Back in the '70s, this movie was on the 4:30 Movie after school on WABC several times. Even though it was on only a handful of times, it made an impression on me, probably because I also liked the show back then. This was Irwin Allen's own version of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." Admiral Nelson was as much the iconoclastic genius as Captain Nemo ever was. If Walt Disney had a fight with a giant squid, the eventual Master of Disaster decided to go him one better with both a giant octopus and a giant squid. I didn't see it again until the '90s, but I enjoyed it more then than years before.
Unlike the series, this, for the most part, tried to be serious. Save for a few decent episodes, the series was the epitome of campiness, seemingly a specialty of Allen's. It's part of the reason that today, I don't watch the show anymore, preferring to watch this movie every once in a while. Although, like most of Allen's writing, there's virtually no character development. You're given a couple of hooks into each character and that's it. The admiral is brilliant, irascible and smokes cigars. The captain looks out for his men and is engaged. His fiancée is the admiral's secretary and always believes in him. Alvarez is a religious nutjob. Frankie Avalon's lieutenant plays the trumpet. Beyond things like that, Allen preferred action scenes rather than showing what motivated them.
It's a pity the show never had a female regular. Sure, Barbara Eden was better off starring in "I Dream of Jeannie," but a regular female touch would have been more pleasing than the all-boys boat of the series (plus occasional female guest stars). Only one cast member would return for the series. Square-jawed Del Monroe played rebellious crewman Kowski, but as show regular and sonar operator Kowalski, became just the opposite, loyal to a fault to his captain and admiral.
It's arguable whether Walter Pidgeon's Admiral Nelson was better than Richard Basehart's. Certainly Basehart's became more familiar over the course of four seasons. This Captain Crane is far more irritating than David Hedison's, though. It seemed that he spent an awful lot of time just walking around the sub rather than being in the control room. And when he wasn't doing that, he was sulking, snapping at his crew, second-guessing the Admiral and just generally being borderline insubordinate.
There are subtle differences between this USOS Seaview and the SSRN Seaview of the show. Foremost is the observation lounge in the nose. Many have decried that the nose exterior has eight windows while the lounge only has four (a problem fixed when they built a new model later in the show), but eight windows actually make more sense here than in the show. Unlike the show, the observation lounge is not a direct extension of the control room, but on the deck below, reached by the spiral staircase. It's conceivable that there were four more windows above the lounge, at the same level as the control room. The exterior is still a distinctive design even today, although modern subs designed for possible arctic operations eschew diving planes on the sail to avoid damage to them when breaching polar ice. And many modern subs do use an X-shaped tailfin configuration, although Allen chose it for a different reason (he liked the tailfins on his car).
I definitely don't miss everyone rocking from one side of the sub to the other and back as the rubber-suited monster of the week clutched the eight-foot model of the Seaview.
The science was, as usual for Allen, laughable. A radiation belt that "burns." Ice that sinks. They're too deep for divers, so they use a minisub. But the men inside the the minisub are wearing scuba gear, so it's a "wet" sub that wouldn't protect them against outside water pressure. Not to mention numerous inconsistencies. The reactor room is shown early on to have an alarm system, but a saboteur easily walks past it on the way in and out without setting it off.
The Master of Recycling eventually reused numerous scenes from the movie in the series, sometimes the same scene in several different episodes. And these weren't just the usual "Seaview under way" stock footage, but things like them being chased by the attack sub or the men searching for the undersea telephone cable/octopus fight.
Unlike the series, this, for the most part, tried to be serious. Save for a few decent episodes, the series was the epitome of campiness, seemingly a specialty of Allen's. It's part of the reason that today, I don't watch the show anymore, preferring to watch this movie every once in a while. Although, like most of Allen's writing, there's virtually no character development. You're given a couple of hooks into each character and that's it. The admiral is brilliant, irascible and smokes cigars. The captain looks out for his men and is engaged. His fiancée is the admiral's secretary and always believes in him. Alvarez is a religious nutjob. Frankie Avalon's lieutenant plays the trumpet. Beyond things like that, Allen preferred action scenes rather than showing what motivated them.
It's a pity the show never had a female regular. Sure, Barbara Eden was better off starring in "I Dream of Jeannie," but a regular female touch would have been more pleasing than the all-boys boat of the series (plus occasional female guest stars). Only one cast member would return for the series. Square-jawed Del Monroe played rebellious crewman Kowski, but as show regular and sonar operator Kowalski, became just the opposite, loyal to a fault to his captain and admiral.
It's arguable whether Walter Pidgeon's Admiral Nelson was better than Richard Basehart's. Certainly Basehart's became more familiar over the course of four seasons. This Captain Crane is far more irritating than David Hedison's, though. It seemed that he spent an awful lot of time just walking around the sub rather than being in the control room. And when he wasn't doing that, he was sulking, snapping at his crew, second-guessing the Admiral and just generally being borderline insubordinate.
There are subtle differences between this USOS Seaview and the SSRN Seaview of the show. Foremost is the observation lounge in the nose. Many have decried that the nose exterior has eight windows while the lounge only has four (a problem fixed when they built a new model later in the show), but eight windows actually make more sense here than in the show. Unlike the show, the observation lounge is not a direct extension of the control room, but on the deck below, reached by the spiral staircase. It's conceivable that there were four more windows above the lounge, at the same level as the control room. The exterior is still a distinctive design even today, although modern subs designed for possible arctic operations eschew diving planes on the sail to avoid damage to them when breaching polar ice. And many modern subs do use an X-shaped tailfin configuration, although Allen chose it for a different reason (he liked the tailfins on his car).
I definitely don't miss everyone rocking from one side of the sub to the other and back as the rubber-suited monster of the week clutched the eight-foot model of the Seaview.
The science was, as usual for Allen, laughable. A radiation belt that "burns." Ice that sinks. They're too deep for divers, so they use a minisub. But the men inside the the minisub are wearing scuba gear, so it's a "wet" sub that wouldn't protect them against outside water pressure. Not to mention numerous inconsistencies. The reactor room is shown early on to have an alarm system, but a saboteur easily walks past it on the way in and out without setting it off.
The Master of Recycling eventually reused numerous scenes from the movie in the series, sometimes the same scene in several different episodes. And these weren't just the usual "Seaview under way" stock footage, but things like them being chased by the attack sub or the men searching for the undersea telephone cable/octopus fight.