Film (1966). Twentieth Century Fox. Directed by Richard Fleischer, starring Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch, Edmund O'Brien, Donald Pleasence. Screenplay Harry Kleiner, based on a story by Otto Clement and J Lewis (i.e., Jerome) Bixby. 100 minutes. Colour.
A submarine and its crew of medical experts – plus a double-agent saboteur (Pleasence) – are Miniaturized and injected into the bloodstream of an important scientist in order to remove by laser a blood-clot from his brain. In the finale – a race to escape before they revert to full size while still inside the body – they exit via a tear duct with only seconds to spare. The special effects by L B Abbott, Art Cruickshank and Emil Kosa Jr are impressive, as are the sets – duplicating in giant size various organs of the body, such as the heart, lungs and brain – designed by art director Dale Hennesy with spectacular histological surrealism. This vivid spectacle, however, does not compensate for the ham acting, the irrelevance of Ms Welch's lingered-on breasts, and the puerile melodrama. The novelization was Fantastic Voyage * (1966) by Isaac Asimov, which doggedly repaired such filmic lapses as abandoning the wrecked submarine within the patient's body where it would expand disastrously to full size. A film using a very similar theme is Joe Dante's Innerspace (1987). [PN/JB/DRL]
see also: Great and Small.
Previous versions of this entry