Le sous-marin de l'apocalypse

Ever wonder where "Star Trek" and all the other Sci-Fi series got there starts?

I used to watch the series as a kid back when the UK only had 3 television channels, and they were offline more than online back in the 1960s when this was the State-Of-The-Art.

Now, over 40 years after it was made and most of the cast are either dead or retired, this movie is still standing the test of Time.

The plot is a little silly, with glaring holes that submarines could be driven through, and the acting is a little on the hammy-side sometimes, but for an entertaining look at how movie-makers in the 50s/60s thought the future might look, this is an excellent peek into how Hollywood was thinking at the time.

The cast seem to mesh well together around stilted dialogue ("Military Police swim like fish - it's part of their training"), and the prodigious talents of the likes of Joan Fontaine and Peter Lorre are somewhat reined-in, but overall this movie is still great to watch over four decades after they made it.

This film was a good science fiction film for the era it was made in. I know a lot of people talk about the fact that it has a lot of scientific inaccuracies, but I prefer to take it for what it is, a great adventure film. Also, the characters may be stock but I like them for what they are. This definitely is a good way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

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!

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!