Review
Sporting cutting-edge visuals, and not as much leftover camp from the 1950s as you'd think, Fantastic Voyage was one of the more graphically innovative films of the 1960s, heightened by a tense cloud of Cold War paranoia. In the same year that Star Trek hit television, this film truly went where no man had gone before -- into the human blood stream -- with the help of a submarine shrunk to the size of a gnat. This tingling adventure into the unknown is certainly one of the factors that attracted genre director Richard Fleischer, who helmed 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea 12 years earlier, and he brings a real seriousness of purpose to a project that could have been laughably mounted with cardboard special effects. Instead, the film earned nominations in all Oscar categories pertaining to visuals, winning for both effects and art direction. Starting with the slick opening credits and continuing through an every-moment-counts narrative, which includes a thorough scene devoted to the machinery and process of shrinking the craft, Fleischer imbues the proceedings with a sense of immediacy. Yes, the ship and its miniature crew have to deal with a week's worth of insurmountable problems in a scant 60 minutes, but viewers willingly gave themselves over to it. The scene in which laboratory technicians must remain absolutely silent, in order not to reverberate the comatose patient's eardrum in a way that would be fatal to the crew, is especially taut. A slippery Donald Pleasance, and Raquel Welch in one of her earliest roles are the most noteworthy acting performances. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
On the DVD
Commentary by film & music historian Jeff Bond
Isolated score track with commentary by film & music historians Jeff Bond, Jon Burlingame and Nick Redman
Lava Lamps & Celluloid: A tribute to the visual effects of Fantastic Voyage
Storyboards-to-scene comparison: Whirlpool scene
Original prop stills
Behind-the-scenes stil galleries
Original theatrical trailer and more!
