Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961)

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea is an American science-fiction film first released in 1961, directed by Irwin Allen.  The film stars Walter Pidgeon, Joan Fontaine, Barbara Eden, Peter Lorre and Robert Sterling.  Our overall rating for this film is: good.


Seaview is a revolutionary nuclear submarine designed by the renowned scientist Admiral Harriman Nelson.  During trials of the submarine beneath the Arctic ice cap, the crew discover that the surface temperature  of the Earth has risen dramatically, causing icebergs to melt.  Nelson and Captain Crane, the submarine’s commander, receive a message from the Bureau of Marine Exploration, notifying them that the Van Allen Belt which surrounds the Earth has suddenly and inexplicably caught fire.  Nelson and his friend Commodore Emery, a fellow scientist, are summoned to an emergency scientific meeting at the United Nations, to discuss how the crisis may be resolved,  Nelson proposes to destroy the Van Allen Belt with a nuclear missile fired from his new submarine.  The consensus view is that no action is necessary because the fire will eventually burn itself out.  Convinced that his solution is the best, Nelson races back to the Seaview and orders his crew to set a course for a spot in the Pacific Ocean from which the missile may be launched.  If he is right, Nelson will save the world.  If he is wrong, he will be responsible for the extinction of all life on Earth.  Not everyone on board the submarine believes Nelson’s solution will work and it soon becomes apparent that someone intends to sabotage the mission...

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea typifies the middle-of-the-range B-movie sci-fi films that poured out of American film studios in the late fifties, early sixties.  Not good enough to be a classic, but not risible enough to be forgotten, the film impresses with its state of the art special effects and model shots but falls down flat with its wooden characterisation and toe-curling dialogue, which clearly did not come within a hundred mile radius of a real scientist.  The film’s respectable cast includes Peter Lorre looking very bored in one of his last roles and popular crooner Frankie Avalon looking for something interesting to do other than blow a trumpet and look embarrassingly cute.  Avalon also provided the vocals for the film’s totally incongruous theme song.

Like most B-movie sci-fi films of this era, the plot is totally lacking in scientific plausibility.  The Van Allan Belt had been discovered only a couple of years before the film was made but even so the idea that it could catch fire and incinerate the Earth was fanciful in the extreme.  Of course, we now know that the build up of carbon dioxide in the atmopshere (caused by man’s reckless burning of fossil fuels and other irresponsible acts, such as eating meat and muesli) will do the job, so the film’s premise isn’t perhaps as ludicrous as it might seem (although it’s hard to see how a nuclear submarine could solve this version of global warming).

When the film proved to be moderately successful, its producer and director Irwin Allen decided to make it into a television series, with the same title and using sets and props from the film.   (The first episode was in fact a cut down remake of the film.)  This series, broadcast in 1964-1968, was the first of four very popular sci-fi fantasy TV series which Irwin Allen produced, the others being: Lost In Space, The Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

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