65 Years Ago, One Clunky Irwin Allen Movie Changed Science Fiction Forever

The best part of watching the 1961 film Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea is seeing the future unfold. As its own piece of pop culture art, it’s hard to say that Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea holds up. Even by the standards of the day, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea has strange pacing issues, is desperate for a true main character, and lacks the kind of dynamic sense of urgency of other 1950s and 1960s adventure or sci-fi films, which is odd, since the fate of the entire world is at stake throughout the story. And yet, 65 years after its release on July 12, 1961, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea is incredible not because of what it is, but what it made.

As the template for a popular and iconic 1964 TV series of the same name, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was one of the earliest forms of what we now think of as a contemporary sci-fi franchise. But, beyond spawning its own successful and, arguably, better TV reboot, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea is a crucial piece of sci-fi cinema history, with one foot in the past of the genre and an eye toward the future.

Focused on the titular voyage of a futuristic submarine called the Seaview, the title of the film is oddly misleading. While the Seaview does head to the Mariana Trench and dive pretty deep, the goal of the voyage is to fire off a rocket from the submarine into space in order to thwart a shower of meteors, which have passed through the Van Allen radiation belts that surround Earth. In reality, none of this is possible, or even remotely plausible. Plus, the idea that using a nuclear missile to detach the burning belt from Earth’s orbit is equally confusing to anyone who thinks about space physics with any sort of seriousness.

And yet, it's in these details, and exhaustive discussion of said details, that Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea earns a kind of verisimilitude which pervades much of the TV and film science fiction of the 1950s and 1960s; the technobabble about the Van Allen radiation belt sounds real enough, and the entire film is jam-packed with military procedures and a crew that doesn’t look all that different from a real submarine crew of the day. Later, the 1964 reboot TV series of the same name would establish that the adventures of the Seaview take place in the near future, the 1970s. This trick was later repeated in the 1993 series seaQuest DSV, which initially took place in 2018. In both cases, neither show looks all that futuristic today, which is, in a way, the point.

The cast of the film version of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was a who’s who of certain kinds of genre actors; future star of I Dream of Jeannie Barbara Eden plays one of only two major female roles in the film, Lieutenant Cathy Connors, while Joan Fontaine played Dr. Susan Hiller. The rest of the crew is a boys' club, much like the foundational film Forbidden Planet, but unlike that film — which starred Leslie Neilsen as Commander John J. Adams — Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea has several leading men, all competing for the role of main character: Walter Pidgeon as Admiral Harriman Nelson, Robert Sterling as Captain Lee Crane, and, perhaps most memorably, and the true stand-out actor in the film, Michael Ansara as Miguel Alvarez.

It’s probably worth mentioning that pop singer Frankie Avalon plays Lieutenant Danny Romano, if only because Avalon also sings the opening theme song, which would be a little like if Harry Styles starred in a new Star Trek movie and also sang the opening theme song. (Actually, maybe that would be amazing?)

But back to Michael Ansara. In 1961, he was married to co-star Eden, and the two would remain married until 1974. For fans of sci-fi, Ansara’s voice is unforgettable; he played the Klingon commander Kang in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode “Day of the Dove,” a role which he reprised in Deep Space Nine in 1992. He also played the villainous Kane in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century in 1979, and the voice of Mister Freeze in Batman: The Animated Series, beginning in 1994. The point is, Ansara is a legend, and if there’s a reason to rewatch Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, it’s him. His character is Miguel Alvarez, who is technically the villain of the film, as he opposes the plan to use the nuclear missile to fix the whole problem. As Alvarez, Ansara creates a religious figure who believes that this whole issue of Earth burning is God’s will and that perhaps humanity doesn’t deserve to survive. In a sense, Ansara is like one of the cult members from Beneath the Planet of the Apes fused with a fatalist Bond villain. And throughout, his performance is more haunting and interesting than what most of the rest of the cast are doing.

In short, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea is good at giving the audience things to root against, whether it's a giant squid or Michael Ansara. But it has a harder time giving us people to root for. Which is probably why the 1964 TV series, recreated by Irwin Allen using VFX footage lifted from the movie, is better remembered. In that show, the characters are more likable, including an entirely different cast featuring David Hedison as Lee Crane and Richard Basehart as Admiral Harry Nelson. Alongside The Time Tunnel and Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea formed Allen’s sci-fi empire, which, before Star Trek became a cult hit in the early 1970s, was one of the most impressive genre universes of all time. In the 1960s, Allen was, briefly, to sci-fi TV what Taylor Sheridan is to Westerns today. (As of 2025, Strange New Worlds producer Akiva Goldsman is set to reboot Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Time Tunnel, and Land of the Giants.)

But all of this is to say that if you truly want to get the best of Allen’s contributions to sci-fi, the TV series version of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, with its more dynamic cast and various over-the-top storylines, is much, much better than the film that started it all.

It would be tempting to say that the 1961 Voyage walked so the 1964 Voyage could run. But it’s probably more accurate to say that this film was like a stone thrown into a pond — it created some impressive ripples, but the stone itself is oddly unremarkable, and perhaps somewhat forgotten for a good reason.

Where to watch Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961)

Although the 1964 TV series can be purchased on various platforms, the original 1961 film is not streaming anywhere in the U.S. as of this writing. Your best bet is to find a used copy of the 2013 Blu-ray, which features a beautiful restoration of the film, along with some commentary tracks that get into great detail about the then-groundbreaking VFX of the movie.