Hello Down There (2005)

Review by: Brendon McCullin
Date: 3/1/05

As a youngster in the 70’s, I frequently spent rainy Saturday or Sunday afternoons watching movies, usually comedies, on the local UHF stations. Some of them were very good, like the works of the Marx Brothers and Abbott & Costello, and some were pretty bad, like the old Blondie or Ma & Pa Kettle series. Then there were those films shown only occasionally that were set apart by their level of offbeat-ness. Recently released for the first time on DVD, Hello Down There (Paramount) was one of the films in that category.

Viewing it again as an adult, and with an extra 30-plus years of history, the film reveals a kitsch factor that is off the charts. Where else can you see Charlotte Rae (aka Mrs. Garrett of Facts of Life fame) frugging around a living room as a with-it housekeeper? Or watch Tony Randall, skinny legs and all, heroically deep sea diving? Or get a still hot Janet Leigh, far removed from Psycho territory, staring lovingly at Randall? Or see Roddy McDowell playing a 60’s record executive hipster? Or catch Merv Griffin, being well, Merv Griffin?

The sitcom-lite plot involves Randall, Leigh and their children having to live in an underwater house designed by the erstwhile Felix Unger for 30 days to prove its safety. Oh, did I forget to mention that the couple’s two children make up half of a far-out new singing group called The Green Onion fronted by a pre-American Graffiti Richard Dreyfuss (yes, you read that right)? And that the other band members decide to live in the house as well and poorly lip synch swinging songs with names like “Glub” and “Little Goldfish”? The actors play their instruments with all of the authority of the animated Archies or that band that washed up on Gilligan’s Island, fitting since Mr. Howell himself, Jim Backus, plays Randall’s skeptical boss. Funniest is the various points when Dreyfuss, the lead singer, forgets to actually sing.

Adding to the complications are Ken “Mama’s Family” Berry as Randall’s work rival and McDowell scheming to sign the band to a contract and get them to an appearance on Merv Griffin’s old talk show. Plus there’s a running gag about the Navy continually picking up on the band’s underwater singing, believing it to be a new Soviet radar-jamming device. Wackiness, as they say, ensues and things are resolved to everyone’s satisfaction once everyone – including Merv Griffin – converges on the house.

Hollywood used to churn out cheap features like this left and right, most of them justifiably forgotten. However, Hello Down There is just charming enough and the onscreen talent so willing to chew the scenery that it retains a healthy amount of goofy fun after all these years – kind of like turning on the TV at 3 a.m. and finding one of your favorite episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies.

Plus, if you’re old enough, it has the added benefit of allowing you to show your children the kinds of things that you used to end up watching in the days before cable.

(Brendon McCullin is a staff writer for 2 Walls Webzine.)