Fantastic Voyage (1966)

Fantastic Voyage
Directed by Richard Fleischer
Written by Harry Kleiner; adapted by David Duncan from a story by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby
1966/USA
Twentieth Century Fox
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Col. Donald Reid: A woman has no place on a mission of this size![/box]

This sci-fi classic is not as fantastic as I remember from my youth.  Still pretty cool for its time.

A defecting scientist develops a blood clot in the brain.  In the not so distant future, a submarine and its crew are miniaturized to sub-microbe size and injected into the carotid artery from which there is a direct route to the brain.  When there they will destroy the clot with a laser.  But there is the threat of treachery from within and the patient’s physiology throws a monkey wrench into the works.  Can the crew complete its mission within the 60 minutes before they start growing and are destroyed by the body’s immune system?  With Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch, Arthur Kennedy, Donald Pleasance, and Arthur O’Connell.

This movie is all about its concept and its special effects.  Certainly it wasn’t going to win any awards for acting or dialogue.  Now the effects appear pretty cheesy but in the movie theater they were magic to my eyes.  Fleischer keep things moving along.  All in all, it’s a an entertaining romp.

Fantastic Voyage won Academy Awards in the categories of Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color and Best Effects, Special Visual Affects.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Cinematography, Color; Best Film Editing and Best Effects, Sound Effects.