Review of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

I have been a huge fan of Irwin Allen's TV show "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" for over 45 years now, and have come to regard it as "Star Trek" underwater. (Actually, since "Voyage" preceded Capt. Kirk & Co. by two years, it might be fairer to regard "Star Trek" as "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" in outer space!) Somehow, however, I had never watched Allen's original 1961 film on which the television program was based...until last night, that is. Now I realize that the film works as a nice introduction to the superior series, and that even though it avoids the silliness that would be the hallmark of the TV incarnation's Season 4, it still remains a strangely corny sci-fi outing. Fortunately, it also features a top-notch cast and better-than-adequate FX; how impressive they must have looked on the 1961 CinemaScope screen! During the course of the film, Adm. Nelson races his new atomic sub, the Seaview, halfway across the world to a spot in the Pacific, where he hopes to shoot a rocket at (and thus extinguish) the suddenly blazing Van Allen belt that is threatening all life on Earth. En route, Nelson and crew face what is by now a familiar roster of "Voyage to" problems: minefields, sea monsters, sabotage attempts, an attacking sub and squabbling amongst themselves. It's all great fun for both young and old alike, but well done as it all is, I kept finding myself yearning for the familiar cast and crew that I'd grown to love by dint of watching those 110 TV episodes over and over again for decades. Walter Pidgeon and Robert Sterling just don't seem as likable to me as Richard Basehart and David Hedison in the Adm. Nelson and Capt. Crane roles. Also, I find Frankie Avalon's title song here sappy and inappropriate, the saboteur's motivations dubious, and the film's conclusion way too abrupt. Nice to see Del Monroe on board, though, with his Kowalski character (here, in this early incarnation, called Kowski). Oh...one of the film's stars, Barbara Eden, gives a very interesting interview on the "Voyage to" DVD, and even four decades later, still looks fantastic; she must have asked for the gift of eternal beauty from a genie in a bottle somewhere....