Many of the residents that live around Loch Ness have seen a creature that they say lives in the depths of the loch. Professor Heggie (Seymour Hicks), who lives near the loch, is among them. The professor tries to convince the scientific community that the monster exists and that it is actually a prehistoric dinosaur known as a diplodocus. His peers ridicule him and call him crazy. The press hounds him, wanting interviews, but he retreats to his home in Scotland.
He is followed by a group of reporters, but one tenacious London reporter, Jimmy Andrews (Frederick Peisley), is determined to get an interview with the eccentric professor and is among those that follow him to Loch Ness. While breaking into the professor’s home he comes across his beautiful granddaughter, Angela (Nancy O’Neil) and immediately falls for her. Jimmy manages to charm Angela and the professor’s bodyguard, Angus (Gibson Gowland) but the more he tries, more the professor becomes agitated.
Meanwhile the professor has hired a professional diver, Jack Campbell (Eric Hales), to cover an underwater cave with a net to try to capture the creature. Things go very wrong; Jack goes missing and is believed dead. Professor Heggie is blamed. By now, Jimmy believes that the monster actually may exist but to prove it he must put his life in danger.
“The Secret of the Loch” AKA “Sinister Deeps” was released in 1934 and was directed by Milton Rosmer. It is a rather obscure British fantasy comedy. It is considered to be the first movie to feature the Loch Ness Monster. A month earlier in the same year, London surgeon Robert Kenneth Wilson published his notorious photograph of the monster in the Daily Mail. The photo was eventually exposed as a hoax in the 90’s.
The Nessie in the movie is, in actuality, an Iguana on back screen. I’ve heard that someone thought it was a plucked chicken. Since the creature has a mouth and not a beak, I’m in favor of it being some type of lizard. Yes, the creature in the movie is nothing special, and it comes at the very end of the movie, but there is a creature, and it does eventually show up. That makes it an official monster movie in my book.
As a low budget curiosity, it’s fine and amusing. There is some silliness and absurdity, so a waterlogged iguana is not surprising, or out of the question. After all, if Irwin Allen can do it, so can Wyndham Productions. At the time, there were no other substitutes for dinosaurs and Willis O’Brien wasn’t available, or in the budget. Because of the lack of credible monsters in the British equivalent of central casting, the focus of the movie is on the reporter and his antics. And to be honest, I wasn’t expecting anything at all when it came to the monster so seeing a green iguana as the titular star was fun. At least this one wasn’t tortured. All in all, I actually enjoyed the movie.