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Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

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Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

1961, Sci-fi, 1h 45m

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Voyage to the bottom of the sea   photos.

Harriman Nelson (Walter Pidgeon) is the creator of a revolutionary nuclear submarine. After testing its capabilities in the Arctic Ocean, Nelson and the commanding officer (Robert Sterling) surface the vessel, only to discover the sky ablaze. Learning that the Van Allen radiation belt has caught fire, Nelson conceives a plan that could save the planet from destruction, but the U.N. shoots it down. Nelson is convinced it will work, but an onboard psychiatrist (Joan Fontaine) questions his sanity.

Genre: Sci-fi

Original Language: English

Director: Irwin Allen

Producer: Irwin Allen

Writer: Charles Bennett , Irwin Allen

Release Date (Streaming): Nov 30, 2016

Runtime: 1h 45m

Production Co: Twentieth Century Fox

Cast & Crew

Walter Pidgeon

Adm. Harriman Nelson

Joan Fontaine

Dr. Susan Hiller

Barbara Eden

Lt Cathy Connors

Peter Lorre

Comm. Lucius Emery

Robert Sterling

Capt. Lee Crane

Michael Ansara

Miguel Alvarez

Frankie Avalon

Lt (j.g.) Danny Romano

Regis Toomey

Dr. Jamieson

Vice-Adm. B.J. Crawford

Howard McNear

Congressman Llewellyn Parker

Henry Daniell

Seaman Jimmy "Red" Smith

Charles Tannen

CPO Gleason

Seaman Kowski

Anthony Monaco

Robert Easton

Jonathan Gilmore

Seaman George Young

David McLean

Ned Thompson

George Diestel

Irwin Allen

Charles Bennett

Screenwriter

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Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

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Film Details

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Brief Synopsis

Cast & crew, irwin allen, walter pidgeon, joan fontaine, barbara eden, peter lorre, robert sterling, photos & videos, technical specs.

As the U. S. O. S. Seaview , a mammoth glass-nosed atomic submarine designed by scientist Harriman Nelson, makes its trial run near the polar icecap, the Van Allen radiation belt suddenly bursts into flame and threatens to destroy the Earth. Nelson is convinced that the only hope for survival is to shoot a Polaris missile into the belt and thereby cause it to explode backward into space. When the United Nations rejects his proposal as being too dangerous, Nelson commandeers the Seaview and heads for the Marianas, where he plans to launch the missile. Also aboard the submarine are Susan Hiller, a psychiatrist studying the effects of prolonged confinement on human behavior; Cathy Connors, Nelson's devoted secretary; Lucius Emery, a noted physicist who concurs with Nelson's theory; Capt. Lee Crane, the Seaview 's skipper; Miguel Alvarez, a civilian scientist; and Chip Romano, a brash young officer. Once the vessel is underway, several of the personnel begin to question Nelson's sanity; and there are repeated attempts at sabotage. After a run-in with a giant squid and a passage through a World War II mine field, the Seaview is attacked by U. N. submarines sent to prevent the launching of the missile. But Nelson, knowing that the Seaview can withstand depths far greater than any other undersea vessel, takes his craft down deeper and deeper until the tremendous pressure causes the pursuing submarines to explode. When the Seaview reaches its destination, Susan is revealed to be the saboteur. Convinced Nelson's actions will destroy the world, she makes a last effort to prevent the launching; but she is accidentally killed. Crane then sets the detonator, and the Polaris is sent into space. The wild experiment proves successful as a shattering explosion restores the burning sky to a tropical stillness.

Michael Ansara

Frankie Avalon

Regis Toomey

Howard Mcnear

Henry Daniell

Charles tannen, delbert monroe, anthony monaco, robert easton, jonathan gilmore, david mclean.

George Diestel

Michael ford, l. b. abbott, charles bennett, herman a. blumenthal, george boemler, alfred bruzlin, warren b. delaplain, russell faith, albert gail, winton hoch, paul sawtell, ad schaumer, walter m. scott, bert shefter, jack martin smith, john sturtevant, helen turpin, paul zastupnevich, fred zendar, photo collections, voyage to the bottom of the sea on blu-ray.

Alvarez... are you saying that Man must accept destruction even though it's in his power to prevent it? - Admiral Nelson

It's not for us to judge, Admiral. - Alvarez

Not to judge, maybe; but we can reason. If God ordains that Man should die without a fight, then why does He give us the will to live? - Admiral Nelson

Miscellaneous Notes

Released in United States Summer July 1961

Released in United States on Video August 25, 1988

Released in United States March 1975

Film spawned the 60s television series of the same name.

CinemaScope

Released in United States March 1975 (Shown at FILMEX: Los Angeles International Film Exposition (Science Fiction Movie Marathon - Selection of Trailers) March 13-26, 1975.)

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Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

Entry updated 19 November 2023. Tagged: Film, TV.

1. Film ( 1961 ). Windsor Productions/Twentieth Century Fox. Directed by Irwin Allen . Written by Allen and Charles Bennett. Cast includes Barbara Eden, Joan Fontaine, Peter Lorre, Walter Pidgeon and Robert Sterling. 105 minutes. Colour.

The crew of a glass-nosed nuclear submarine has a mission to fire an atomic missile into the Van Allen belts, which have been set on fire by meteors (!) and are melting the icecaps. Despite enemy submarines, a giant octopus and other hazards, the mission succeeds. As with most of Allen's productions, the plot does not survive an instant's rational scrutiny; it is full of astonishing Scientific Errors . The novelization was Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea ( 1961 ) by Theodore Sturgeon .

2. US tv series ( 1964-1968 ). An Irwin Allen Production for Twentieth Century Fox TV/ABC. Created by Irwin Allen, executive producer. Story consultant Sidney Marshall. Writers included Harlan Ellison (one episode as by Cordwainer Bird), Peter Germano , Robert Hamner, Richard Landau, Rik Vollaerts and William Welch (34 episodes). Directors included Jus Addiss, Felix Feist, Harry Harris, Leonard Horn, Sobey Martin and Sutton Roley. Special effects L B Abbott. 110 50-minute episodes. First season black and white, the remaining three seasons colour.

Based on 1 , this series concerned the exploits of the experimental submarine Seaview ; it starred Richard Basehart and David Hedison. Early episodes had fairly conventional stories involving secret agents and threats from unfriendly foreign powers, but later the plots became increasingly fantastic: not only were the crew faced with such Monster dangers as giant whales, giant jellyfish, giant octopuses and giant "things", but their submarine was regularly invaded by a variety of esoteric menaces ranging from sentient seaweed to the ghost of a U-boat captain, other uninvited guests including a lobster man, a mummy, a leprechaun, a blob and a mad robot. Throughout, Basehart and Hedison kept straight faces. Abbott's special effects won several Emmy awards. Book spin-offs were Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea ( 1965 ) by Raymond F Jones and City Under the Sea ( 1965 ) by Paul W Fairman . [JB]

see also: Under the Sea .

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Science on Screen

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

Release date.

• Irwin Allen
• Barbara Eden
• Walter Pidgeon
• Joan Fontaine
• Peter Lorre

Film Synopsis

When the Earth is threatened by a burning Van Allen radiation belt, U.S. Navy Admiral Harriman Nelson plans to ignore the objections of the U.N. and shoot a nuclear missile at the belt with his experimental atomic submarine.

Harriman Nelson (Walter Pidgeon) is the creator of a revolutionary nuclear submarine. After testing its capabilities in the Arctic Ocean, Nelson and the commanding officer (Robert Sterling) surface the vessel, only to discover the sky ablaze. Learning that the Van Allen radiation belt has caught fire, Nelson conceives a plan that could save the planet from destruction, but the U.N. shoots it down. Nelson is convinced it will work, but an onboard psychiatrist (Joan Fontaine) questions his sanity.

Photo courtesy of PHOTOFEST

Past Programs

Belcourt Theatre, Nashville, TN

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

Voyage is a crescendo of mounting jeopardy, an effervescent adventure in an anything-but-Pacific Ocean.

By Variety Staff

Variety Staff

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The way the story goes, this brilliant admiral (Walter Pidgeon), commander of a marvelous atomic sub that resembles a smiling Moby Dick, devises a scheme to save mankind when life on earth is suddenly threatened by a girdle of fire caused when the Van Allen Belt of Radiation encircling the globe goes berserk and erupts. Trouble is mankind does not seem to want to be saved and unable to contact the US prez (golfing?), skipper Pidgeon heads for a spot near the Marianas where he plans to orbit a Polaris and explode the heavenly blaze out into space.

Actually the title is somewhat misleading. Customers who expect a kind of advanced course in oceanography will discover only an occasional giant squid and a lot of rubbery vegetation. For the most part, The Bottom of director Irwin Allen’s Sea is merely the setting for the kind of emotional calisthenics that might just as easily break out 100 feet from the tip of Mount Everest.

The acting is generally capable, about the best it can be under the trying dramatic circumstances.

• Production: Windsor/20th Century-Fox. Director Irwin Allen; Producer Irwin Allen; Screenplay Irwin Allen, Charles Bennett; Camera Winton C. Hoch; Editor George Boemler; Music Paul Sawtell, Bert Shefter; Art Director Jack Martin Smith, Herman A. Blumenthal
• Crew: (Color) Widescreen. Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1961. Running time: 105 MIN.
• With: Walter Pidgeon Joan Fontaine Barbara Eden Peter Lorre Robert Sterling Frankie Avalon

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MPAA Rating

Produced by, released by, voyage to the bottom of the sea (1961), directed by irwin allen.

• AllMovie Rating 6
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Voyage to the bottom of the sea.

1961 Directed by Irwin Allen

From Hundred of Miles In Outer Space to Seven Miles Beneath the Sea!

The crew of an atomic submarine battle to save the world from global destruction.

Walter Pidgeon Robert Sterling Barbara Eden Peter Lorre Joan Fontaine Michael Ansara Frankie Avalon Regis Toomey John Litel Howard McNear Henry Daniell Robert Easton Charles Tannen Mark Slade Del Monroe Jonathan Gilmore Anthony Monaco Skip Ward Michael Ford William Herrin Robert Buckingham Richard Adams Jimmy Murphy George Diestel Larry Gray David McLean Edward Rickard Charles Dierkop Kendrick Huxham Show All… Art Baker Rodger Terry Brad Brown Raoul Freeman Al Bain Harry Baum Benjie Bancroft Michael Cirillo Harry Denny John Giovanni Bhupesh Guha Esther Ying Lee Robert Locke Lorraine George Nardelli Paul Power Paul Ravel Scott Seaton Leslie Sketchley Ray Spiker Hal Taggart Robert Strong

Director Director

Irwin Allen

Assistant Director Asst. Director

Ad Schaumer

Producer Producer

Writers writers.

Charles Bennett Irwin Allen

Editor Editor

George Boemler

Cinematography Cinematography

Winton C. Hoch

Art Direction Art Direction

Jack Martin Smith Herman A. Blumenthal

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Walter M. Scott John Sturtevant

Special Effects Special Effects

Johnny Borgese

Visual Effects Visual Effects

L.B. Abbott

Stunts Stunts

Paul Stader Johnny Hagner Zale Parry

Composers Composers

Paul Sawtell Bert Shefter

Sound Sound

Alfred Bruzlin Warren B. Delaplain

Costume Design Costume Design

Paul Zastupnevich

Makeup Makeup

Hairstyling hairstyling.

Helen Turpin

Windsor Productions 20th Century Fox

Primary Language

Spoken languages.

French English

Releases by Date

12 jul 1961, 06 sep 1961, 08 sep 1961, 21 may 1962, 05 sep 2000, 24 dec 2003, 05 jun 2007, 08 oct 2013, releases by country.

• Physical L Fox Home mj.gov.br
• Theatrical 12
• Theatrical G
• Physical PG Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea / Fantastic Voyage DVD Double Feature
• Physical PG DVD Release
• Physical PG Blu-Ray Release

105 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by 📀 Cammmalot 📀 ★★★

Cinematic Time Capsule 1961 Marathon - Film #43

”This lunatic scheme will destroy the world.”

Not content with a meager 20,000 Leagues, Irwin Allen takes us on a voyage to the very bottom of the sea!

His submarine’s a wonder to behold with its massive windows that no one bothers to look out of until it’s too late and an interior that’s more spacious than an empty gymnasium.

Allen’s sets and toys are so much fun that I really want to enjoy this journey, but sadly the film’s bogged down with lackluster pacing and way too many meandering conversations.

BONUS POINTS for Peter Lorre as the grumpy grumbling scientist with a semi-well behaved pet shark.

”What on earth is he doing?” “Shark walking”

Cinematic Time Capsule - 1961 Ranked

Review by julianblair ★★★ 6

Come with me Come with me

On a voyage to the bottom of the sea

In a sea of blue-green We will find love at the bottom of the sea

Unbelievable Inconceivable Fantastic it will seem

But we'll be the first the very first to live such a strange new dream

Yes, that's the romantic (albeit corny) ballad that accompanies the opening credits of this movie from the summer of 1961. Does the film live up to the lyrics of the song? Well, it does turn out to be a colorful melange of high adventure, science fiction, submarine thriller, Cold War nail-biter and.....apocalyptic disaster flick. Everything here but the kitchen sink....oh, but there's little of the promised romance.... yet, as…

Review by UltimateMovieRankings ★★★

This is one of Irwin Allen's first disaster movies. Allen would have great success in the 1970s with The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon and of course The Swarm (sorry that was actually a horrible movie and a box office bomb). In this one the Van Allen radiation belt catches fire (you gotta hate that when it happens) and starts melting the icecaps and turning the Earth into a sauna. So if I got the science right....if the Earth's temperature reaches 175F it is game over. Scientists think at 173F the radiation belt will put itself out. Walter Pidgeon playing genius Admiral Nelson thinks the scientists are wrong....he thinks they need to launch nuclear weapons to blow up the belt…

Review by Jordan Beaumont Anderson ★★

This movie has two problems.

One, the fate of the entire planet hangs in the balance and nobody seems to have any goddamn hustle in their step. Humanity is at stake, fuck-faces! Not the time to grab a paper and take one of those long, leisurely shits. Use a diaper like that NASA lady.

Two, and most egregious, they somehow made an entire submarine look like a dentist's office. The dudes look like Pleasantville Nationalist Party members and the bitches look like Stepford wives with glaciers of foundation.

And they walk around like it's a neighborhood barbecue. Steve is making burgers and brats and somebody ordered a bouncy house. Haha! Caroline brought her famous rum cake. And an extra bottle…

Review by Hollie Horror ★★★ 2

Obviously I bought this tape for the octopus but I watched it from start to finish for Peter Lorre who is SO FUCKING CUTE I WANT TO SQUEEZE THE LIFE OUT OF HIM!!!!!!!!! Always in the background making snide comments about not liking someone or making shitty faces, my man!

Review by Travis Lytle ★★★

More in the vein of, well, Irwin Allen than Jules Verne, Irwin Allen's "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" is a deep sea adventure film with characters on a quest to save the world. A disaster movie with a mostly suggested disaster, the film offers Cinemascope color and mild thrills in a somewhat stale but pleasant experience.

When the radiation belt around Earth begins to burn, threatening all life on the planet, a scientist with an idea and a submarine is called into action to save the day. The crew of the sub faces doubt, mutineers, and sea creatures as it works to fulfill its death-defying mission.

The story suffers from dull stretches, but it is mostly fun in…

Review by Pippin ★½

B-o-r-i-n-g!

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea begins with a very tonally confusing love song, and shocks the viewer by focusing on the worst character, Captain Lee (Robert Sterling) instead of literally anyone else. Walter Pidgeon is given a decent amount of screen time, but Joan Fontaine is barely here at all. I mainly watched this for her, too, so you can imagine the struggle it was to get through this one. I also didn’t read the description of this beforehand and thought it was going to be completely different—the plot really didn’t engage me and it felt really dragged out.

Review by AJ ★★★

It's like a lesser version of The Day the Earth Caught Fire blended with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea . However, it's still a submarine sci-fi adventure-thriller with a real octopus and a star-studded cast, so there's that.

Review by Terése Flynn ★★

Part of my Scavenger Hunt #2 list. Task: 6. A Submarine film!

All is jolly on the submarine. The captain is soon to get married to one of the stewards, they brag about how strong the sub's weapons are, and so we won't get claustrophobic the submarine has big windows showing us the beauty of the sea.

They seem to be in an arctic area. The sky turns red and the crew get a message of that a frightening ring of fire is turning the word into dust. A survivor is brought on the submarine. "He must've been out there for days", they say. "He's burnt to the crisp". He's more of a little sweaty though, probably looking better than…

Review by deMicha ★½

Deutscher Titel: Unternehmen Feuergürtel

Als die Erde von einer kosmischen Katastrophe bedroht wird, ist Admiral Harriman und sein Hightech-U-Boot die letzte Chance. Aber nicht jeder ist damit einverstanden.

Unterwasser U-Boot Abenteuerfilm mit ein bissjen S.F. von 1961. Man sieht hier bekannte Gesichter im Cast. Die Unterwasser Szenen/ Miniatur Bauten sehen gut aus, manche anderen Szenen auch. Was aber für mich gar nicht gepasst hat, war das hier zuviel 08/15 Drama drin war. Was dieser art von Film gar nicht gut tut. Irgendwann waren die Charaktere mit egal. Zum einmal schauen für interessierte isses ok.

Review by Handman ★★★

All this time, I was under the impression that Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was a huge part of pop culture. Just the ship design and titles look iconic, plus I seem to remember the giant squid attacking the sub being a very prevalent image. After seeing the critical response here, I may be mistaken with the television show of the same name , one of the longest running sci-fi series of the 1960s. Yet, somehow, it doesn't seem to have had the lasting appeal that other shows like Lost in Space (coincidentally also created by Irwin Allen) and, more prominently, Star Trek have had. I might also be mistaking it with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea , another underwater…

Review by RetroHound ★★★

A supersub is on an Arctic mission when they discover the sky is on fire. The ice caps are melting and people are dying all over the globe. They book it down to Washington DC and have a theory about shooting a missile into the sky to put out the fire. They have to shoot if from way out in the Pacific however, so a journey with perils without like giant squid and within from a stupid impatient crew wanting to just go home and die.

For an apocalyptic film, this is pretty mild, it's indicated several times there are deaths but the viewers never get the depth of the danger. Frankie Avalon is in this, and unlike Pat Boone…

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VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA

Walter Pidgeon plays the designer and builder of a nuclear submarine called upon to fire its missiles on the Van Allen radiation belt to put out the fire raging there that threatens to incinerate the earth in this deep-sea adventure.

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Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

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The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961)

Rating: ★★.

Director/Producer/Story – Irwin Allen, Screenplay – Irwin Allen & Charles Bennett, Photography – Winton Hoch, Underwater Photography – John Lamb, Music – Paul Sawtell & Bert Shefter, Photographic Effects – L.B. Abbott, Makeup – Ben Nye, Art Direction – Herman A. Blumenthal & Jack Martin Smith. Production Company – Windsor.

Walter Pidgeon (Admiral Harriman Nelson), Robert Sterling (Captain Lee Crane), Barbara Eden (Lieutenant Cathy Connors), Peter Lorre (Commodore Lucius Emery), Joan Fontaine (Dr Susan Hiller), Michael Ansara (Miguel Alvarez), Frankie Avalon (Chip Romano)

The experimental submarine Seaview emerges from tests under the Arctic ice pack to find the sky on fire due to a passing comet having set the Van Allen radiation belt alight. The Seaview’s designer Admiral Harriman Nelson contrives a plan to save the world by firing atomic missiles at the Van Allen Belt. When there is dissension about the plan in the United Nations, Nelson storms out and sets forth in Seaview to launch the missiles irrespective. The missiles must be launched from the Marianas Trench within sixteen days, before the radiation heats the Earth to fatal levels. As The Seaview races to the Marianas Trench, Nelson must contend with other problems – a crew ready to mutiny because of his iron-handed leadership; a saboteur; a religious fanatic who believes that the launch is against the will of God; pursuing submarines sent to stop them; and attacks by giant octopi.

Producer and sometimes director Irwin Allen had a reputation as the crassest of genre producers. The truth is that Irwin Allen was less a filmmaker than he was a showman. The spirit of P.T. Barnum was very much alive and well in Irwin Allen – to Allen everything was spectacle. His disaster movies – The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Towering Inferno (1974), The Swarm (1978), Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979) and The Day the World Ended/When Time Ran Out (1980) – seemed the pinnacle of such showman’s ambition. They allowed Irwin Allen to combine the twin drawcards of big name stars and spectacular boilerplate dramatics. Prior to this, Irwin Allen had made his name with genre tv shows such as Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964-8), Lost in Space (1965-8), The Time Tunnel (1967-8) and Land of the Giants (1968-70). Allen’s tv series can almost be seen as disaster movies for juveniles, where in lieu of the spectacle of overturned passenger liners, burning skyscrapers or rampant swarms of insects, they inflate pseudo-science and mindless flashing lights to the status of spectacle.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was the forerunner of the tv series of the same name, which became Irwin Allen’s longest running show. The reason for Allen making the series seems to be based solely on shrewd commercial instinct – that he had expended $400,000 building a model and the interior set of the submarine, it was left over after making the film so why not do something else with it.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (the film) is mounted with the dull stolidity familiar to Irwin Allen; indeed, it lays out the blueprint of Allen’s ensuing series – the wooden dialogue and characters, the laughable science and the mindless spectacle of flashing lights. The characters are forthright GI types hewn with shining patriotism – attempts to introduce characterisation with a romance between Barbara Eden and Robert Sterling, or scenes with crewmembers expressing concern about their families have a dreadfully forced embarrassment.

The science is, as it always was in Irwin Allen’s science-fiction, laughable – all the talk about a burning Van Allen Belt and being able to blast it away with missiles is remarkable in its pseudo-scientific nonsense. Allen should have been ashamed about his failure to even check the most basic details in his science-fiction (if he did know better, it seems a remarkable contempt for his audience’s intelligence).

The film is not without its entertainment value. The middle scenes with the crew tensions pitted against commander Walter Pidgeon’s single-minded determination are conducted with a certain vigour. The effects work is particularly good, notably the scenes of the submarine cruising beneath the surface and the nicely done burning sky effects. Although, the effects do fall down when one sees that the Seaview model has only been built at one size – when it is focused on in tight closeup, the lack of fine detail shows it up as only being a model.

The film was later turned into the tv series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964-8), which lasted for four seasons and 110 episodes. The lead roles of Admiral Nelson and Captain Crane were recast with Richard Basehart and David Hedison respectively. The first season of the series took itself relatively seriously but thereafter the fantastic elements became increasingly improbable and ridiculous with the Seaview crew encountering everything from dinosaurs, invading aliens, mad scientists, revived Nazis, mummies, ghosts, mermaids, a mad toymaker who replaces the crew with puppets, the Yeti, time travellers, an intelligent gorilla, even leprechauns, a lobster man, a revived Blackbeard the Pirate and finding themselves turned into werewolves and wax dummies.

Irwin Allen’s other works of genre interest are:– as producer/director/writer of The Story of Mankind (1957) wherein various historical figures up in Heaven debate about whether to destroy humanity, which becomes an opportunity for Allen to rehash stock footage from various historical spectacles; as producer/director/writer of the remake of The Lost World (1960); as producer of the tv series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964-8), Lost in Space (1965-8), The Time Tunnel (1967) and Land of the Giants (1968-70); as director/producer of City Beneath the Sea/One Hour to Doomsday (1971), a failed tv pilot, which Allen then released cinematically; as producer of The Time Travelers (1976), another unsold tv pilot, written by Rod Serling; as producer of the tv mini-series The Return of Captain Nemo (1978), which was theatrically released internationally as The Amazing Captain Nemo (1978); as director/producer of the notoriously bad killer bee film The Swarm (1978); and as producer of an all-star tv mini-series adaptation of Alice in Wonderland (1985).

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Film / Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

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A 1961 Science Fiction film produced, directed, and co-written by Irwin Allen . Its All-Star Cast includes Walter Pidgeon , Peter Lorre , Frankie Avalon, Barbara Eden and Michael Ansara .

The film became the basis for a television series later in the decade.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Tropes:

• Actor Allusion : Peter Lorre once again travels around the world on a submarine that gets attacked by a giant cephalopod near the end of the movie.
• According to the trailer: "You are there, when the entire sky catches on fire, the burning Van Allen Belt threatening to destroy the universe!"
• Bait the Dog : Crane decides that Alvarez is OK after all when he kills the squid that's about to kill Crane. At the climax of the movie, Alvarez produces a bomb and uses it to immobilize the control room, by threatening to blow it up if anyone launches a missile.
• Berserk Button : Captain Crane explodes when he finds Alvarez giving a sermon to the crew in the Seaview 's mess room about how all their efforts will ultimately prove worthless and all that is left for them to do is to make their peace with God. As he puts it, what the crew needs least of all right now is to have some doomsayer on board bringing their spirits down.
• Big Guy, Little Guy : Nelson is at least two heads taller than his closest friend and confidant, Lucius.
• Billions of Buttons : The diving station in the control room is even dubbed The Christmas Tree because of all the flashing lights, which include a large panel of unlabeled lights that flash on-and-off for no apparent reason . Admiral Nelson: And if we do shoot, over there are the buttons. Trick is to know which one.
• The magnetic primer (used to launch a missile if there's a power loss in the control room), the escape chamber and an experimental bomb are shown during the tour of the ship, all of them used during the climax.
• In a slightly grimmer example, the Seaview 's doctor hands out dosimeters to the people touring the ship in the prologue and mentions the colors it shows to represent dosages, and said dosimeters are pinned to the uniforms of all of the onboard characters throughout the film. So when Dr. Susan Hiller walks out of the reactor room after sabotaging it and looks down at her dosimeter being all red, we know she is a dead woman walking even if she did not fall into the shark pool.
• Dissonant Serenity : However he sounds quite laconic when talking over the intercom, no matter how bad things get.
• Cool Ship : The Seaview . A fully-armed state-of-the-art atomic submarine that can outrun and outdive regular submarines, has an internal pool for sharks (or other sea creatures worth investigating)... and, oh, yeah, has a glass nose. The fact that it has the In-Universe nickname of "Nelson's Folly" showcases how little people think of its technological advancements.
• Cold Equation : Captain Crane realises from Alvarez's ramblings that there was someone with him, but the admiral countermands the order to search for more survivors because they have to get to New York. Later when the admiral leaves UN headquarters pursued by the military police, he orders a crash drive even through there are MPs on the deck with the risk of them drowning.
• Conflict Killer : Crane is formally relieving Admiral Nelson of command when they are attacked by UN submarines that have been ordered to sink them. Crane also announces that he's not firing the missile, but the discovery of the real saboteur convinces him the admiral isn't crazy after all.
• Crazy Enough to Work : The plan to nuke the Van Allen belt. Most of the drama between Nelson and almost everybody else comes from the fact that Nelson is the only one that doesn't think this.
• Cut Phone Lines : Sparks can't get through to Washington D.C on the radio to get the US President's approval to fire the missile. So they try tapping into an underwater telephone cable, but the operator they contact in London has lost contact everyone on the other side of the Atlantic. Admiral Nelson therefore decides to proceed on his own authority.
• Deus ex Nukina : To stop the world from turning into a dried husk, a nuclear missile must be fired to the Van Allen radiation belts from the Marianas.
• Dive! Dive! Dive! : Or two "Dive!"'s at least.
• Driven to Suicide : A sailor in sickbay breaks into the medicine cabinet and takes an overdose.
• Exact Time to Failure : In order to have a Race Against the Clock the missile has to be fired at exactly the right time and date.
• Explosive Instrumentation : Sparks fly and jets of water leak into the submarine.
• The Fundamentalist : While facing death on the iceberg Alvarez turned to religion, believing Mankind should Face Death with Dignity because what's happening is God's will. This brings him into conflict with Captain Crane who thinks he's preaching defeatism.
• Giant Squid : A gigantic octopus attacks the Seaview as it is nearing its goal, and is driven away by electricity. Earlier in the film, an actual giant squid attacks the divers repairing the transatlantic phone line on the ocean bottom.
• Ghost Ship : The Seaview finds a yacht where everyone on board has been killed by the heat after running out of water. Admiral Nelson allows the disaffected members of the crew to pack supplies on board and use the yacht to return home.
• A Glass in the Hand : One of the many signs that the crew is growing increasingly uncomfortable with the whole situation is when one of them crushes a still-full glass as he hears Admiral Nelson saying that the attempt to communicate with land via the underwater landline in the Atlantic didn't work and, thus, will continue the expedition to the launch point and nobody will be able to talk to their families.
• Global Warming : When the skies start to burn, the ice caps melt while Seaview is in the Arctic Ocean, leaving chunks of ice to rain down on it (which ignores the fact that ice floats).
• Hollywood Density : The Seaview is first alerted to the disaster when icebergs start breaking off the melting icepack above them and crash down on the submarine's hull. Ice floats because it is less dense than liquid water.
• Hot Sub-on-Sub Action : One of the many rapid-fire catastrophes that get in the heroes' way in the climax is the encounter of a couple of nuclear subs that have been sent to hunt down Seaview .
• Hypocritical Humor : Captain Crane roasts an officer for "undignified behaviour", only to be caught smooching Lt. Connor by the same officer.
• Hysterical Woman : A woman getting to her feet and shouting during the UN scientific conference is dismissed by the newsreader as hysterical, even through she's no louder (and a good deal less hammy) than some of the men present.
• Ignored Expert : Nelson, who proposes pulling the Deus ex Nukina (and insists that there is no time to argue), but is undermined by UN Emergency Scientific Meeting head delegate (and scientist) Emilio Zucco, who believes the "sky fire" will burn itself out. Nelson, thus, has to perform the expedition with everybody else thinking he's insane.
• Insane Admiral : As tension builds on the Seaview , the generator is sabotaged and the admiral gets a typewritten death threat which is apparently later carried out when a fire starts in his quarters. Dr. Hiller and Captain Crane start to think that it's not just the crew who are going crazy but the admiral also, with it being suggested that he typed up the death threat and started the fire himself. The revelation that other subs have been ordered to sink the Seaview doesn't help either, because it means that everyone else thinks Nelson's plan is crazy too.
• Instant Cool Down : Earth will become uninhabitable if the temperature reaches 175°F , but scientists speculate the burning Van Allen Belt will snuff itself out at 173.
• Admiral Nelson. It is this, and various decisions that (in Crane's eyes) make him look like The Neidermeyer , that make the Captain a Commander Contrarian . The Seaview is even mentioned early in the film to have been nick-named "Nelson's Folly" by the news.
• Emilio Zucco as well. The United Nations Emergency Scientific Meeting devolves into an intellectual measuring contest with his insistence that his theory is right and Admiral Nelson is bonkers vs. Admiral Nelson's insisting that there's no time to sit down and wait to see if it's true.
• Layman's Terms : Nelson explains to a conference of the world's foremost scientists that his plan to explode a nuclear missile in the burning Van Allen radiation belt to disperse it harmlessly into space is like blowing too much air into a balloon. You'd think the last thing the scriptwriter would want is for the audience to understand how ridiculous the Hollywood Science in this movie is.
• Line in the Sand : Rather than the usual version of trying to shame everyone into staying, Admiral Nelsen is getting rid of any dissenters to avert the threat of mutiny. Captain Crane isn't happy because this means his submarine is undermanned, his crew has been given an incentive to desert and he thinks the admiral's belief that there's a saboteur and attempted murderer on board is a figment of his imagination.
• Men of Sherwood : The submarine crew is portrayed as a highly efficient group of men on a dangerous, world-saving mission despite many harrowing human and environmental obstacles. Interestingly, many of them distrust their boss and his vision, although the one outright saboteur isn't a crew member. Hardly any of them die, although several do decide to Screw This, I'm Outta Here .
• Cathy Connors is a junior grade lieutenant but you wouldn't know it from the way she acts. Not only is she fraternizing with a superior officer, she does so right in front of the crew; snogging and Security Clinging her captain and addressing him as "Lee" on multiple occasions.
• One of the Screen Shake scenes has crewmen still in the messhall when the submarine is supposed to be at battle stations.
• Mister Muffykins : A rare male version with Alvarez always carrying around the dog that survived with him.
• Natural Disaster Cascade : First on television, then on radio until the admiral orders the transmissions cut off for the sake of morale. Crane objects, feeling morale will get worse without any information on what's happening.
• The doctor only hands out the dosimeter badges when their distinguished visitors reach his office on their tour; this is after they've been to the reactor room!
• The cook has a shoulder-perched parrot , which is cute but wouldn't do much for hygiene.
• Despite being on a submarine Everybody Smokes (in fairness the US Navy allowed smoking in submarines until 2011). It's even a plot point when an unextinguished cigar ( or was it? ) starts a fire in the admiral's cabin, forcing them to surface to ventilate the sub.
• After the generator is sabotaged knocking out both radar and sonar, the admiral orders them to proceed regardless, but no-one is posted on watch behind that nice wide undersea window. Fortunately Alvarez just happens to be there and calls Connor's attention to the oncoming minefield.
• Number Two : Captain Crane, with some degree of Commander Contrarian to Admiral Nelson. For most of the film he thinks that Zucco's theory is the correct one and Nelson is wrong. This causes Conflicting Loyalties with his fiancé who loves Connor but believes that the admiral is right.
• Perilous Power Source : The nuclear reactor has an alarm pressure pad outside the door, and those issued dosimeters are warned that if the badges turn from blue to red, they've absorbed a fatal dose of radiation. When Dr. Hiller comes out of the reactor after sabotaging it, she looks at her badge only to find it's gone red .
• Plot-Demanded Manual Mode : When Alvarez threatens to blow up the control room if anyone launches a missile, Crane gets a magnetic primer, swims outside the hull in scuba gear and attaches it to the missile to launch it manually. Fortunately the launch serves as a distraction enabling a crewmember to snatch the bomb off Alvarez.
• The Congressman inspecting the sub gets left behind in the chaos when Nelson leaves the conference.
• At the beginning of the final act, a dozen or so crewmen don't believe in Nelson's plan and want to go home to spend their remaining time with their families instead of being hunted on a possible doomed mission. Nelson lets them go, hoping the saboteur is one of them and feeling that the journey will go faster and smoother without disloyal and reluctant subordinates.
• Red Sky, Take Warning : After icebergs start falling on the hull, the Seaview surfaces to find the sky is on fire, melting the icecap.
• The Reveal : Dr. Susan Hiller and Miguel Alvarez are the actual saboteurs, not Admiral Nelson. Hiller thinks the admiral has gone crazy and it's All Up to You to stop him, while Alvarez thinks it's God's will that they all be destroyed.
• Sea Mine : The submarine almost plows headfirst into a mass of underwater mines, and a tense sequence starts when they have to send a minisub to cut a mine cable they've gotten entangled with. When the cable is cut, the mine drifts up and sets off another mine, and the underwater blast pushes the minisub into a third mine which destroys it.
• Set the World on Fire : Earth's Van Allen belts are on fire and if nothing is done about them, they will slowly roast the planet .
• Sexy Secretary : Played absolutely straight with the admiral's secretary Lt. Cathy Connors, a young blonde woman who is introduced via a Male Gaze of her Shaking the Rump as she dances in the messhall. She's the only woman serving on board, she wears a skirt and heels on a submarine with lots of ladders, and she's in a relationship with her boss (though her captain rather than the admiral) whom she intends to marry.
• Screen Shake : Four years before Star Trek , everyone does the side-to-side shuffle whenever something blows up.
• Scenery Porn : Right in the middle of the movie when the divers go out to tap into the undersea telephone cable, there's a lengthy scene of them exploring the beauty of the undersea world. Then again, you could hardly justify the title without it.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat : Admiral Nelson versus Congressman Parker, who opposed the building of the Seaview as a government boondoggle. Unfortunately he gets off in New York.
• The Spock : Nelson has little time for humor and makes his decisions based on data and which option seems safer to him, regardless of whether they put people in danger or make him him seem unfeeling. He rarely, if ever, takes the time to apologize or reflect on his actions. However, he's usually right , and occasionally he'll compromise with people who oppose him if he thinks it won't ruin his plans.
• Stern Chase : The moment Nelson storms out of the U.N. Emergency Scientific Meeting to get the Seaview to the Marianas, the world's governments try to stop him from doing something that they think will destroy the world. The mine field is one of such attempts, and the climax involves the (foreshadowed) attack of various subs ordered to sink Seaview .
• Surveillance as the Plot Demands : A view of the Earth surrounded by a ring of fire was ostensibly taken by a television satellite camera. Which must have been orbiting too far away for effective use, given the point-of-view shown.
• That's an Order! : Gets said a lot as tensions rise between Admiral Nelson and Captain Crane.
• Played straight when a frogman kills a shark just for swimming near them, on the presumption that it's going to attack. It's a carpenter shark , which tend not to harm humans unless threatened.
• Seaview has a Shark Pool inside it, where Lucius keeps a shark for his studies. He's shown 'walking' the shark around the pool so it won't drown after being drugged for research purposes. Later the trope is played straight when Dr. Hiller falls into the pool after a brief struggle with Crane and gets eaten .
• Title Theme Tune : Sung by Frankie Avalon, who also plays Lt. Romano, who is introduced playing the trombone while Connor dances for him.
• Two Girls to a Team : In the bold future of atomic submarines conquering the ocean depths the only women taking part will, of course, be the Sexy Secretary and the Hospital Hottie .
• Wham Shot : When the sky turns red about fifteen minutes in, it becomes clear that the movie is about more than just an innocent exploration of the ocean depths.
• Zee Rust : Admiral Nelson does his critical calculations for the launch window using a slide rule.
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Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

Voyage to the bottom of the sea is both an homage to jules verne, as well as an update of his ideas, all while paving the way forward in the sci-fi genre..

In a decade marked by exploration and scientific advancements, Irwin Allen’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea reinvigorates old ideas and introduces new topics into the realm of science-fiction. The film also makes use of natural disasters to move the plot forward, as well as tussling with the age old questions regarding science vs faith.

First Impressions

Seven years after the release of 20,000 Leagues , the trailer for Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea invokes the spirit of that film, and Jules Verne immensely. Set in modern times, an “atom powered” submarine must travel around the planet, avoiding undersea landslides, minefields, and a giant squid, in order to save the planet. The trailer, while showing many fascinating sights from the film, also invokes a popular phrase from the time, “You are there!” This phrase is based on the popular Walter Cronkite TV program, which ran from 1953-72, that would re-create important historical moments for the audience. This aspect of the trailer seems very kitschy by today’s standards.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea opens on board the USOS Seaview , Admiral Nelson (Walter Pidgeon) is welcoming his guests for their maiden voyage, Vice Admiral BJ Crawford (John Litel), Congressman Llewellyn Parker (Howard McNear) and Dr. Susan Hiller (Joan Fontaine). They receive a tour of the submarine from Captain Lee Crane (Robert Sterling). The crew is in preparation for a 96 hour test run of this new atomic submarine under the North Pole’s ice cap. Partway through the exercise, the ship surfaces due to an “iceberg avalanche,” which is caused by a bizarre phenomenon. The Van Allen radiation belt has caught on fire due to meteor activity, and has raised the temperature of the Earth to 135° and climbing.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea title card.

On their way out of the Arctic, the crew picks up a lone survivor of a research crew on an ice floe, Miguel Alvarez (Michael Ansara). The Admiral calls off any further search as the Seaview must get to the United Nations in New York City as soon as possible. Admiral Nelson and Commander Lucius Emery (Peter Lorre) have come up with a plan to stop the deadly blaze in the atmosphere. Upon arriving at the United Nations, they present their idea but Dr. Zucco (Henry Daniell) disagrees on the plan, favoring a wait-and-see attitude. Admiral Nelson knows they cannot wait and leaves New York, making all possible haste to the Marianas Trench in the South Pacific, near Guam.

With only a dozen days to make the needed location, Nelson orders a communication blackout so the men are not distracted by the news of disasters around the globe. Captain Crane disagrees strenuously with the Admiral’s plans, reminding him they don’t have Presidential authorization for his plan, which includes firing a missile into the radiation belt to snuff out the fire. Some scientists believe that a blast such as this would actually ignite the globe instead. Lt Cathy Conners (Barbara Eden), who is engaged to the Captain, but also the Admiral’s secretary, tries to convince Crane that the Admiral knows what he’s doing.

The crew begins to get agitated by the high-pressure situation, and the lack of news. Since the flaming skies have made radio contact near impossible, the Admiral decides to tap into the trans-Atlantic cable connecting Rio de Janeiro and London in order to get in touch with Washington DC. The Captain, Alvarez, Lieutenant Danny Romano (Frankie Avalon), and a fourth diver all go EVA to find the cable, when Crane is attacked by a giant squid. Alvarez saves him, and they are able to tap the cable. Unfortunately London hasn’t been able to raise Washington for hours, and so the Seaview moves on.

Dr. Hiller, Congressman Parker, and Vice Adm. Crawford are given the grand tour by Adm. Nelson and Capt. Crane.

After resuming course, the generator is knocked out by a saboteur, crippling the sonar and radar. All signs point towards Alvarez, who has been preaching to the crew about God’s will, and fatalism. Without sonar, the ship encounters an unexpected minefield, and two crewmembers are needed to go out in the mini-sub to untangle a mine cable from the ship. They succeed but set off a mine in the process killing both of them. Crane continues to question the Admiral’s plan, which now includes the deaths of two crewmembers.

Suspicions get higher and a number of officers ask to leave when the Seaview encounters a derelict fishing vessel. The Admiral agrees, hoping the saboteur is just a disgruntled officer. Crane decides to remove the Admiral from command after he strikes Lt. Romano in an argument. But the process is halted when a US Submarine finds them and begins firing torpedoes to prevent the Seaview from launching her missile. The Seaview evades the sub, gets attacked briefly by a giant octopus, and manages to surface, where Dr. Hiller is revealed as the saboteur. She believes in Dr. Zucco and has now sabotaged the nuclear reactor, dosing herself fatally. The Admiral still has time to fire the missile, but before that happens Alvarez grabs a grenade and forces the crew to wait out the timer, missing their launch window. Captain Crane heads outside, and manually launches the missile in time, which snuffs out the fire, saving the entire world!

“ It bears out what you taught us at Annapolis: that ‘The wild dreams of today are the practical realities of tomorrow.’ ” – Captain Crane, referring to Admiral Nelson

Capt. Crane reprimands Lt. Romano and Lt. Connors.

History in the Making

Welcome to the first film by Irwin Allen to be covered on Sci Fi Saturdays . While Allen would be a name associated with science-fiction and disaster films throughout his career, this was one of only a small handful of films he directed, and his only sci-fi film. After directing this film, he would end up producing a series based on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea on television between 1964-1968. His biggest active time for his sci-fi television series’ was the mid to late 60’s with Lost in Space, Land of the Giants , and The Time Tunnel . The 1970s would see Allen return to film producing epic disaster films such as The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure . Much like George Pal, his visionary aspect to his producing provides a clear tone to all of his films and TV shows, regardless of the director.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea also does something else in the early years of the 1960s. Coming out the 1950s with some of the biggest and most popular films being either literary adaptations or horror hybrids, this film firmly brings science-fiction back to a modern setting. The Time Machine brought a new style to sci-fi, adapting the HG Wells book, while Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea took the most current and cutting edge technology in underwater exploration and used it as a means to save the world. In fact many elements from this 1961 film are still used today in modern disaster films.

An avalanche of icebergs catches the crew of the Seaview off guard.

Genre-fication

This film has almost everything in it besides the kitchen sink, at least in terms of story beats and plot. It seems apparent that Irwin Allen (or perhaps 20th Century Fox) had been paying attention to recent epic adventure films and decided to include everything those films had. The film opens with a theme song sung by Frankie Avalon, who is also acting in the film. He also plays a short trumpet solo during his and Barbara Eden’s introduction. This harkens back to the use of Pat Boone, and his songs from Journey to the Center of the Earth . Unfortunately the tone this song sets is more akin to a love song like “Beyond the Sea” by Bobby Darin, rather than something befitting of opening an adventure film.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea also updates the disaster subgenre, bringing it back to prominence. George Pal’s When Worlds Collide had a cast facing imminent destruction of their world; there was nothing that they could do, except try to escape. In Voyage the crew of the Seaview is uniquely qualified to help avert the disaster. But to heighten the stakes, Allen not only sets up a timetable that the crew must meet in order to extinguish the fiery belt, but additional obstacles that threaten to prevent the completion of the task. A saboteur, unexpected mine fields, friendly fire from US subs attempting to prevent the unauthorized launch of missiles; all these elements (and more) add a heightened complexity to the film, indicating a maturation of the genre. Films like Armageddon (1998), San Andreas (2015) and even aspects from The Hunt For Red October (1990) owe debts to Irwin Allen and his work.

Of course the biggest comparison to previous films lies in the submarine and the adventure itself. The tasks and mission of the Seaview is an updated and modernized telling of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea . Admiral Nelson name checks Jules Verne at one point, specifically inviting the comparisons. The Seaview encounters a giant squid as it makes its way around the globe similar to what The Nautilus encountered. What Voyage does that 20,000 Leagues didn’t, is invoke a world-saving mission to heighten the tension. 20,000 Leagues was a pretty straightforward adventure story, exploring the newness of a nuclear submarine and what fantastical inventions as this could provide. Voyage moves the sci-fi/adventure genre into a new arena as the plot focuses on external factors motivating the crew. The technology is explored, but only briefly as the fire in the sky quickly takes precedence over the tour of the submarine.

Expecting Arctic temperatures the crew is surprised by the sudden vision of the sky on fire.

Societal Commentary

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea presents a lot of social commentary for viewers to unpack. The biggest theme is the challenging of belief structures, which also includes debate on  whether science or faith is superior to the other. The film sets up Admiral Nelson as the foremost scientific mind on the planet. It’s fortunate that he’s on board the submarine when the Van Allen belt catches on fire, as he’s a necessary component for saving the world. His belief is that a targeted missile launch, at a specific location and time will snuff out the fire, like blowing out a birthday candle. Other scientists represented externally by Dr. Zucco, and internally by Dr. Hiller, believe that this is a dangerous course of action. They think that any explosion will ignite the belt further, causing destruction of the planet. Zucco proposes a wait-and-see attitude, claiming that at 173° the fire will burn itself out. Unfortunately that temperature is predicted to arrive after the designated place/time that Nelson needs to launch his missile.

This fundamental disagreement drives the central conflict in the film. It sets up Nelson as an antagonist to the United Nations, who favor Zucco’s plan. It creates the subplot of the saboteur (Hiller) who is damaging the Seaview to prevent Nelson from achieving his end. This is an important conflict to present, as it shows that even within the scientific community there is not always unity and consensus on matters pertaining to the physical sciences. In the early 60s, America was struggling with coming up with a plan for achieving President Kennedy’s stated goal of putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Different groups had different ideas, all which may have been valid, but were untested; just like Nelson’s plan in the film. It seems that the filmmakers sided with a more aggressive risk vs reward type of approach, and for the public, they may have felt the same way. Voyage was released three months after Russia put the first human in orbit around the Earth, so perhaps the film represented America’s desire to try more aggressive and potentially dangerous methods to achieve space superiority.

Watching Voyage in the modern context also draws comparisons to the recent discussions on increased global temperatures. While the extremes presented in the film, with the heat rising 2° every day, from the 130s to the low 170s, is way beyond anything the world has currently encountered, Voyage spells out the problems that would exist in such a situation. Problems that scientists are currently warning about. It begins with the polar ice caps melting and flooding of low lying areas near rivers and oceans. With the extreme temps, fields and forests burn yielding food shortages, fresh water evaporates leaving many without any drinking water. And just like the scientists of the United Nations, scientific debate and discussion over the last 50 years has driven understanding of the impact of these global changes. Hopefully, the challenges faced in the film will not be something that Earth has to face anytime soon!

Lt. Conners, Adm. Nelson, Capt. Crane, Dr. Jamison, and Dr. Hiller treat Miguel Alvarez.

An additional thematic disagreement, setup as a smaller—but no less important—challenge is the debate between science and faith. The film throws an additional outsider into the midst of the crew with the rescue Migeul Alvarez from the ice flow. For this first half of the film he is a background character, but as the destruction within the world becomes greater, and tensions about the ship are increasing he is shown proselytizing to the crew about God’s plan and their fate. The setup appears to be positioning him as the saboteur, distracting the audience from Dr. Hiller’s machinations. And while he does eventually threaten the crew, it’s after the outing of Hiller as the saboteur. His belief system tells him that God’s plan is to let the world burn, and that man is not given a choice in the matter. This sets up a the following exchange between Nelson (a man of science) and Alvarez (a man of faith):

Admiral Nelson: Alvarez… are you saying that Man must accept destruction even though it’s in his power to prevent it? Alvarez: It’s not for us to judge, Admiral. Admiral Nelson: Not to judge, maybe; but we can reason. If God ordains that Man should die without a fight, then why does He give us the will to live?

Nelson’s point is that to put his fate in the hands of anyone else, when he has the means to change the outcome of that fate, is ridiculous. Fortunately, Nelson’s plan is executed and is proven correct, which quickly wraps up the film. The fatalism of Alvarez is the final obstacle for Nelson’s scientific certainty, which the film supports. These types of philosophical arguments will be explored in much greater depth and complexity in future sci-fi films. But for a 1961 adventure film, this type of introspection stands out far and above the standard fare. Allen even sets up a scene, pictured below, where Captain Crane is framed with Nelson on the left and Alvarez on the right, placing him in the center of their philosophical battle. In fact, Crane comes off the worse for this as he is swayed throughout the film. First in suspecting that Nelson’s command integrity is compromised, a change instituted by Dr. Hiller and her sabotage, and then later in his inability to prevent Alvarez from threatening the crew. It’s all a continued doubt of Nelson’s plan, which Crane was never fully on board with. Crane does come to Nelson’s rescue and is ultimately responsible for launching the missile that saves the world, but it’s unsure if he does it due to duty or if he has been swayed by Nelson’s speech.

Admiral Nelson makes his case before the United Nations.

The Science in The Fiction

In 1954 the first nuclear submarine set forth into the oceans. The USS Nautilus , named after the similar vessel in Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea , made headlines all over the world. The quote above, ‘The wild dreams of today are the practical realities of tomorrow,’ begins to take shape.Verne first dreamed of the nuclear submarine, and decades later in become a real thing. Voyage takes the practical applications of what a nuclear/atomic submarine might be capable of and spins that tale of adventure. Supposedly the set designer did not contact the Navy for any assistance with this film, and instead used publicly available pictures to create the interiors of the Seaview . For anyone that’s been on a real submarine, or seen photos, the film version has a lot of extra space, making a more appealing version of the vessel on screen, but impractical in the real world.

While the presentation of science regarding the submarine seems fairly accurate, the depiction of the Van Allen radiation belt is completely fictitious. Discovered in 1958 the belt is a zone of charged particles that emanate along the Earth’s magnetic field. It helps to protect the planet from excessive radiation blown in on the solar winds. By the time Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was being made very little was actually known about the belt, and as such the idea that it could be perpetually on fire was invented. It’s use as a MacGuffin (a term, coined by Alfred Hitchcock, referring to the event or element that drives the plot forward, but ultimately is unimportant) works however, to drive the characters forward.

There were other elements that the film presents that may seem innocuous now, but were not very well known at the time. One idea, which became a major plot point, was the use of all visitors on the sub to wear radiation badges. The badge, which is normally green, would display red if the individual was exposed to the radiation from the reactor. Such badges are now standard in energy plants, nuclear vessels, and certain areas of hospitals. Additionally Commander Emery’s work with sharks touches on an entire line of research that would be possible on such a research vessel.

Captain Crane is literally between Admiral Nelson (a man of science) and Miguel Alvarez (a man of faith).

The Final Frontier

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea has many actors that audiences will recognize, some from other sci-fi properties, and others from more dramatic offerings. Walter Pidgeon, who may be more familiar to Sci-Fi Saturdays readers as Morbius in Forbidden Planet , came out of retirement to make this film. Joan Fontaine was known most famously for her work with Alfred Hitchcock on Rebecca and Suspicion . Howard McNear is better known as Floyd the barber on The Andy Griffith Show . Peter Lorre makes a second submarine film, having been part of the 1954 Disney production of 20,000 Leagues , while Frankie Avalon and Barbara Eden were two relative newcomers. Avalon would go on to have a series of famous beach party films with ex-Mouseketeer Annette Funicello, and Eden would become the star of I Dream of Jeannie . Interestingly enough, Eden was married to Michael Ansara at the time of this production. He too would have many cameos in sci-fi properties over the years, one of his more famous being the Klingon Kang in Gene Rodenberry’s Star Trek series.

The film’s adventure and sci-fi premise would continue between 1964 and 1968 as four seasons of the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea television series was aired. The characters continued with different actors portraying them (Richard Basehart and David Hedison would take over as Adm. Nelson and Captain Crane), and the plots would become more elaborate and edge toward futuristic sci-fi. One of the biggest sci-fi updates is the use of the flying sub, a two-man submersible that would allow the crew of the Seaview to visit locations outside of the ocean. The format of the show would also greatly influence other sci-fi related properties, Star Trek being the easiest comparison.

Divers are attacked by a squid, while a giant octopus attacks the Seaview.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea set a strong tone for not only sci-fi adventure series and films for the rest of the decade, but for Irwin Allen productions throughout the 1960s. It created a springboard for the birth of episodic sci-fi series in the decade as well as setting the tone for many future adventure and disaster films to come.

Coming Next Week

Having grown up on comics, television and film, “Jovial” Jay feels destined to host podcasts and write blogs related to the union of these nerdy pursuits. Among his other pursuits he administrates and edits stories at the two largest Star Wars fan sites on the ‘net (Rebelscum.com, TheForce.net), and co-hosts the Jedi Journals podcast over at the ForceCast network.

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Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

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Voyage To Bottom Of The Sea

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• Is Discontinued By Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ No
• Package Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.56 x 5.43 x 0.71 inches; 3.2 ounces
• Media Format ‏ : ‎ NTSC
• Dubbed: ‏ : ‎ Spanish
• Subtitles: ‏ : ‎ English, Spanish
• Language ‏ : ‎ English (Dolby Surround), French (Mono), Spanish (Mono)
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000OCXLGE
• Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1
• #177,642 in DVD

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Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

The submarine Seaview is commissioned to investigate the mysteries of the seas. Usually it finds more problems than answers... The submarine Seaview is commissioned to investigate the mysteries of the seas. Usually it finds more problems than answers... The submarine Seaview is commissioned to investigate the mysteries of the seas. Usually it finds more problems than answers...

• Irwin Allen
• Richard Basehart
• David Hedison
• Robert Dowdell
• 42 User reviews
• 15 Critic reviews
• 4 wins & 9 nominations total

Episodes 110

• Adm. Harriman Nelson …

• Capt. Lee B. Crane …

• Chip Morton …

• Chief Francis Ethelbert Sharkey …
• Patterson …

• Chief Curley Jones …

• Lieutenant O'Brien …

• Seaview Doctor

• Buccaneer …

• Dr. Jenkins …

• Commander Van Wyck …
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia James Doohan , who played Lawrence Tobin in Hot Line (1964) and Hail to the Chief (1964) , was offered the part of Chief Sharkey, but turned it down, because that same week he was offered and accepted the role of Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott of the Starship Enterprise on Star Trek (1966) , which became his definitive role. Terry Becker accepted the role of Sharkey.
• Goofs Despite being on a ship that is routinely rocked side to side, nothing is ever secured on shelves; items are just placed there and would be a hazard during their numerous adventures.

Captain Crane : [after watching a flying saucer depart] We can expect to see it again someday. I hope they'll remember they were treated as friends.

Admiral Nelson : They'll remember all right. I wonder if we will.

• Connections Edited into Attack of the 50 Foot Monster Mania (1999)

User reviews 42

• Feb 26, 1999
• How many seasons does Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea have? Powered by Alexa
• September 14, 1964 (United States)
• United States
• Die Seaview - In geheimer Mission
• Santa Catalina Island, Channel Islands, California, USA (underwater scenes - first season)
• Irwin Allen Productions
• 20th Century Fox Television
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 52 minutes

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