The engineer MacAllan designs a tunnel, which will join America and Europe together on the seabed. A group of American billionaires are financing the gigantic project, but the construction of the tunnel is proving to be as tedious as it is dangerous. MacAllan's worst enemy is the speculator Woolf, who had embezzled the money for the construction and who is attempting to cover up his crime by carrying out acts of sabotage. Also filmed in 1933 in a French-language version, LE TUNNEL, and remade in 1935 in England as TRANSATLATIC TUNNEL.
Production
Massive miniature tunnel sets that eat the entire budget.
Costume
Billionaire chic that screams 'we're definitely not fascists.'
Direction
Bernhardt's propaganda pivot before fleeing Germany entirely.
Director
Curtis Bernhardt
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Bernhard Kellermann's 1913 novel was already filmed in 1915; the 1933 version was Ufa's attempt to prove German cinema could compete with Hollywood's sci-fi spectacles.
Gustaf Gründgens (Woolf) became Nazi Germany's most famous actor and later the basis for Mephisto; his character here embezzles while wearing spectacular villain capes.
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