Fantastic Voyage (1966)

Director:

Richard Fleischer

Writers:

Harry Kleiner (screenplay)
David Duncan (adaptation)

Release Date:

24 August 1966 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

The screen's most fantastic voyage

Plot:

A diplomat is nearly assassinated. In order to save him, a submarine is shrunken to microscopic size and injected into his blood stream with a small crew. Problems arise almost as soon as they enter the bloodstream.

Plot Keywords:

Real Time | Babe Scientist | Traitor | Laser | Blob

Awards:

Won 2 Oscars. Another 3 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

Stephen Boyd	...	Grant
Raquel Welch	...	Cora
Edmond O'Brien	...	General Carter
Donald Pleasence	...	Dr. Michaels
Arthur O'Connell	...	Col. Donald Reid
William Redfield	...	Capt. Bill Owens
Arthur Kennedy	...	Dr. Duval
Jean Del Val	...	Jan Benes
Barry Coe	...	Communications Aide
Ken Scott	...	Secret Service
Shelby Grant	...	Nurse
James Brolin	...	Technician
Brendan Fitzgerald	...	Wireless Operator

Also Known As:

Microscopia
Strange Journey

MPAA:

Rated PG for mild violence and language.

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (DeLuxe)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono | 4-Track Stereo (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Portugal:M/6 | Canada:G (video rating) | USA:Approved (certificate #20942) (original rating) | Australia:G | Finland:K-12 | Spain:T | Sweden:15 | UK:U | USA:PG | West Germany:12

Filming Locations:

Exposition Park, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

Isaac Asimov was approached to write the novel from the script. He perused the script, and declared the script to be full of plot holes. Receiving permission to write the book the way he wanted, delays in filming and the speed at which he wrote saw the book appear before the film.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: As the car disappears down the lift, delivering Grant to CMDF, it should vanish as it is hidden by the hole. Instead the special effects crew elected to shrink the image; we see at least 20 feet of elevation change at the back wall but the car is still visible at foreground.

Quotes:

[as the submarine enters the brain]
Dr. Duval: Yet all the suns that light the corridors of the universe shine dim before the blazing of a single thought...
Grant: - proclaiming in incandescent glory the myriad mind of Man...
Dr. Michaels: Very poetic, gentlemen. Let me know when we pass the soul.
Dr. Duval: The soul? The finite mind cannot comprehend infinity - and the soul, which comes from God, is infinite.
Dr. Michaels: Yes, well, our time isn't.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Antibody (2002) (V)

Has some fun qualities but is badly dated and is spectacle without tension, excitement, good writing or performances

When a top scientist defects to the West, he brings important secrets with him however, before he reaches the safe house to tell them, his motor convoy is attacked and he narrowly escapes death. The attack has critically injured him and the damage to the brain is impossible for surgery to work – normal surgery that is, but this is not the final option. With only an hour to complete their mission, a crew of pilots and surgeons are miniaturised and placed into the scientist's body in order to navigate to the injury and perform the operation from inside. Once inside though, the terrain is not as easy as they had planned for and their mission becomes a risk to all their lives.

Opening with an immediate quick pace and some interesting ideas delivered with energy (so that we don't really have time to question them) this film sadly lapses into a straightforward 'people in peril' movie with a twist that relies more on spectacle more than it does plot. I will ignore the chance to make lots of bad puns ('it's a real full bodied film') or attack it's foundation (a society that can shrink people before it can perform such difficult surgery from the outside?) because the plot did cover its main weaknesses early on. However, once inside the body it becomes one thing after another but it does it without ever really delivering the goods in terms of tension or excitement. For this reason it becomes watchable rather than gripping; passable rather than exciting. The script becomes uninspired and the general writing is partly at fault for delivering scenes lacking in tension.

Without a strong story creating tension what we are left with is spectacle, and the problem with spectacle is that it loses its impact with time and viewings – in other words, it simply becomes less spectacle. I will acknowledge that these effects must have made a big splash at the time but now they only seem quaint. It may seem unfair to judge this film by today's standards but if it has dated it has dated and I cannot just pretend it hasn't! Having said this, I still found the film interesting enough to watch and the effects, although not spectacular, are still quite enjoyable (if a little silly!). It is maybe best viewed today as being a bit of fun of its time rather than the big event film I imagine it was, but it is still worth a look.

However, no part of it being worth a look is due to the cast who are, to a man, upstaged by the very effects that should be supporting them. Boyd is as wooden as they come but he is threatened for that title by Welch, O'Brien and Kennedy, all of whom appear very rigid and so on. Donald Pleasance at least gets a bit more to do and gets to go a bit nuts at several points but mostly the film is just left to the effects to carry with neither the story nor the actors really able to step up and make the film more than just an effects movie.

This failure makes it interesting as an amusing little film from the 1960's that is quite fun despite its many weaknesses. However, for my money, the lack of performances, tension and real excitement meant that I would be unlikely to rewatch it just for the dated effects alone. Like many blockbusters today, this film has been superseded since its creation and is an example to all those who bemoan the 'style without substance' of modern cinema – we've been doing it for a lot longer than the past few years my friends!