SATURDAY AFTERNOON B-MOVIE CRAPFEST: “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” (1961)

Sun, 11/27/2011 - 00:00 — Republibot 3.0

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 12/12/09

There are certain movies that never turned up on my local monster chiller horror science fiction theater show when I was a kid, for no adequately explained reason. Certainly it wasn’t because films like “Destination Moon” and “Planet of the Apes” were A-pictures. Clearly they weren’t. Sometimes I think that it might have been that some of these movies were simply too new to be on the show - films like “Omega Man” (1971) or “Colossus: The Forbin Project” (1970), but then I remember that stinkers like “Lifepod” (1980) made it on to the show regularly, so clearly date couldn’t have been a problem. Is it a matter of prestige, then, that kept some movies out of rotation? Does something like that even matter when the movies are being used as filler in between host segments filmed on location at a local used car dealership in 1978? Probably not. I never figured it out.

For whatever reason, “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” was one such movie that never, ever, ended up on Saturday morning TV in my childhood. This annoyed me to no end, since I discovered the series spun off from it when I was about ten or eleven, and was eager to see the movie, but to no avail: they just never ran the darn thing, even though they regularly ran SF sub movies like “The Atomic Submarine” (1959). Go figure. I was well into my teens before I finally saw the film.

PLAY BY PLAY

In The Not Too Distant Future (As seen from 1961), Frankie Avalon is singing what is truly one of the treacliest, most inappropriately placed, ill-conceived love songs of all time:

Come with me
To the sea
And we’ll find love
On our voyage
To the bottom of the sea.

Unbelievable, inconceivable,
What a triumph it will be!
And we’ll be the first
Yes the very first
To live such a brave new dream

There we’ll be
Lost and free
And we’ll find love
At the bottom
Of the sea.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t take time out to single out a song on the soundtrack, but really this is the most hysterically out-of-place song of all time, and his teenybopper croon is totally unsuited for what’s basically a pulse-pounding adventure story. That’s not even mentioning how stupid the damn thing sounds, or the fact that they rhymed “Be” and “Dream” or (Even worse) “First” with “First.” And don’t even get me started on those cloying “Come with me/Come with me” backing vocals. Seriously, this is just unbelievably awful. You’ve really got to hear it to believe it:

Fortunately the submarine Seaview surfaces and puts and end to it after about two minutes or so, amidst the normal newspapers that fly at the screen with expository headlines (“Super Sub Seaview on trials beneath the north pole”, “Experimentelles U-boot auf der Jungfernfahrt”, “Je fais loger un sous-marin de jouet dans mon rectum et ne peux pas le sortir”, and so on) From here we see a newscaster on TV explaining that the sub is the latest brainchild of the “Always controversial” Admiral Harriman Nelson, “one of the foremost scientific minds of our age.” Nelson himself is watching the newscast on TV in the sub’s control room, and turns it off in some embarrassment, then goes below decks to meet his VIPs: A retired Vice Admiral, washed up Academy Award winner Joan Fontaine, and Floyd the Barber (Walter Baldwin), who’s playing a senator this time out. All these fine folks are on a factfinding mission for the government, and are visiting the sub for the duration of her arctic shakedown voyage.

We’re treated to a looooooong series of info-dumps as Admiral Nelson (Walter Pigeon) gives them a tour of the major sets, and explains what everything is for the benefit of the maiden aunts in the audience who really don’t understand what’s going on, and are already confused ten minutes into the film. Despite all the un-funny scenes of forced comedic condescension to Floyd the Senator, there’s one genuinely mirthful one, and then we meet up with Barbara Eden and Frankie Avalon in the mess hall, where she’s inexplicably dancing in full-on ‘shake yer ass, baby” mode while he’s equally inexplicably playing the trumpet. Embarrassed in front of the barber/senator, Nelson dresses them all down, and takes them away while Captain Craine (Robert Sterling) says behind to chew out Eden, who explains that she was just showing the crew how she’ll dance at her wedding. Then, making a mockery of the Uniform Military Code of Justice, the two of them start

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Mon, 11/28/2011 - 12:59

#201

Mama Fisi

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Joined: 11/11/2011

Pole Vaulting

Yes, 10000li, sort of. I'd asked Kellogg why space probes hardly resemble the sleek "aerodynamic" ships of science fiction, and he pointed out you don't need aerodynamics where there's no air. So I figured you could fly a cow-shaped space ship without any trouble as long as you had enough thrusters and brakers. "Given enough thrust, pigs fly just fine" and all that.

Which is why the mention that the Enterprise would have a messed up "center of gravity" confused me--in zero g, what do you need a center of gravity for? But I'd forgotten about inertia.

On a slightly different note, back in eighth grade, one of the homerooms was putting on a play they'd written called "Star Trip." At one point, Captain Jumpy T. Jerk spots a Klingon ship on the viewscreen. This was done by dangling a plastic model on a fishing string inside the box serving as the screen.

Only thing was, when the play was given, instead of a Klingon ship, they used an Enterprise. We soon found out why--during rehearsals, they had to make the enemy ship "evaporate" under phaser fire, so they cut the string and the ship...

Well, they fired the "phasers" at the "enemy" Enterprise. There was a snip, and the ship vanished with an audible "CRASHtinkletinkle."

I happened to be sitting in the audience next to the kid who owned the models they were using. He was the only person in the whole auditorium not laughing.

Masquerading as a normal person day after day is exhausting.
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Mon, 11/28/2011 - 09:05

#202

10000li

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Joined: 10/23/2009

@ Mama

The space probes fly fine based on what you were talking about before: Once they're out there, they don't really maneuver. Orbits are essentially straight lines. If someone wants a shot of a place that isn't in the probes' path, they need to tweak its orbit and wait while it comes around a few times on the new trajectory.

Like this: If you have a probe going around a planet, over its poles, it will just keep making a circle while the planet spins beneath. If you want the center-line of the probe to pass over a place a few miles to the east of where it's passing now, you just need to give it a tiny little nudge as it passes over the pole. Remember that a 1 degree shift to the east equals almost no distance that poles, but at the equator: 40,075km/360 deg = 111.32km => 69 miles.

Is that what you were asking about?

Sun, 11/27/2011 - 20:11

#203

Mama Fisi

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Joined: 11/11/2011

Hmm.

OK, I think I understand what the problem would be--thrust trying to overcome inertia. Or as I heard it said of the space shuttle, "For a brief moment, the bottom of the vehicle is going faster than the top."

Like when you launch an arrow from a bow, and it bends just before it starts downrange.

But hasn't NASA sent some seriously dumpy looking space probes out, and they fly just fine? Or is that only because they're going in a (relatively) straight line, not trying to maneuver?

Masquerading as a normal person day after day is exhausting.
Magpie House Comics
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Sun, 11/27/2011 - 16:20

#204

Republibot 3.0

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Joined: 12/27/2008

Float like a butterfly, fly like a piece of crap

>>I'm under the impression that a ship of any shape can fly just fine once it's out of the gravity well.<<

Anything can *float.* Flying is different. Float a toy boat in your tub or pool or whatever. Let's say this is the boat:

<-ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO-<

If you put your finger at the stern (O) and push forward (Towards A) everything works fine. If you put your finger at A, however, and push at a right angle, the boat won't move evenly, it'll spin. The same if you try pushing at a right angle at N. If, however, you push at G, the thing will move more-or-less without twisting or turning 'cuz G is centered. Likewise, you can put your finger *under* The boat and lift it up at G without it falling over because it's balanced for the same reason. Or push it down. That's the Center of Gravity. Conversely, if you try to pick it up out of the water at any other point, it'll just fall over. It's got nothing to do with wind resistance or whatever.

Get it?

The Artist Formerly Known As Republibot 3.0

Sun, 11/27/2011 - 16:12

#205

Republibot 3.0

Offline

Joined: 12/27/2008

Submarine Seaview

>>As cool as the Seaview looks, I suspect it would do the same thing.<<

An R/C Seaview basically all-but-flipped over if you tried to turn it on the surface, owing to the HUGE planes on the front, and the lack of proper stabilization from the Cadillac tail fins

>>I do recall seeing something years ago of the divers setting up the effects shots. Evidently, with the model properly weighted, it would sail along underwater straight as an arrow.<<

Not as such. It was on wires, actually. When you see it running submerged, it's on two guide wires strung to opposite ends of the track, running parallel, and it's being dragged by a third.

When you see it cruising on the surface, that's the 18-foot model filmed on Fox's "Lagoon" set. They set up railroad tracks under the water, built a cart to run on 'em, and mounted the sub atop the cart. They then pushed the cart through the water. They dumped hundreds of gallons of bleach in the water to break up the surface tension *and* they mounted little bubblers on the front of the cart to churn out air and make the water look like sea spray when it washed over the front of the model. If you look *REALLY* close in some shots, you can see the bubbles magically appear quite a bit in front of the sub.

The effects were all set up by LB Abbot, who knew more about wire FX than anyone alive at that point. He'd been taught by Howard Lydecker, who basically thought up the concept in the 1930s.

>>The cones that house the props never seemed to have any water intakes anywhere...?<<

If you look really close, there are some shark gill-like slits on the forward outboard sections of the cones. Intakes. I'm not sure if they were there for decoration, or if they needed them to get the right flow for the bubblers inside the miniature.

In any event, the Seaview was a hydrojet. In one ep, the sub lurches, and someone says "What was that?"
"I dunno. Felt almost like we'd lost a screw. If we used screws..." So: No propellers!

The Artist Formerly Known As Republibot 3.0

Sun, 11/27/2011 - 12:40

#206

neorandomizer

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Joined: 06/27/2009

Center line thrust

>>I'm no astrophysicist, but why would the TOS Enterprise have "a weird center of gravity" in a gravity-less medium like space? I'm under the impression that a ship of any shape can fly just fine once it's out of the gravity well.<<

The center of gravity would effect the stability under acceleration, if it is not inline with the line of thrust it will spin or shake. The TOS Enterprise would be unstable and need constant control thruster firings for it to fly in a straight line because it's main trust is above and to either side of the center line. I will make this note it was said of the F4 Phantom II that it was proof that you can make anything fly with a big enough engine.

Sun, 11/27/2011 - 12:28

#207

Mama Fisi

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Joined: 11/11/2011

Steering Committee

I'm no astrophysicist, but why would the TOS Enterprise have "a weird center of gravity" in a gravity-less medium like space? I'm under the impression that a ship of any shape can fly just fine once it's out of the gravity well.

And on the Seaview, why need a rudder when you can steer it with directed jets of water at the nose and tail, and to keep it "vertical" in the water by compensating when it makes a banking turn?

Masquerading as a normal person day after day is exhausting.
Magpie House Comics
http://www.hirezfox.com/km/

Sun, 11/27/2011 - 09:52

#208

kelloggs2066

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Joined: 09/04/2011

Real Hydrodynamics

I recall reading once that someone built a 1/3d scale, functioning model submarine of the Disney version of the Nautilus.

It really worked! They could run on the surface, dive and submerge.

They couldn't turn though.

Every verticle surface on the thing acted like a rudder and with the tiny rudder it had, it just would not turn.

As cool as the Seaview looks, I suspect it would do the same thing.

I do recall seeing something years ago of the divers setting up the effects shots. Evidently, with the model properly weighted, it would sail along underwater straight as an arrow.

I see there are some videos of RC Seaviews on YouTube. I have to wonder how they modified the propellor cones? The cones that house the props never seemed to have any water intakes anywhere...?

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Sun, 11/27/2011 - 01:18

#209

neorandomizer

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Joined: 06/27/2009

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

>>The status of the Seaview is never made clear. It’s initials are “USOS,” which seems to indicate “United States Oceanographic Survey.” It’s clearly not in the Navy, but it’s repeatedly identified as a “Federal Ship with a Federal Crew,” but it’s also not in the Coast Guard. It’s said to be a research vessel, and most of it’s missiles are for aeronautical research, but what’s the atomic bomb for? Why all the torpedoes? Why the hand grenades? There’s some mention made of an oceanographic organization, presumably like an aquatic NASA, but, again, why the guns?<<

There are uniformed Officers and a fleet of ships operated by NOAA. There is also a uniformed health service which like NOAA Officers wear Navy Style uniforms and become Navy officers in War time.

http://www.moc.noaa.gov/

Fri, 12/18/2009 - 09:04

#210

Republibot 3.0

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Joined: 12/27/2008

The FX Team hated the enterprise.

Ah, man...I'll give TOS props for making a completely unique looking spacecraft, even if it was just a compromise because they couldn't make up their minds about whether they wanted a flying saucer or a rocket, but it was pretty slapdash conceptually just the same.

I listened to a speech by one of the FX guys who did "Wrath of Khan," and he said the entire FX team unabashedly *hated* the Enterprise. The model was big, bulky, and so long that one part of it was always out of focus, so they had to do multiple shots from the same angle and print them all together, on top of which it's such an odd design that it only really looks good from three or four angles, which limited what they could do with it.

Evidently, according to him, a super-early draft of the script involved the Enterprise being destroyed, and a new starship being built to replace it. This was initially just supposed to be the same model with maybe some new decals (As in Star Trek IV), but the model builders and the FX team *begged* to be allowed to build a completely new class of starship that would look cool, but have the same interior volume as the old Enterprise. The producers said "Go for it," so they designed and built the Reliant, which was much, much, much easier to film.

Then the script changed, the Enterprise didn't get destroyed and, ah well, you know how it goes.

The Artist Formerly Known As Republibot 3.0

Fri, 12/18/2009 - 00:44

#211

neorandomizer

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Joined: 06/27/2009

ISS ugly, Bad engineering

You are wrong SmithCommaJohn the F-4 proved you can get anything to fly with big enough engines and a DOD that insists on building it. The Starship Enterprise would be built as is with enough congressional backing no matter how bad a design it is just look at the ISS.

Thu, 12/17/2009 - 23:38

#212

SmithCommaJohn

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Joined: 05/18/2009

Good Looking, Bad Sci-Fi Design

Funny you would mention that. After I posted my comment I looked over at my Seaview model and said to myself, "there's no way that could handle well in the water" and the article you read confirmed that the Seaview handles like a Cadillac underwater. Exactly.

Sorry to bring it up yet again, but I recently read that someone actually tried to run simulations on the original Enterprise's travel in space and found that its weird center of gravity would have it tumble arse-over-teakettle. I didn't like the new movie Enterprise with its strange engineering section and massive, notably uncircumcised nacelles, but I later read that some of its design differences were an attempt to adjust the COG to where it could actually fly. Why go to that trouble? You never know! I guess that's Television's contribution to science; showing engineers how not to design something.

Whenever my wife and I are watching some show or movie that has some annoying detail that defies science, one has to lovingly remind the other, "honey, it's in the script."

Wed, 12/16/2009 - 10:45

#213

Republibot 3.0

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The Submarine Seaview is Super-Cool

I was on one of the Submarine Modeler websites a while back - I forget which one, alas - and there was a looooooooooooong article on there about a guy who painstakingly built an accurate R/C model of the Seaview, and then discovered its hydrodynamics were beyond terrible - it couldn't corner, it was very hard to maneuver, its turns were super wide, and (IIRC) it had a tendency to flip.

Yeah, Fantastic Voyage is a goofy-cool concept, but the sub should just rip right through the guys body, then the table, then the floor, and probably just keep on going. Taking a - what would you say? 10 or 12 ton submarine? - and reducing it to microscopic size would make it damn near as dense as neutronium. Cool concept, bad science.

Isaac Asimov wrote the novelization, and put in a whole bunch of doubletalk about how the mass was being shunted into another dimention, or some such nonsense.

The Artist Formerly Known As Republibot 3.0

Tue, 12/15/2009 - 22:14

#214

SmithCommaJohn

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Joined: 05/18/2009

Cadillac Sub & Laws of Physics

A friend gave me an assembled-but-unpainted model of the Seaview, which is molded in black. Actually, it looks really frickin' cool like that in a Batmobile kind of way. I decided to leave it that way and call it Voyage To The Bottom of Red October.

Fantastic Voyage, for all its remarkable special effects and great story, sticks in my memory as the first sci-fi movie I watched as a kid where I could not suspend disbelief; just too many laws of physics were being broken. It is theoretically possible to shrink the ship and people but they would still weigh the same and crush the patient. Even if the bad guy and the ship were destroyed by white blood cells their remains would still come back to original size and kill the patient. Ew.

Sorry for that Temperance Brennan moment.

Sat, 12/12/2009 - 14:15

#215

Republibot 3.0

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Chuck

>>>His death scene were he is hit in the side with the spear and then dies and is floating in the fountain in the pose of Christ on the Cross is a classic that not many would dare to try.<<<

And which caused him no end of trouble with conservatives, I might add. Between that his interacial love scene (still pretty risque in 1970), he didn't win any friends in that movie. He didn't care. He did it anyway. He takes a lot of flack from modern critics for his very front-and-center performances, but I think they're the reason he holds up, actuall. I mean, no one is claiming that a renaisance statue actually *looked* like Moses, they're just an ideal. Likewise, Heston was playing people's perceptions of Moses, not any kind of reality, nor any kind of more nuanced, introspective, doubtful, human portrayal. He played larger-than-life characters in a larger-than-life way, with no attempt to humanize them. With smaller characters, he pulled back his style considerably.

I forgot to mention that Sean Connery did a couple SF films in the lean years between Bond and The Untouchables.

The Artist Formerly Known As Republibot 3.0

Sat, 12/12/2009 - 13:19

#216

neorandomizer

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Joined: 06/27/2009

Heston was a one of a kind

OK you named the three guys that are the exceptions that prove the rule. Walter Pidgeon was on the down side of his career but still a major star where Rock Hudson and Charlton Heston were still major stars when they did sci fi.

Both Hudson and Heston were not afraid to take risks but they were real actors which believe it or not is rare in a film star. If you look at the sci fi movies that Heston made can you see anyone else in the role? He had a bigger than life presence to him that made Planet of the Apes, The Omega Man etc the films that they were. He was so sure of himself that he did not hide the fact that he was a conservative which did not win him any friends in Hollywood. Any movie Heston is in is worth watching just to see him dominate the scenes he is in.

Speaking of the Omega Man would anyone but Heston have the balls to play that role as a Christ figure that saves mankind. His death scene were he is hit in the side with the spear and then dies and is floating in the fountain in the pose of Christ on the Cross is a classic that not many would dare to try.

Sat, 12/12/2009 - 12:21

#217

Republibot 3.0

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Yeah, that's kind of my thinking.

Major stars *did* do SF films pre-1980 - Walter Pidgeon, Charlton Heston, Rock Hudson - but they were few and far between. Most considered SF beneath them, which is why Trek couldn't hold on to Jeffrey Hunter. (He did the pilot for a paycheck, he didn't figure anyone would ever *see* it, and was quite embarased when it went to series).

I've been kind of leaning in that direction. Obviously, while the premise of "Fantastic Voyage" is no less goofy than, say, "Planet of the Prehistoric Women," it's vastly different in quality, the level of stars, the budget, direction, acting, and hubba-hubba quotient. (Young Raquel Welch....grrrrrrrowllllll!)

Ok, so that one's out. I'll need to find another film for next week.

The Artist Formerly Known As Republibot 3.0

Sat, 12/12/2009 - 12:09

#218

neorandomizer

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Joined: 06/27/2009

Rachel Welch is a genre star

Wasn’t Fantastic Voyage a fairly big budget film for the time from a major studio? If it qualifies then most sci fi films pre 1980 would. As I remember when this movie went to TV it was shown as a movie of the week so most people at the time would have at lest heard of it. Like the Andromeda Strain this film was taken seriously by the studio and was not a B movie made for the drive-ins but a major release.

Now it is true that major stars did not start making sci fi movies until the 80’s but if we are honest about it sci fi at lest when it comes to Hollywood productions is not a fringe genre any more it’s the main stay of the business now. Almost all of the tenet pole films that are aimed at taking a studio into the black (profitable) are for the most part all sci fi or fantasy films now.

The fact that sci fi movies are now mainstream hit home the last time by mother in-law visited and she told me she was looking forward to going to see the Watchmen when it came out in the coming week. So no Fantastic Voyage really does not qualify for this but any excuse to watch a film where Rachel Welch is in a skintight suit is a good one.

Sat, 12/12/2009 - 10:15

#219

Republibot 3.0

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I agree.

Someone once described Irwin Allen as a perpetual 12-ear-old boy: he just wanted to play with neat toys in the back yard, and cobbled together nonsensical stories to involve the toys without any real concern for plausibility. That certainly fits his famous five shows, and several of his movies, what with their elaborate sets, flashy effects, and utter turd scripts.

Someone else (I'm not a namedropper, so I won't say who) that worked on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea - the series - once told me that Irwin was utterly bereft of any kind of empathy. He said that once he saw a workman changing the lights on a ladder in the studio offices while Irwin was walking down the hall. The ladder fell over, making a huge mess, and the terrified workman was left hanging from the ceiling twelve feet in the air. Irwin's only reaction was to look at the guy and say condescendingly, "You're gonna' clean this up, right?" and then walked off. On another occasion he threatened to nail Billy Mumy's shoe to the ground if he kept missing his mark. Curiously, he always got extremely uncomfortable - just like a kid - at displays of affection between his characters, so the romantic plots in all his shows were quickly sidelined.

I kind of like how cool-yet-fake looking the Seaview is. Ignoring the outside wonkyness (Cadillac tail fins!), show me a sub with fourteen-foot ceilings and hallways that wide, I dare you!

I've got the same CD double feature you do. "Fantastic Voyage" is a much higher profile movie than this one was. I was toying with the idea of reviewing it, but I'm not entirely sure it qualifies. What do you think?

The Artist Formerly Known As Republibot 3.0

Sat, 12/12/2009 - 03:01

#220

neorandomizer

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Joined: 06/27/2009

Irwin Allen

I have this movie on DVD with Fantastic Voyage (Rachel Welch haba haba) but I first saw it as a kid. The interior sets look great but are nowhere near accurate Hunt for Red October and even Ice Station Zebra are more realistic. But besides that I love all submarine movies and can’t get enough of them which seems weird since I was in the sub force in the Navy.

The major problem with this film is that it’s made by Irwin Allen who always had great ideas and crappy scripts. Allen always was able to get the most out what little effects money he had but most of his films and TV shows lack good writing when it comes to dialog and his characters are usually one dimensional. He like George Pal made some classics but they were always close to but not quite schlock.

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