Fantastic Voyage (1966)

An attempt on the life of a diplomat has left him in a coma. The area of the brain damaged cannot easily be operated on. It's easier, apparently, to shrink down a submarine and crew to microscopic size to make the repairs.

I was mystified how poorly remembered this sci-fi classic is. Until I watched it, that is. It begins with all the techo-cheese of a 60's sci-fi TV show. White noise, spinning tape drives, and, oh yea, that high-tech typewriter. At one point the General walks from fuzzy CRT to CRT to ask a different person on screen what the patient's heart rate or temperature was. Star Trek had a much better grasp on that sort of thing. Still, it ventured into a new realm and showed us something never before seen in the genre: the miracle of the human body at microscopic scale. And what does that magical realm look like? A little like a low rent carnival funhouse.

We marvel at the cast marveling at the miracle of green screen. We gasp in excitement as Raquel Welch is attacked by white blood cells, and the men frantically try to tear them off, mostly from her ample breasts. Every turn a new unexpected challenge awaits. The script was researched well enough that parts were viewed in college medical classes for years.

Fantastic Voyage, while something of a snoozer, did attempt something new, and there is virtue in that. Even if it appears severely dated to modern eyes. Dated, cheesy, and a bit dull, but innovative and slightly smarter than most. AMRU 3.