Eyes Under Water (1949)

[Music] [Music] the mysteries of nature are as infinite as they are fascinating thousands of books have been written in an effort to explain these Mysteries and the man who can best explain them is of course our friend Mr John Kieran right now Mr Kieran is in his library with Paul Milford his nextdoor neighbor let's listen John it seems we've been all over the face of the Earth on your Kaleidoscope where could you possibly take us now where we could find things a little bit different well Paul uh how would you like a trip down to the bottom of the sea without even getting your feet wet well that sounds very interesting and while we're there would we get a look at Davey Jones Locker no and I don't think we'd see mother car's kitchen either but I can show you a lot of queer animals and uh a seahorse that meets his waterl oh I'd love to see a seahorse and waterl at the same time you know Paul life at the bottom of the sea is as fantastic as the tale by Edgar alen Poe some of these creatures down there never even see the light of the sun suppose I show you some of the amazing lives these creatures live harbers all over the world world to reap the Harvest of the sea but all is not fish that comes to their nets for instance the first things they see may be purposes that look like fish swim like there just the way we do and they have to come to this surface to breathe it well the but uh we can see something much more interesting if we go fishing with a camera down under now here we have a man making ready to perform that exploit now you notice that his head is being screwed on tight he really does does need that down under the water and here we attach the airline which is also important if the man is to breathe in fact this is a Twan job you'll see that we'll give him a helper down under the water [Music] there and uh please remember that the the light Down Under the surface of the water is not very good and consequently you have to look sharp to uh get uh the most out of the pictures here the two men go down and the leader is looking for a good location for the camera you see the bubbles of his uh Escape valve going up uh that's where he breathes out and that's one way of keeping track of where your man is down under the water he's directly beneath the bubbles it's rather hard walking down there there's a plenty of plant life growing on the floor of the Sea and the rocks are pretty slimy man has to feel his way around with his leaden shoes but finally he finds a good location and we send the tripod down for him and then the camera you've heard of fountain pens that right underwater well this is a camera that takes pictures underwater which is even a harder trick to [Music] form now when he has set up his camera he can spread some bait around in order to draw the fish within range of the lens just the way you chum when you go fishing and when he spreads the bait he draws around a horde of fish of many s R es and species all of them [Music] hungry now this looks something like a Grove of trees around a cliff but as a matter of fact it's uh marine life down there plant and animal life things are sometimes not what they seem down under the water now here is uh something that looks like a plant but really it's it's an animal and its name is serpula contor tuplica well that's all in fun that's its Latin name you can call it a worm and that's its breathing apparatus that you see there breathes that way and also draws in food I think it's a spectacular way of uh breathing myself well our man has exhaust Ed the possibilities of that location so he's taking the camera and walking along to see what he can catch that [Music] way well the first thing he catches is a seahorse we've magnified it here but it's a it's a very interesting uh fish and a true fish with a head like a horse and that's how it gets its name now there's a crab down there with some camouflage on top of it a plant that it has put on top of its shell to trap its prey and it has caught the seahorse crab does that [Music] deliberately that's one of our men pushing his way through the water there to get a better view there are very curious things down on the floor of the sea giant muscles for instance now to show you how large this particular muscle is that if you look at the top you will see a crab that's a hermit crab no it's not a hermit crab it's just a small ordinary crab and it's about a half inch long and that will give you an idea of the size of that [Music] muscle here's a nodl looking creature it's a fish although it looks like a bull with horns there oh it has many names but to the scientist it's one of the uh bloid group and what do you make of this looks like like a shell of some kind well it isn't a shell it's an animal and its name is Chan Rosia reniformis there I go with the Latin again just for the fun of it as a matter of fact it's a sponge and a sponge is an animal but you never saw a sponge with legs and there seem to be legs to this thing well the legs belong to a hermit crab that has backed into that sponge you see hermit crabs don't have hard shells like ordinary crabs so they B back into shells for the most part in this case this crab has backed into a sponge to protect itself it wears it as a house a portable house here is a funny looking animal that's a cuttlefish it has uh several notable qualities one thing it can uh throw out a smoke screen of sepia which by the way is where we get the color from notice the uh fins uh that are like lace curtains along its side and it also can change color incidentally it's not a true fish it's a mollusk but it does look like a fish but now just watch how it can change color now it's getting Stripes like a zebra the leopard can't change its spots and the zebra can't change its stripes but this cuttlefish is a little trickier than that it can change its [Music] stripes you'll watch them Fade Out not a very handsome [Music] animal now there's another uh rather UNH handsome animal that's a squid quite unattractive I'd say and by the way it it doesn't go backward all the time that's just the drift of the water past the camera [Music] lens and here's another member of the same uh rather uh terrifying family this is an [Music] octopus the Cuttlefish the squid and the octopus all belong to the mollusk family and they're all disagreeable looking most of them are small but some of them do grow large and I know I'd hate to meet them when I was in swimming h a spiny Lobster the French call this longust and sell it for fancy prices it's a closeup of its uh face well here we have the Harvest of the sea fish of countless kinds oysters and scallops clams crab eels lobsters shrimp food for mankind taken from the depths and shallows of the Seven [Music] Seas but over and over again the fishermen put out to sea hoping for fair weather and a good [Music] [Applause] catch