Improbable but highly enjoyable tale of a research team that is shrunken down to microscopic size and injected into the body of a scientist with a tumor that can only be operated on from inside the brain. Once you suspend disbelief, this picture just grabs hold of you and never lets go, with actors who do a nice job of suggesting the disquiet they must be feeling (in reality, hardly anyone would sign up for this assignment!) Nearly forty years after its release the special effects still hold up and aren't a bit cheesy. [A planned remake of this film never materialized; maybe because wiser heads realized it didn't need to be remade.] Exciting scenes include the race through the heart, which has been temporarily stopped so as not to shatter the undersea vehicle which the scientists are traveling in; the attack of the antibodies that cover Raquel Welch's shapely form from head to toe; the white corpuscle that eats Donald Pleasance; and so on. Stephen Boyd, as the agent who reluctantly goes along on the voyage, functions as the audience surrogate, hardly believing what he's living through but living through it all the same. Pleasance is in the hammy-horror-movie mode that dominated his screen persona in later years [for a look at Pleasance the fine actor instead of the freak, check out the old Twilight Zone episode entitled "Changing of the Guard,” in which Pleasance – yes, Donald Pleasance – gives a sensitive and excellent performance.] Arthur Kennedy, Edmond O'Brian, and other old pros have no problem handling material which isn't exactly a challenge for them (the movie has a great idea, not great characters). What Fantastic Voyage does have is some superlative sets which help create a whole, new, eerie and compelling universe to explore, and the picture is rich in atmosphere. The blue screen process which blends actors with the backgrounds of arterial and fluid landscapes is handled adroitly. Leonard Rosenman's quirky score, which at times sounds almost atonal, is the perfect background for this kind of movie. The movie won deserved Oscars for special effects, set direction, and art direction. It absolutely MUST be seen in letterbox for the whole Cinemascope effect. NOTE: In his novelization of the screenplay, Isaac Asimov made a couple of corrections. Apparently the filmmakers didn't realize that the shrunken sub wouldn't be able to take air directly from the lungs because the air molecules would be too big, so Asimov added a portable miniaturizer to the sub. They also assumed that the white corpuscle would completely absorb Pleasance and the wrecked submarine so that they could not grow large again and burst out of comatose scientist's body; Asimov has the surviving scientists wisely take the sub and Pleasance out of the body with them.
Verdict: Great science fiction. ***1/2.
I thought they didn't take the sub out...now I have to watch this again.
ReplyDeleteOne of the other characters was a favorite actor of mine; William Redfield who turned in a terrific performance in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and without a doubt one of the best performances ever as Mr Beckett in Elaine May's incomparable "A New Leaf", which (not to change the subject, but I will) if you haven't seen it, is one of the most underrated and well executed movies of all time.
I can't think of another instance where a studio chopped an hour out of a movie and not only completely changed the concept but ended up a picture so perfect.
Ok, how do I get back on subject...Raquel Welch was really hot in this...there
Mad magazine did a very funny spoof of this and had fun showing the guys pulling the anti-bodies or whatever they were off of Welch's shapely body over and over again!
ReplyDeleteRedfield was a fine actor, and I have also liked 'A New Leaf' -- will have to look at it again sometime.
Ha! I'm glad you pointed out that "little" technical faux-pas--of the white corpuscle not being lured out of Benes' body in the film! I'd read the novelization before I saw the movie and obviously Asimov was smart enough to realize that they simply had to get the corpuscle out too--so I was really annoyed when the filmmakers didn't tend to it. I didn't expect Benes to be horribly popped by the half-dissolved wreckage of the Proteus in the operating room--but it really disappointed me that they were apparently too lazy to fix it. Otherwise, this movie is one of my all-time favorites and I lost count of how many times I saw it in the theater. I had a scrapbook of articles and ads I collected for this--it got a LOT of advance publicity. By the time I finally saw it, my excitement was at a fever-pitch--so I was actually a little let-down by its somewhat leaden pace and the aforementioned technical glitch. My disappointment disappeared after multiple re-watches, however. It really is a one-of-a-kind film and a spectacular visual feast. The Proteus is one of my very favorite submarine designs, too--it's about as perfect and attractive a mini-sub as anyone could wish for.
ReplyDeleteGreat review!
--Mark
Like you say, it's a visual feast and that sort of washes away all of its flaws. I remember watching it in the theater as a boy and being blown away -- just the very concept was exciting to me and still is (although it's not a voyage I would care to undertake!)
ReplyDeleteMad magazine's spoof ended with a new group of scientists heading off for "Operation Ex-Lax!"
Oh yeah--weren't they carrying plungers and looking really depressed as they trudged away? That evokes a fairly vivid memory. Now I need to go find it online. Wow.
ReplyDelete--Mark