La vuelta al mundo bajo el mar

"Around the World Under the Sea" is a great looking movie. The photography, both underwater and above, is terrific. The set design is top-notch. The colors are so bright, they're great. Unfortunately, the script lets the movie down. There's just not enough going on to keep your interest. The cast is good but they're not given enough to do. Behinds the way "Around the World Under the Sea" looks, there is little worth remembering about this movie.

Dr. Doug Standish (Lloyd Bridges) leads a group of scientists on the civilian research submarine Hydronaut. They circumnavigate the globe to place monitoring sensors on the ocean floor to predict earthquakes.

The premise is not exciting. The movie struggles to gain any thrills. There is some unconvincing submarine work despite some good underwater work. It's sci-fi from the 50's and 60's. It's science over story. It tries to spice it up with the addition of a pretty blonde lady scientist. It's a mixed bag of futurist sci-fi and broad melodramatic story telling. This is a slow, grinding watch.

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Andrew Marton directed for producer Ivan Tors and MGM Pictures release. Starring Lloyd Bridges, David McCallum, Shirley Eaton, Brian Kelly, Marshall Thompson, Keenan Wynn and Gary Merrill.

Despite its major studio theatrical release, this film has the false glossy look of a telefeature. Accentuated by the presence of a solid lineup of TV castoffs, the crew of the hydronaut vessel goes around planting electronic gadgets designed to give warnings of impending tidal waves. They must deal with typical catastrophe emergencies along the way. The emphasis is on scientific adventure in this flick, rather than sci-fi.

This is a truly incredible film - by which I mean it isn't the least bit credible. Anyone who knows anything about diving or oceanography (or for that matter, science in general) will howl at the dozens of mistakes and improbabilities.

In a small, Beatles-style yellow submarine that seems barely big enough for 4 testosterone-fuelled men's men and one pretty woman, our heroes are required to travel around the ENTIRE WORLD and place 50 earthquake sensors at strategic points on the seafloor to create a warning system of the impending destruction of the earth by seismic forces! They manage to do this in just one month! The sensors are "anchored" to the seabed by making them explode!

The first sensor is placed at the bottom of a trench 6 miles deep. The guy (for some reason I've forgotten) actually leaves the sub in his diving suit! At this depth, his entire body would implode instantly from the pressure. Incredibly, the seabed at this depth is light and swarming with fish! In reality, it would be totally dark and devoid of life.

At one point, they are in a very rich area of ocean, where the "minestrone" of available food biomass attracts millions of fish. We get the warning that "little fish attract big fish", so we expect maybe a 20-foot shark... But no, the sub is attacked by a mutant conger eel that must be at least 100 feet long! It totally dwarfs the sub. This is so ridiculous, as you can tell from the way it moves it's just a very tiny eel in a tank. In the exterior shots of the sub, it's so obviously just a small lightweight model in a fishtank. The special effects budget of this movie must have been nil.

The best line is this movie is when Shirley Eaton's character says of the female sex, "We have men to thank for our freedom, but sometimes we don't know how to handle it!" I think this was in response to the suggestion that women lead men on sexually, sometimes to their downfall. Well, she may be a scientist, but at least she isn't some crazy feminist! ;-) This film is so dated in general, it's amazing it was made as recently as 1966! There's a palpable mid-to-late 50s feel. The woman is there for the sole purpose of creating tension with the men who lust after her and fight among themselves. In fact, most of the movie's drama comes from the effect this bimbo scientist has on her crewmates' testosterone levels. She is actually wearing stiletto heels when she boards the submarine.

The end of the movie is the most hilarious part. The sub is half-buried by a volcanic rockfall, so the captain suggests blowing the buried half off with dynamite to free them! They all accept this rational-sounding theory without complaint. Dozens of sticks of dynamite and plastique are wired INSIDE the sub. They blow the back half of the thing clean off and stay safely sealed in the bridge compartment. How ridiculous! But the front of the sub is still not free! So Lloyd Bridges must venture outside and burn through what looks like a 6-inch cable using a flare! They have to "equalize the pressure" inside the half-destroyed sub by opening the hatch, while trying to prevent too much water rushing in! They're running out of air fast, yet deem it sensible to waste bottled O2 on the pet guineapigs.

The crew take about a minute to return from the seabed to the surface. Conveniently enough, there's a chopper already there to rescue them! The joy that other viewers must have experienced (in realizing this film was finally over and they could do something worthwhile instead) was not shared by me. I realized that, with such a rapid ascent and no decompression chamber onboard the chopper, they would all certainly die an agonizing death from decompression sickness. Ah well.

The movie totally lacks suspense or thrills, but is mildly enjoyable for its unintended humorousness. David McCallum's performance as the menacing and creepy blonde European type you can never trust is, as usual, entertaining.

The film is definitely out dated with a group of world class scientists who are brought together to save the world from an impending volcanic eruption which could take place imminently from the bottom of the sea floor. Although the director attempts to bring some level of suspense and action with large sea creatures and explosive devices that have the oceans waves hit fifty (50) feet into the air, the only time I got a rise was when the petite and only female scientist Dr. Margaret E. 'Maggie' Hanford (Shirley Eaton) on board this submarine appeared on the screen.

The cast was decent enough as was the cinematography. What blew it for me (no pun intended) was the continual bombardment and use of explosions in a useless attempt to build action and adventure when none was present.

I was disappointed in both the story line and film's lack of any meaningful plot as well as the over abundance of meaningless explosions all in a failed attempt to build suspense and danger. It just did nothing for me except for the appearance of eye candy Shirley Eaton, who was the only worthy film presence.

I rate it a dismal 4 out of 10