text: Irwin Allen, past master of cinematic schlock, pulled out all the stops in VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA. A badly aged Walter Pidgeon, who actually may have been dead when he played this role, is the commander of an atomic submarine that must be the size of the Empire State Building. Every room is gigantic and some even appear to have no ceilings. You could bowl and hold a formal ball simultaneously in some of these rooms. The sub, called the Seaview, is on its maiden run when all hell breaks loose: the Van Allen radiation belt catches fire and the Seaview must launch a missile into the belt by a certain time or the world will go down in global warming flames! Along for the ride are a bunch of truly terrible character actors, many borrowed from TV. This makes them TV hack-tors. The worst is probably that poor man's Stella Stevens, Barbara Eden, as a naval secretary, squeezed into too-tight clothes, sporting high heels and acting like she's appearing in a beach party flick. Maybe that's because Frankie Avalon is also along for the ride. A badly aged Joan Fontaine, almost unrecognizable here, plays a visiting doctor with a big bad secret, but in truth who cares? VOYAGE is a truly bad movie obviously made for small children, but what child is going to sit still for endless shots of a miniature Seaview model moving over and over again from right to left across the screen in what is obviously a studio tank? There is not one scene where we believe these folks are actually aboard a sub. When the Seaview shakes, the actors fling themselves about, sometimes in opposite directions to one another. Just like on the good old STAR TREK TV series, when the bridge shakes. If I remember correctly, not one fish or sea creature is seen -- except for an octopus that momentarily latches onto the sub, a nod to 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA. The octopus, if it was real, was probably about a foot long and it shows. Worse, when folks are standing at the Seaview's glass nose, the ocean they are supposedly watching is obviously a closeup involving an unseen air hose spouting bubbles, probably filmed in a fish tank. You have never seen bigger bubbles in your life. You'd think these bubbles alone would smash the damned sub to pieces. Sadly, a badly aged Peter Lorre is also along for the ride. Near the end, when the missile is entering the flaming belt, Lorre is seen enthusiastically congratulating Pidgeon while everyone else is still waiting for their cue to start shaking hands and embracing one another in victory. A one-take scene if I've ever seen one. What a stinker. It's not even good for a laugh. Stick with SILENT RUNNING.