The Undersea "Voyages" of Irwin Allen

The Seaview 

Many movie fans know producer-director Irwin Allen as the “Master of Disaster” through his work on big-screen films like The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, and The Swarm. However, Allen had a thriving career long before those films were released. He wrote, produced and directed movies such as The Lost World and Five Weeks In A Balloon, as well as spearheading the television series Lost In Space, The Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Voyage was one of Allen’s most successful projects. It began life as a feature film released in 1961. The movie tells the story of the nuclear powered submarine Seaview. While the sub is on its maiden voyage, the crew becomes involved in a race against time to stop a cataclysmic event that could cause…(what else?)...the end of the world!

The state of the art submarine Seaview, designed by Admiral Harriman Nelson (Walter Pidgeon of Forbidden Planet), is on a test run in the Arctic. Suddenly, things go haywire: icebergs are melting, the seas are churning and the sky is literally on fire. Temperatures are rising to dangerous levels everywhere. It turns out the Van Allen radiation belt has been affected by a meteor shower, causing it to catch on fire. After rescuing a stranded scientist, Miguel Alvarez, from an ice floe, Nelson and his colleague Commodore Emery (Peter Lorre of M, Casablanca, many others) head to New York and attend an emergency briefing at the United Nations, where they speak with a gathering of fellow scientists and world leaders.

Nelson and Emery share their theory that if the heat build-up from the Van Allen belt isn’t stopped, our planet is doomed in a matter of weeks. Nelson believes a nuclear missile fired from the Seaview into the heart of the Van Allen belt will disperse the flames, and things will return to normal. The UN council rejects the idea. Some of the other scientists argue that the problem is only temporary, and the fire will burn itself out. A resolute Nelson returns to the Seaview, where he decides to implement his plan. Along with Captain Lee Crane (Robert Sterling) and the rest of the crew, Nelson races against time to avert disaster. But the presence of an apparent saboteur aboard the sub may derail Nelson’s plan. Can the crew discover the saboteur’s identity, and save the world?

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea is an enjoyable, Saturday matinee style sci-fi thriller, produced and directed by the man himself, Irwin Allen. The story for the film is by Allen and veteran screenwriter Charles Bennett. The science of the film’s plot is a little wonky by modern standards, but the ten-year old movie fan inside you should let that slide, and just enjoy the movie on its own terms. It’s clear the film was at least partially inspired by the success of Disney’s hit version of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Voyage not only shares a cast member with that Disney film (Peter Lorre), but the Seaview also does battle with a giant squid during course of the movie. One of the film’s main strengths is the Seaview itself, a very cool submarine, featuring the then novel idea of observation windows on the front of the craft. The special effects for the film are by L.B. Abbott, who also worked on Fantastic Voyage and Logan’s Run.

The excellent cast, in addition to Pidgeon and Lorre, also includes veteran stars Joan Fontaine, Henry Daniell, and Regis Toomey. Barbara Eden and Michael Ansara (who were married in real-life at the time) appear as Lt. Cathy Connors and Miguel Alvarez, respectively. As was the case with many films of the 1950s and 1960s, there’s a pop star along for the ride, and this time it’s Frankie Avalon, who plays Lt. Danny Romano, and also gets to sing the title song. Yes, there is a title song for Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea! Here's a link to it, so you may enjoy it in all its 1960s pop tune glory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esNgKybTSZQ.

David Hedison and Richard Basehart

Voyage proved to be a success at the box-office, and Irwin Allen showed some remarkable foresight. He had the models and sets from the film placed into storage, in case the opportunity for a sequel or TV series materialized. That’s exactly what happened in 1964, when a weekly version of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea premiered on ABC. The cast included Richard Basehart as Admiral Nelson, and David Hedison as Captain Crane. Hedison had been offered the role of Crane for the feature film, but turned it down after his experiences working with Allen on the 1960 film The Lost World. Hedison accepted the part on the TV series in order to work with Basehart, an actor whose work he admired. 

The televised voyages of the Seaview started out primarily as Cold War themed espionage stories, along with tales of undersea action and occasional forays into science fiction. When the show switched from black and white to color in its second season, the plots became wilder and wackier, featuring mummies, werewolves, ghosts and a host of alien creatures threatening the crew. As with Allen’s other series, Lost In Space, as Voyage progressed, it became more fantasy-oriented. One welcome addition during the series second year was the Flying Sub, a smaller craft that could be launched from the Seaview and was able to operate underwater and take to the skies as well.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea remained popular, running for four seasons, becoming Allen’s longest running series. The show earned itself a legendary Mad magazine parody, “Voyage To See What’s On The Bottom,” during its original run. The series lived on in syndication, inspiring a generation of kids to assemble their Seaview model kits and play with them alongside their plastic versions of the USS Enterprise. While Voyage has never been rebooted or remade, Irwin Allen did release another undersea science-fiction adventure, the 1971 made for TV movie City Beneath The Sea, a story about the undersea colony of Pacifica. The film not only featured a repurposed Flying Sub, but also cast Voyage star Richard Basehart in a small role. Allen produced one final televised underwater adventure, the 1978 mini-series The Return of Captain Nemo, starring Jose Ferrer.

Thanks to their colorful stories and talented casts, both the film and television versions of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea have remained fan favorites throughout the years. I especially like seeing stars like Vincent Price, Robert Duvall and June Lockhart, among many others, appear in guest roles on the series. Watching the episodes brings back a lot of fond memories for me, and it’s always fun to see Richard Basehart, David Hedison and the rest of the cast remain unflappable (and keep a straight face) while dealing with ever more improbable menaces. The 1961 film has been released on both DVD and Blu-ray, and all four seasons of the TV series are available on DVD. Here’s a link to the trailer for the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrpM4_fPIT4, and a trailer for the series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZXQEtqqtzk.

This post is part of the Out To Sea Blogathon, hosted by my fellow blogger Debbie over at Moon In Gemini. I want to thank her for bringing me on board for all of the seagoing fun! You can get more info, and check out the other entries here: https://debravega.wordpress.com/2020/03/06/the-out-to-sea-blogathon-is-here/.