I was surprised to learn that the CHFB didn't have a thread for this movie! So . . . I'm starting one!
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Two things make it hard for me to enjoy this bargain basement science fiction film, even though it's not without some imagination.
(1) All the submarine interiors look exactly like what they are: sets with three walls, a few pieces of furniture, and some lockers. Submarines aren't made that way — and I just love submarines.
But there are a few interiors that fairly good.
(2) All the submarines exteriors look exactly like what they are: teeny tiny miniatures that are smaller than the toys I used to play with in the bathtub.
However, any movie that let's Author Franz make out with Joi Lansing deserves a modest amount of respect. Miss Lansing is remembered by sci-fi fans my age for her role in Superman's Wife, the color episode that cast the blond beauty as a police woman who pretends to be married to the Man of Steel so she can get the goods on a crime boss.
An entire generation of young Baby Boomers fell deeply in love with this gal and never managed to climb back out again.
But it's Bon Voyage for Arthur before anything truly interesting can happen with Joi, and we're off to the North Pole in a yarn set in the not-too-distant future, when mankind is using submarines to carry passengers and freight across the ocean.
That's a concept unique to this movie, and I doubt anybody would call it practical, but it certainly shows imagination.
A mysterious force begins destroying ships, and the Navy sends their most heavily armed submarine to investigate. Commander Arthur Franz ("Flight to Mars") and scientist Brett Halsey ("Return of the Fly") put aside their personal difference while they attempt to solve the mystery.
This movie is not boring, and if you forgive the blatant lack of money to do the story well, it's enjoyable. If you've seen it before, you might consider watching the DVD with a commentary by Tom Weaver, chatting with producers Alex and Richard Gordon, the guys who gave us Fiend Without a Face and First Man into Space. Very interesting.
The ship-killer turns out to be a submerged flying saucer that runs on magnetism, recharging itself periodically at the North Pole. This movie certainly doesn't hide it's alien creature the way some films do.
The special effects by Irving Block, Jack Rabin, and Louis DeWitt, the team which did "Kronos" two years earlier, are not exactly their best work. As I mentioned, the submarine models are so small the camera has difficulty focusing on them.
The saucer's interior is composed largely of a dark sound stage with all the light focused on the actors, but there is one matt shot of the alien's spherical command center.
And saucer design is fairly good.
statistics: Posted by Bud Brewster — 9:02 PM - 1 day ago — Replies 2 — Views 311