|
|
AROUND
THE WORLD |
|
| "This means a great deal of
risk, doesn’t it?" "We know less about the deep oceans than we do the surface of the moon." "And you’re willing to take on that risk?" "That’s why we’re here." |
|
 |
|
|
Director:
Andrew Marton, Ricou Browning
Starring: Lloyd Bridges, Brian Kelly, Shirley Eaton, David McCallum, Marshall Thompson, Keenan Wynn, Gary Merrill, George Shibata Screenplay: Arthur Weiss and Art Arthur |
|
|
| Synopsis: The world is shaken by frequent, severe
earthquakes. A nuclear powered submarine, the Hydronaut, is recruited for a mission to
place warning devices on fault lines throughout the oceans. Doug Standish (Lloyd Bridges)
and Craig Mosby (Brian Kelly), who designed and built the Hydronaut, begin to select their
crew: Phil Volker (David McCallum), an electronics expert, Orin Hillyard (Marshall
Thompson), a geologist, and Hank Stahl (Keenan Wynn), who studies underwater survival and
has developed special breathing equipment for deep sea work. Volker agrees to go along
only when Standish agrees to allow the submarine to be used for a salvage mission to
retrieve millions of dollars worth of transistor crystals. Standish and Mosby clash over
the choice of the final crew member, a doctor and marine biologist. The person chosen is
M.E. Hanford (Shirley Eaton), who turns out to be a woman. Mosby is against the
appointment, but in the end has no choice but to accept it. The team travels the world
beneath the sea, carrying out the dangerous task of planting the earthquake sensors.
Finally they receive another mission: to plant a sensor near a new underwater volcano.
They carry out their assignment, but the Hydronaut becomes trapped when the volcano causes
a rock fall. The team takes desperate action to save their lives.
Comments:
This is a pretty dull film, with too much talk and not enough action. It also creaks with
stock characters and bad acting. Following an hysterical opening sequence, where Craig
Mosby nearly gets killed because a helicopter frightens some whales, we proceed to the
crew selection. We meet venal scientist Phil Volker (David McCallum doing a bad
impersonation of himself as Ilya Kuryakin), who’s only in it for the money.
Characters like this usually die (just like in real life - ask Bill Gates), but Volker
escapes with his life, if not with any money.
Then we get Hank Stahl (Keenan
Wynn), a supposedly crusty old misanthrope who’s really got a heart of gold (what a
surprise). Stahl is involved in the highlight of the film when he is attacked by a giant
moray eel, but unfortunately it doesn’t catch him.(Obviously, this isn’t a
kill-off-the-minor-characters kind of film.)
Finally, we move to the biggest cliche of all: the inevitable token woman and the equally inevitable battle-of-the-sexes subplot. Standish and Mosby are having problems selecting the final member of the team because "we want to combine our doctor and our marine biologist." (Sounds kinky. Have these guys been watching "South Park"?). Doug Standish wants M.E. Hanford, because "he’s done some very interesting research". Apparently none of these guys have seen Hatari (1962), because Gary Merrill has to break the news that "M.E." stands for "Margaret Elizabeth". As it happens, Dr Mosby has not only seen M.E. before, he developed the hots for her while watching her chase a guinea pig under a desk (really); but that doesn’t mean he wants her on his sub. But Standish sticks up for her, making long speeches about how "half the doctors in Russia are women". (He may have great respect for her, but he still calls her "Miss Hanford", not "Doctor Hanford".) So M.E. gets the job, and to prove how seriously she’s taking her mission, she comes aboard late, wearing a split skirt and spike heels, and carrying her pet guinea pigs in a hatbox (she claims they’re for "oxygen analysis", but no-one’s buying that). The real reason she’s on board soon becomes clear: according to Phil Volker’s testimony, "Maggie Hanford is as skilled with a skillet as she is with a scalpel". Thus, while we don’t see M.E. practising much medicine or marine biology, we do see her serving the coffee. She may not have too much work to do, but she’s certainly got her hands full elsewhere. She’s romantically involved with geologist Orin Hillyard; she had a past relationship with electronics expert Volker; and before long she and Mosby are squabbling and breathing hard and chain smoking (in a submarine!?) in the way that in this kind of film generally means an uncontrollable physical attraction. (According to Mosby, M.E. can’t do anything right, even behave like an hysterical female: when Standish is in danger and M.E. shrieks "Doug! Doug!" down the radio, Mosby snatches the device from her. "Gimme that!" Then he shrieks "Doug! Doug!") Having set up its stock characters, Around The World Under The Sea then puts them through their predictable and repetitive paces. The film picks up slightly during its final sequence, when the submarine becomes trapped under falling rocks, and the crew must take dangerous action to save themselves. But even this is spoilt by Stahl putting himself in danger to rescue M.E.’s guinea pigs, and by M.E. and Mosby discovering that they do love each other after all (bet you didn’t see that one coming). |
|
