ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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As the 60s came to a close and the 70s opened up for business, Hollywood spent less effort on coming up with new sci-fi ideas, even though they still had not figured out that top talent and big money would pay off better in the long run.

Below are three examples of movies with weak ideas, low budgets, and lame humor. Truly these were dark times for us poor nerds.
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City Beneath the Sea (1971 TV movie)

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Appealing made-for-TV movie from producer-director Irwin Allen, using props and stars from various Irwin Allen television shows.

The Flying Sub makes a guest appearance from "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea", as does the Seaview's captain, Richard Basehart, who plays the president. James Darren and Robert Colbert are on hand from "The Time Tunnel".

The story is set in the future, so all the girls wear minidresses, naturally. Ironically, this is the way skirts were in 1971, so the producers were perhaps suggesting they would just stay this short right into the next century.



There are plenty of big sets and tiny miniatures, all of which gives the film a wonderfully Flash Gordon-like appearance. President Basehart orders Stuart Whitman to take charge of "Pacifica", the undersea city which Whitman helped design. America's gold reserve is being transferred there from Fort Knox, along with a shipment of H-128, a super-nuclear material that's not only radioactive but explosive (?).

Whitman's brother (Robert Wagner) secretly conspires with a band of hi-tech heisters who plan to steal a generous portion of both shipments. Meanwhile scientist James Darren discovers a rapidly approaching "planetoid" made of super-dense material that will collide with the Earth near the underwater city. The gravity from the approaching planetoid causes earthquakes and tidal waves, both of which are depicted with lots of stock footage.

You gotta hand it the producers, they didn't settle for a simple storyline. There's plenty of action, life-threatening emergencies, and destructive disasters; Irwin Allen wouldn't have it any other way.

One of the characters is a genetically engineered "aquatic" man (ala "The Man from Atlantis"). Whit Bissell ("The Time Machine", "Creature From the Black Lagoon", plenty more) has a small part. Despite several illogical plot elements and scientific inaccuracies, the production values are higher than on many theatrically released film's of that era, and the cast of familiar faces makes it fun to watch. ____________________________________________________________________

The Cloning of Clifford Swimmer (1974 TV movie)



The was a network "movie of the week" on ABC's Wide World of Mystery, but it's well-done despite being a product of the boob tube.

Peter Haskell, a ruthless and unpleasant business man, has a clone of himself produced to use in dealing with certain personal matters, but the clone ends up becoming the biggest problem of all, competing with him for his own identity.

Sharon Farrell provides some appealing scenery. Directed by Lela Swift. Also starring Sheree North.




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The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969)

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A post-Walt bit of Disney Studios fluff, starring a young Kurt Russell (before movies like "Big Trouble in Little China" and "The Thing" proved Russell could act).

He's a college kid who (somehow) develops a computerized brain and poses a threat to a real-nasty-gangster played by Cesar Romero.

Also starring Joe Flynn, William Schallert ("Colossus: The Forbin Project"), Alan Hewitt, Richard Bakalyan, and more familiar Disney bit players than you could shake your Mouska-Ears at. Directed by Robert Bulter.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)