 1932 (USA)
Running time: 78 minutes
