Le sous-marin de l'apocalypse

Irwin Allens 1961 submarine flick. Although the special effects are on the antiquated side the film when it came out in 61 was state of the art. The movie led to the TV series of the same name but with a different cast. Once again Peter Lorre is on a futuristic submarine on a dangerous mission (as in Disney's 1954 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea) The world is teetering on destruction from a force of nature. The submarine Seaview with its genius Admiral Nelson aboard played by Walter Pidgeon knows how to save the world. However there are those who don't want him to succeed. All in all a good Sci Fi feature. Best if viewed in letter box. Barbara Eden is included in the cast and as always is gorgeous. Frankie Avalon, Michael Ansara, Joan Fontaine co-star. Also look for Howard McNear best known for playing Floyd the barber on the Andy Griffith show as a congressman onboard to check out the submarine.

A fantastic submarine encounters dangers.

Voyage is a sci-fic movie, a disaster movie about a fire, an end-of-the-world movie, a movie with striking sets/miniature effects, and finally, the very first Irwin show to highlight the need of a top (and loud) musical score, thanks to composer Paul Sawtell.

This epic begins with Frankie Avalon singing - "Come with me, come with me, on a Voyage, to the Bottom, of the Sea" - and this totally under-rated song (it compares with the best of Sinatra!) should have been re-used in the Voyage/Sea TV series...as everything else in this picture was lifted into the series.

Shortly after, the film then moves into Admiral Nelson giving us a tour of the submarine Seaview, which resembles the opening minutes of the Irwin Allen directed Time Tunnel pilot (1966) when we were also given a Tunnel complex tour.

The Paul Sawtell scored footage of the icebergs pounding on the Seaview and the footage of the Seaview surfacing in a red sea would rank as some of the most striking bits of footage in Irwin's long history of film/TV making! Outstanding!

The cast of this motion picture is fine but I know this cast from other quality productions (Forbidden Planet, I Dream Of Jeannie) and am not all together comfortable seeing this cast on the Seaview. Give me Richard Basehart (and the flying sub!).

Some fans will put down this film because it features no Richard Basehart or David Hedison, but remember this, without this film there would have been no Voyage/Sea (1964-68) TV series. That is recorded fact! The budget for all of these sets, props and effects was HUGE, too huge for a TV series of the 1960s. The series happened because it could lift everything from the film.

One of my very favourite movies ever!

I had ordered Voyage to The Bottom of The Sea on DVD and at 3:00 in the morning I found myself watching it. Okay, the idea of the Van Allen radiation belt catching on fire is silly, but it's just the premise for a really good sci-fi adventure film that I wish I could've seen in the theaters on a wide screen. But the rich colors on the DVD and Dolby sound is a good substitute for the real thing.

In looking at it, I can't help but compare the movie with the series that followed as there are some of the actors from the movie who ended up in the show. Seeing this Lee Crane constantly arguing and second-guessing Admiral Nelson is a little disturbing, yet the movie inspired one of the best sci-fi series of the '60s. And the movie itself, like Fantastic Voyage, shows great creativity. Irwin Allen is always being underestimated by people with 60 second attention spans, but this movie shows how much of a creative artist that Allen was.

I gladly give this movie 8/10

A solid piece of science fiction that's fairly dated, "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" was a film from the old school of exposition film making. Half docu-drama and half science-fiction, Allen's production makes an effort to mix the world of tomorrow, as it was perceived in the late 50s and early 60s, with then contemporary drama. The result is somewhat stilted, and immature in a very innocent sort of way, but worth a look if you need some vintage sci-fi on your screen.

The exposition of what Irwin Allen felt "the future" of scientific defense in the realm of the world's oceans feels like a Disney documentary. The drama almost seems as an afterthought to the technology being depicted (which I'm sure isn't too far off the mark), and doesn't really ever click in.

An egalitarian para-military that is the crew of the USOS Seaview, was no doubt an inspiration for the Star Trek franchise as it was first conceived, as were probably the scientific functions of a government vessel manned by what is ostensibly a crew serving aboard a vessel whose role is part defensive and part scientific. It is in this capacity that the story takes shape, and challenges sub and crew as the fate of mankind hangs in the balance.

Scientific loopholes abound: Ice floats (the breakup of an iceberg would not produce sinking chinks of ice), radiation doesn't catch fire (the Van Allen belt is speculated to be a result of USAF atmospheric nuclear tests in the 1950s), the most advanced attack subs today can not dive beyond 1300 feet, active sonar is rarely used, etc. etc. etc. But, if you can get by all that, and forgive some of the earlier film making stylings in this film, then it's worth a look.

It's not classic vintage sci-fi in the conventional sense, but one clearly sees how it influenced generations of sci-fi films to come afterwards, as well as spawning the eventual TV series that evolved from this film.

Give it a chance, but don't expect too much. If you're a younger viewer reading this review, then you'll probably get somewhat impatient with it. Even so, try to keep in mind the kind of film it is, and the time in which it was made.

Walter Pidgeon leads fellow iconoclasts aboard a giant, futuristic (for 1961) submarine in a desperate race to save the world from firey oblivion. Another reviewer once commented that there was plenty of action but precious little logic in this film, but so what? If one views it as escapist nonsense, it's pretty enjoyable, even if the plot does get a little overheated (sorry, we couldn't resist) toward the end. Van Allen belt catching fire? Absurd. Three thousand foot crush depth for a Thresher-class attack sub? Ridiculous. But again, so what? The effects hold up pretty well, there's a solid cast including Peter Lorre (not his last film but clearly his days were numbered), Michael Ansara, and Frankie Avalon, who was thrown into the mix to attract a younger audience, and, of course, the giant octopus. The octopus scene was actually shot in reverse, since octopi are quite timid and this one could not be coaxed into attaching itself to the submarine for any usable length of time. Seriously though, in spite of bad science and stupendous leaps of questionable logic, "Voyage" is a better than average vintage sci-fi flick. Make a big bowl of popcorn and enjoy the ride!