Seas Beneath is a 1931 American Pre-Code action film directed and produced by John Ford and starring George O'Brien and Marion Lessing.[1]

Seas Beneath
Directed byJohn Ford
Written byDudley Nichols
William Collier Sr.
Curt Furburg
James Parker Jr.
Produced byJohn Ford
StarringGeorge O'Brien
Marion Lessing
CinematographyJoseph H. August
Edited byFrank E. Hull
Music byPeter Brunelli
Production
company
Fox Film Corporation
Distributed byFox Film Corporation
Release date
  • March 29, 1931 (1931-03-29)
Running time
90 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Plot

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In the book, John Ford by Peter Bogdanovich, Ford was interviewed about his memories of directing the film, and he had the following to say about the experience, expressing his annoyance at Lessing being hired as a leading actress:

That was a war story about a Q ship - some good stuff in it - but at the last moment, the head of the studio put a girl who'd never acted before in as the lead because he thought she spoke a few words of German - which she didn't. We had a scene, I remember, in which the German submarine slips up alongside another submarine to refuel, and this girl comes out onto the bridge chewing gum! Right in the camera. So we had to go to all the trouble of doing it all over again. She just couldn't act. But we did all the refueling at sea. That stuff was good and so was the battle stuff, but the story was bad; it was just a lot of hard work; and you couldn't do anything with that girl. Then later they cut the hell out of it.[2]

Cast

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References

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  1. ^ The AFI Catalog of Feature Films:..Seas Beneath
  2. ^ Bogdanovich, Peter (1967). John Ford. University of California Press. p. 53.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i "p15759coll22_4". digitalcollections.oscars.org. January 29, 1931. Retrieved June 30, 2023.
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  NODES
Note 1