MovieChat Forums > Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961) Discussion > Who was the third actress?

Who was the third actress?

posted 17 years ago by ossroy
14 replies | jump to latest

I watched this film today, and while I wasn't 100% paying attention (I spent a few moments helping my son with homework), I remember that Congressman Parker had his wife with him. When they took off from NYC in a hurry she said she can't go, she and her congressman husband wanted to get off, and she was told she was going for the ride anyway. She is not listed in the cast of characters even though her husband is. And later in the film, neither of them is ever seen again. Am I imagining things or what?

[–] hobnob53 17 years ago

Too much time spent on homework! You're confusing the characters. Congressman Parker did not have his wife along; he and Vice-Admiral Crawford got left behind in NY, and not by their choice, when Nelson and his people ran out of the UN. The woman who said she can't go was the visiting psychiatrist, Dr. Hiller (played by Joan Fontaine, who is listed second in the cast), and whose "husband" (like Parker's "wife") is nowhere in the movie (there's no mention of whether either of them is even married). The man standing next to her in Nelson's cabin aboard Seaview when she asks to get off is Alvarez, who the sub rescued in the Arctic. He didn't care whether he stayed or not; it's unclear whether you're mistaking him for the Congressman, who had already been left behind by the time this scene took place. You never see the Congressman again after he's left in NY, but the Dr. is prominent throughout the film till about 10 minutes before the end, after she contracts a lethal dose of radiation attempting to sabotage the sub's reactor but falls into the shark tank and is eaten alive before she can die of radiation poisoning. (She doesn't believe in Nelson's mission.) Such are the hazards of science.

[–] Unicorn-9 17 years ago

"Dr. is prominent throughout the film till about 10 minutes before the end, after she contracts a lethal dose of radiation attempting to sabotage the sub's reactor but falls into the shark tank and is eaten alive before she can die of radiation poisoning."

Just goes to show why you should never let a chick near a nuclear reactor.

I like the way that the guy who's with her at the shark tank lies there unconscious for about ten minutes afterwards with his arm dangling in the water, but the shark mysteriously decides not to eat him as well :).

[–] hobnob53 17 years ago

Yeah, that's one of the things that never makes sense in this movie. When Captain Crane (Robert Sterling) is knocked out by the same explosion -- which by the way is unexplained -- that tosses Dr. Hilliard into the tank, it always looked to me as if his arm slipped into the tank by mistake...but once in, he couldn't very well pull it out since he was supposed to be unconscious.

But then, Irwin Allen was never concerned with consistency or logic. Why does Barbara Eden go through the movie wearing high heels -- on a submarine? Why does Admiral Nelson insist they have to get to the Marianas and launch the missile by August 29th, though Dr. Zucco's "burn-out" temperature of 173 degrees won't be reached until the 30th (as he argues to the UN), only to be told just before actually firing on the 29th that the temperature had risen to 173.2 "and the fire's still burning"? Kind of defeats a big point of the movie. How do you have a fire in space? There are a lot of things that just don't make sense in this film...but for some reason I still enjoy it.

[–] jeffbatten 17 years ago

After Bessie ate Dr Hilliard, she was probably full.:)

[–] Unicorn-9 17 years ago

"After Bessie ate Dr Hilliard, she was probably full.:)"

Good point :).

[–] hobnob53 17 years ago

I don't know, the arm would have made a nice dessert, not to mention the Captain's Rolex.

[–] neil-124 17 years ago

Speaking of Dr Hiller, watch when she is introduced to Commodore Emery while he is "shark walking". When she bends down to talk to him you can clearly see chalk outlines where her feet are supposed to go for the shot.

Irwin must not have wanted to do that shot more than once, he was a master of thrift.

[–] hobnob53 17 years ago

I wonder if they drew a chalk outline, like in a homicide, for Captain Crane's body on that same ramp for when he's knocked out there late in the film.

[–] neil-124 17 years ago

That would be funny if they did, and with Irwin it's possible!

Good thing that 3 foot shark was full from Joan Fontaine and didn't take a plug off of the captain's arm

[–] nutinpersonal 14 years ago

As a previous poster wrote "you should never let a chick near a nuclear reactor." That may be true, but you should never let Irwin Allen near any film! Lord, this movie was terrible. Not even Walter Pidgeon or Joan Fontaine could keep this movie afloat (pun intended). Lots of stinker movies as so bad they are good, or at least funny. Not here. Barbara Eden is in her prime in this movie, so there's a ray of sunshine. But otherwise, it's a waste of good film.

Paula Jo

[–] scotbpens 15 years ago

It's common practice in filmmaking to draw marks on the floor where an actor is supposed to stand so they'll be in frame and in focus, irrespective of how many takes of a particular shot a director wants to shoot.

I'll be sure to watch for Joan Fontaine's marks in that scene the next time I see the movie.

All the universe . . . or nothingness. Which shall it be, Passworthy? Which shall it be?

[–] tday-1 17 years ago

Hi,one can never be too rich or have too many friends. They have fire in space same way they have rocket sounds and ray gun noises in Star Wars,the magic of movies.

[–] raf-33 8 years ago

I don't think there was a fire in space, the fire was in the atmosphere and was caused by friction and resulting heat from the Van Allen belt. Though you can have fires in space, they are called stars.

Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived. -Isaac Asimov

[–] hobnob53 7 years ago

The fire was in space. When they first make contact to find out what's going on, the unseen Inspector Berger tells Nelson "It's the Van Allen radiation belt -- the 300-mile level." 300 miles is well into space. The film says it's the Belt that's on fire, not the atmosphere itself because of any friction (and again, you can't have friction in space -- you need an atmosphere for that). Besides which, the explanation is that what's burning in the Belt are gases -- but there are no gases within the Belt. It's a radiation field, common enough in the solar system as we now know.

So there's nothing to catch fire in the Belt, nothing could catch fire in the airless void of space, and in fact you'd think that if all this could happen then the atmosphere itself would explode and burn away -- which some scientists feared might happen before the first atomic bomb was exploded. Instead of needing to extinguish the blaze before the temperature reaches an arbitrary figure of 173°, the plot might have been more logical if they had to extinguish it before it reached the temperature at which the atmosphere would itself explode and destroy all mankind.