Fantastic Voyage (1966) in '60s Horror and Sci-Fi Forum

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Fantastic Voyage (1966)

Author	Comment
davlghry		#81	[-]
Sep 7 10 9:43 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Buzz Dixon wrote: I think FANTASTIC VOYAGE was a break from the past insofar that unlike SECONDS or CHARLY, which were perceived as dramas that only incidentally had a sci-fi element, FV was intended to be pitched & sold to mainstream audiences as a sci-fi movie but of a different type & tone that had gone before. The closest thing to FV was VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA & that was regarded as hokey kid stuff. FV was not meant to be hokey kid stuff, but an adventure thriller for adult audiences. It was the precurssor to the APES movies, 2001, BARBARELLA, and a host more. I agree. One of the things that impresses me about FANTASTIC VOYAGE is the concise and plausible setup for the whole thing as explained to Stephen Boyd by Edmund O'Brien. Totally ridiculous and yet it's written and played so convincingly.
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delgadosaur		#82	[-]
Sep 16 10 4:51 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Is that it for the Raquel fotos? I'm hoping the legendary resources of the trusted members of this site can furnish a few more stills.
scotpens		#83	[-]
Jan 16 11 9:42 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	opticalguy wrote: Yep … fabulous photos. The production stills were great but they do kinda give away the actual size of the mock-up. The mock-up and its interior are a bit tiny. I’m not quite sure what you mean. To me, the full-size Proteus on screen looked no bigger or smaller than it actually was (about 42 feet long). Because of the huge window bay in front, the whole interior was actually built inside the mockup (as opposed to the usual filming practice of building separate interior sets for fake vehicles). The mockup had wild sections that could be removed to shoot the interior from different angles. opticalguy wrote: I remember hearing that the producers had the mock-up destroyed lest it turn up in Irwin Allen films. God knows much of the films props and set pieces did show up in Irwin Allen shows. There’s a long-standing story that the full-size Proteus was altered and repainted to be used as a rescue submarine for never-filmed scenes in either The Poseidon Adventure or its sequel Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, but there’s no real proof that ever happened. In any case, the mockup has long since been dismantled and scrapped. At least two of the miniatures, however, have been restored and are in the hands of private collectors. The plausibility of the altogether implausible script was helped by the huge CMDF set, which occupied two adjacent soundstages on the Fox lot and was one of the largest contiguous interior sets built up to that time. Of course, being a Los Angeles native, I immediately recognized the outer concourse of the Los Angeles Sports Arena. I half expected Edmond O'Brien and Stephen Boyd to go inside and watch a Lakers game. Oh, and that "tracking radar" unit that was used to track the miniaturized sub inside Benes' body -- did anyone else think it looked silly, with all those teeny-tiny radar antennas bobbing back and forth? Even back in 1966, it got snickers from the audience. WTF were the art directors thinking? Another bit of trivia -- those of you who've worked in the movie industry should recognize the base of the "Precision Handling Device." It's from a McAllister camera dolly. Last Edited By: scotpens Jan 20 11 12:07 PM. Edited 2 times.
Aupperle		#84	[-]
Jan 20 11 5:30 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I think that FANTASTIC VOYAGE was the first lobby card set I ever bought when I was a kid collecting this stuff. Jim Aupperle Last Edited By: Aupperle Jan 20 11 5:36 PM. Edited 1 times.
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opticalguy	A Matter of Perspective … or Scale	#85	[-]
Jan 23 11 1:27 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Well it's all a matter of perspective and scale. My reaction to seeing this film was "wow! They built a full-scale prop submarine for this movie!" Yeah… at age 12 this is how I thought. On 1/16/2011 scotpens wrote: I’m not quite sure what you mean. To me, the full-size Proteus on screen looked no bigger or smaller than it actually was (about 42 feet long). Because of the huge window bay in front, the whole interior was actually built inside the mockup (as opposed to the usual filming practice of building separate interior sets for fake vehicles). The mockup had wild sections that could be removed to shoot the interior from different angles. So when I saw the photos that were not shot in such a way as to make the Proteus prop look its best they did rather surprise me. At this point in my life it shouldn't have surprised me but it did. I have been in a real submarine … happily back when I was a child … as an adult at 6'4" I'd have a hard time getting into a real sub. Real subs are quite claustrophobic. Nevertheless the set stills did kinda let me down … and this is from a film with a very well-done, full-scale mock-up. I guess there's just no pleasing some of us. Of course online some of the SF modelers have pointed out that the Fantastic Voyage mock-up lacked room for ballast tanks and engines and all the other stuff that makes real submarines functional but even I let that slide. On the left is how it was shot for the film and the angle is a good one for the mock-up since it appears to tower over the crew and is the biggest thing in the frame and the wide-angle lens helps this illusion. In this normal-perspective set shot neither the setting nor the mock-up are framed so that they look their best. This is normal as most settings always seem tinier and less impressive when seen it real life. Again the angle and the use of a wide-angle lens really make the interior look quite impressive while the set shot shows it in an unflattering composition. opticalguy1954@yahoo.com (Spencer Gill) Last Edited By: opticalguy Jan 23 11 1:37 PM. Edited 2 times.
scotpens		#86	[-]
Jan 30 11 5:13 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Esquire magazine published back-to-back articles on the then-upcoming films Fantastic Voyage and 2001: A Space Odyssey in its May 1966 issue. Here’s the FV piece: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/t_bH3xw377G8TmC73h7jQg?feat=directlink http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/jwJWijsXEy-pqKGPMNpuXw?feat=directlink
Sid Terror		#87	[-]
Jan 31 11 6:57 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	With James Cameron now planning a remake, I wonder if he saw the other remake ANTIBODY (2002)? Anyone else see it? "It's better to have accomplishments remarkable enough to be put in question, than to have no accomplishments at all."
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