1960s Science Fiction Techno-Thrillers
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- čas přidán 26. 07. 2024
- Science Fiction technological thriller movies came of age in the 1960s. The world fell in love with technology, even as we feared it.
Here are five groovy movies for your enjoyment.
Fail Safe (1964): amzn.to/3oLKNUh
The Satan Bug (1965): amzn.to/2QN41MG
Fantastic Voyage (1966): amzn.to/34ge28q
Battle Beneath The Earth (1967): amzn.to/2RKkGRp
Colossus: The Forbin Project (1969-1970) amzn.to/3wsrh1N
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I LOVE The Forbin Project. Chilling isn’t the word.
Colossus the Forbin project was actually the first book in a trilogy the second and third books would’ve made quite interesting movies have they made them.
The part when Colossus says "if man cannot remove those people from the island, I can". This of course after it establishes quite clearly it is not shy about tossing around some nukes. That did give me chills. lol
'shit gets real' - too right, the movie is genuinely chilling in a way that makes it so much more powerful than a lot of Sci-Fi, which often posits the idea of a dystopian future but there's always some plucky way of getting free of it that usually involves sexy people and blowing shit up - this movie offers no such easy way out
@@tsunchoo Bradin was a solid actor.
He was good on 1960s TV as the German Officer in The Rat Patrol, a thankless part he did well except for the other actors playing Germans, mostly immigrants from Bavaria in Germany and Austria, did not understanding his North German accent, they cast Germans, rather than translating the scripts.
The weird thing about that show was they also seemed to hire people who actually spoke Arabic to play Bedouins. I saw an episode after the Gulf War where Sgt Moffitt and an Arab lady actually talk about getting water in Arabic The kind of "GI Arabic" conversations I had been having a few months before.
He was also great in a final season of the Mary Tyler Moore Show, playing an abrasive critic Mary hires for the WJM newscast to review local theater, not realizing (having met him socially) how abrasive his reviews actually are.
I don’t think i’ve ever seen the original Fail-Safe, but i’ve stumbled across it numerous times. And every time, i stop channel-flipping and watch it through from wherever i landed on it. It’s just that compelling.
It just works. It has the intensity of a stage play, which is a virtue.
From a later date. 'The Andromeda Strain' is an excellent example of the techno-thriller.
Was going to recommend it as well, but it was released in 1971. It still has many of the trappings of the latter 1960s Techno-thriller (set design didn't progress very quickly in that period). Good story, well-adapted from the source material and some fine acting, especially by David Wayne and Kate Reid. This is another film I'd like to see re-done with modern sets and SF/X. And they wouldn't need to change the script appreciably (although they will.....massively....)
Yes! The film is definitely a sort of cult classic...it holds your attention, has good dialogue, etc.
Colossus: the Forbin Project is one of my favorite movies.
From Fail-Safe I was always haunted by "I can hear the sound of explosions to the northeast. The sky is very bright. All lit up eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"
Yep. It had an honesty about the horror.
I recall the scene when the bomber knocked out the squadron of planes, and when those watching began to cheer, they were instantly and harshly rebuffed to remember that they just lost a lot of good men who were doing their duty.
@@terrytalksmovies As much as I love Dr. Strangelove, I must give credit to Fail-Safe for feeling real.
@@billsinkins361 Which one was first though? I always though _FailSafe_ came out first, then _Dr. StrangeLove_ ,the video says _Strangelove_ was first, so which is it?🤔
@@STSWB5SG1FAN The story I've heard is that Kubrick found out Fail-Safe was due to be released before Strangelove. Kubrick filed a lawsuit claiming Fail-Safe was based on the novel Red Alert to which Kubrick owned exclusive film rights. The suit delayed Fail-Safe and allowed Kubrick to finish and release Strangelove first.
I saw Colossus when I was about 11 or 12 and have since then been looking for the name. Thank you now I know. As I remember there is as scen where he makes a Martini and the Colossus questions his method. He then proceeds to say something along the lines of "You don't know everything". Loved it!
I am impressed that you tag Colossus as the first film about the Singularity. As a semi cult figure in Singularity circles myself I completely agree, and Colossus was a huge influence on me when I wrote The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect.
This was a great choice! The idea of Singularity was also part and parcel of 2001...there is some argument among film fans as to which movie released first. Eric Braeden was excellent, as was the sexy love interest woman!...Interestingly to me, that Eric could not parlay his performance here into being an A-list actor. I guess being stuck in the soap syndrome must have paid well!
@@curbozerboomer1773 Ayn Rand became convicted he was the only actor that could star in her envisioned version of Atlus Shrugged, which might have had a negative impact on his career.
Convinced
I was born in 57 and these movies so piqued my interest. I later earned degrees in Engineering and Math, was a Captain in the Air Force, worked on and still work in the aerospace field. So parents, what kids watch really can influence them in subtle ways
Loved the line printer noise whenever Colossus spoke via text.
Dot matrix FTW!
Very pleased to see you cite FAIL-SAFE!
Thank you for the Failsafe tip. The remake was totally worth it.
"Fantastic Voyage" has been a guilty pleasure since I first read the novel in 1981 and then finally saw the film on TV in 1983. Inaccuracies abound, there are large plot holes, some of the acting is wooden and I love it. I watch it several times a year.
We all have films like that. Enjoy!😀
A great set of movies there. I'm fond of all of them. The successor of 'Colossus', has surely got to be John Badham's 1983 movie, 'War Games'. A favourite movie of mine, but, due to where I live, in England, it was very unsettling. In the 1980's, where I live was within 25 miles of three strategic USAF bases, a large garrison town; the RAF radar hub; the hub of the NATO secure telecommunications network, just for starters. It's one of the few towns in the UK, where the local government had no bunker under their offices, as, had it all gone west, there would have been nothing left to govern. All the scenarios run through by WOPR at the end of 'War Games' are real, and on a couple of them, a dense cluster of warheads can be seen hitting my part of the country. I watched it a few weeks ago, and it's still chilling.
War Games was about an essentially dumb AI. Colossus' nightmare is that the enemy is constantly evolving.
@@terrytalksmovies I wouldn't say it was dumb, it just never learned. Except towards the end.
@@STSWB5SG1FAN WarGames was not a Singularity story; there was no indication that WOPR was self-aware or even close to it. Essentially it had been mispurposed and the people who mispurposed it didn't realize that it didn't understand the difference between reality and a game. In fact, even at the end WOPR still doesn't; it simply realizes that the game it is playing is futile, which is a major advance for it at that point. But it is a long way from taking over the world.
Regarding "Fail Safe", I have two comments:
1) Walter Matthau's character of Groteshele was supposed to be a parallel to Herman Kahn, not Henry Kissenger. The giveaway was the whole discussion of casualties and post-war scenarios that Matthau delivers so brilliantly. It was almost perfectly lifted from Kahn's "On Thermonuclear War"
2) The most moving scene (for me at least) is where the commander of the leader bomber informs his men of his plan to penetrate the final defenses around Moscow, which would also kill them. In a film where a key theme is the rise of automation and its impact on the role of man in the decisions that are a part of war, this is tremendously powerful, and I believe makes your point that this is in many ways properly a science fiction film.
Thank you for your very fine work, I am most grateful for it.
I've read that Matthau and the producers also used Kissinger as a model to keep Kahn from suing them and because Gr0tesschule was more believable with some of Kissinger's characteristics.
@@JohnMinehan-lx9ts Given that Kahn was a notoriously prickly (and litiguous) individual, I wouldn't be at all surprised that this was the case. And yes, Grotesschule makes a much more "film worthy" character as a Kissinger-like figure than Kahn, who was short, fat, and overly professorial in his presentation of his ideas. The notion of Kahn holding a Washington dinner party mesmerized with his ideas is simply not credible...
"Fantastic Voyage" is one of my favorite SF movies, and the Proteus is one of my favorite SF vehicles.
I like Stephen Boyd. He made the silliness plausible.
There is a novelisation of _Fantastic Voyage_ that was written by Issac Asimov at the height of his powers. It is the one time where I have felt that a novelisation was superiour to the movie upon which it was based. Asimov explained all the plot holes: Shrinking doesn't necessarily work for one hour, the shrink time depends on how small something is and a submarine shrunk to smaller than a blood cell happens to get a one-hour shrink time. The submarine doesn't disappear; when the people exit the patient the submarine comes along (very much worse for wear). When the sub needed air, it turned out that they had a small miniaturizer on board and they miniaturized the air so they could breathe it. And so on.
There was one plot point that was so stupid that there was no way for Asimov to explain it away, so he simply omitted it. It's been years since I saw this... but I remember a scene where a small box was brought on board and Grant asks what it is, and is told "that's the atomic particle to power the reactor; we are going to be so small that we will run our reactor on a single particle." Um... just no way to make any sense out of that! (Obviously the sub needs to have the usual amount of nuclear fuel in its reactor, and the fuel will be shrunk along with everything else.)
Asimov wrote an original novel that is a sequel, but I found it so slow-moving that I didn't like it and never finished it. But the original novel is a cracking good read and I recommend it completely.
I read the sequel about 30 years ago, and, although I normally remember books in great detail, literally the only thing I remember was two Russians were drugged, and the protagonist decided to put them in bed together and hope that if they awakened, they'd decide to hook up instead of calling the KGB on the heroes.
I remember reading that in the Corgi SF Collectors Series paperback edition. They had a common design style: purple textured backgrounds, the text at the top, and a graphic in a circle or a square below. Beautiful books. I think I read London's The Star Rover in the same series. I also remember Asimov fixing some plot issues, like correcting the oxygen they harvest from the alveolus, and getting the shipwreck out of the body.
This channel is about the best thing I know of for looking back at the influences that formed me and us today.
Thank you. 😀
Love the cliff-hanging end to "Colossus". The 2nd and 3rd books make clear why. Too bad they never completed the trilogy.
The sequels would not have filmed well, nor have they aged well because D.F. Jones wrote well before we understood chaos theory, which limits what either Colossus or the Martians could do in ways Jones didn't realize. I also thought the naval battles in the final book were a little too out of place and were only there because of Jones' naval background. On the other hand I wouldn't rule out that Jones with his security clearances knew that the Brits had built a computer called Colossus in real life at Bletchey Park, a fact that wasn't revealed to the rest of us until the 1980's.
@@localroger I read the book before I ever even knew they were making a movie out of it, and I remember thinking it was a pretty good book but it could be better if they just cut out the dump parts and left in the good parts, and that's exactly what they did when they made the movie. A rare example of the movie being better than the book.
Argh!!! I didn't even KNOW there were 2nd and 3rd books. I have the original
@@johnclark8359 Yes, the Forbin Project was an almost perfect movie and holds up well despite the hilarious technological shortcomings. There is no technology in the scene where Forbin and Cleo are finally admitted into their privacy chamber under the pretext that they are having an affair, and after they exchange their secret messages Cleo is like, hey, we're having an affair aren't we?
@@rickhibdon11 Honestly, you didn't miss much.
The acting in Fail Safe was fantastic. The Forbin project I loved. I would add off the top of my head: THX 1138, 20,000 leagues under the sea, although that was originally released in 1954. Planet of the Apes of course. I have forgotten much of the Satan Bug. Fantastic Voyage was good fiction, and of course Raquel Welch. The Paper Man which came a bit later. Any of he sci fi stuff caught my interest. The mole hole project. The Andromeda Strain movie was so so, but the book was much deeper and better. The green Slime. Any of the Flint Movies.
I have seen all of these films. even seen some in the theater. I currently have a copy of colossus, the forbin project. good film. went on to become a programmer, so it made an impact.
The submarine design in Fantastic Voyage is pretty sweet.
Thank you SO much for covering "Colossus: The Forbin Project" one of my favorite movies. I was just thinking the other day that I should send it to you....but no need! Fairly new to the channel but I'm becoming a big fan.
Thank you. Enjoy!
Colossus: The Forbin Project was brilliant.
I read the Colossus books (there are 3) many years ago and watched because of Eric Braeden. Also glad you mentioned Gog.
I also read all three books because of this movie! They seem to be mostly about a giant computer and how much Rye whisky 40-year-old men can drink.
Colossus 2 was good also. Making a religion of the computer. So weird, so true!
yes. Gog and Magog. Radar cross section, stealth. Movie was quite advanced
The Fantastic Voyage was an awesome movie! It was still state of the art in the 70s hehe.
Remember THE FORBIN PROJECT and FANTASTIC VOYAGE very well from my youth. Also, 1965's CRACK IN THE WORLD and 1967's QUATERMASS AND THE PIT.
Perfect choices, Terry. I am going to have to go back and rewatch these films again.
Enjoy, mate.
Always loved the Forbin Project, since I saw it on TV back in the 70's.
Only occasionally got shown and I couldn't find it on VHS.
Eventually picked it up on DVD about 10 years ago, never regretted that purchase!
Ps. Loved the end of your video, nice use of that scene.
The Fail Safe tele-movie is worth the watch. Ost is set in a single room which starts to become very claustrophobic the longer you watch. It was done in B&W and really catches the spirit of the original movie.
I'll have to track it down - now we're under lockdown again.
I loved Battle Beneath The Earth as a kid. It was great fun, while Fail Safe was quite scary and all to possible. Not even Raquel Welch could make me sit thru Fantastic Voyage.
Great thank you... I do love Fantastic Voyage and have to watch the others. I have to say you have made me setup my old tv and DVD player in my 70s room and am watching DVDs again! Juliana
Have fun! More recommendations to come.
Fail Safe chilled me even as a child. I saw Colossus with The Andromeda Strain at the drive in - that was a sobering evening. Fantastic Voyage is still a favorite of mine. I saw it on it's release, classy theatre, full screen and loved it. The death of the Russian agent still gets to me.
All of these are great choices!
Carry On!!
Colossus and Andromeda Strain at a drive-in? In ONE evening? Hell, I'd have been too depressed to drive home.
@@scottgates4979 The double feature from emotional hell and artistic Nirvana
Yes, they are!. Movies that make people actually think, are pretty rare these days.
I'm so happy you included The Forbin Project, Terry. It is one of my all-time, all-genre favorites. If I remember correctly, the film's working title was just that, "The Forbin Project," but the suits thought that was too blah. So they retitled it, "Colossus: The Forbin Project." They felt that this masterstroke would bring the ticket-buyers running.
Fail Safe is such a awesome movie. Special for buffs: there is no music score in the movie. I watched it a few days ago at amazon, it's amazing how short the movie feels, when the end is close it feels like being 45 min into it. The same goes for Bedford Incident. A good movie lost in time.
Long time viewer , but this older video of yours just popped into my recommendations. Excellent film choices instantly took me back to my childhood; watching Saturday and Sunday Arvo movies on the portable TV ( while the rest of the family watched Sport.) Very fond memories of Satan Bug and Fantastic Voyage . Keep up the great work
Thanks Doug. Will do. Feel free to watch as many old videos as you like. 😀😉
One of those closeups of a computer panel in Colossus was actually an IBM 1620, the computer I learned Fortran on.
Nice! Good atompunk era technology with clicky keyboards.
I was hoping Colossus the Forbin Project would make it to this list. Ever since I saw it when I was a kid (and then immediately sought out the books, which are also very good; the film follows the first book pretty well) it's been one of my favorites. I actually have a t-shirt with the Colossus logo, as seen in the film. :-)
I once met William Schallert at a convention, and asked him about his role in the film. He was very funny, quipping that his was the only character who had ever been assassinated by an H-bomb. :-)
Also worth noting; Martin E. Brooks, who plays Dr. Johnson, went on to play Dr. Rudy Wells in the Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman tv shows.
Terminator may have been scary, but Colossus was terrifying. I think its pacing may be too slow for millennials. You can't get a millennial or an X'r to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey either. It is a shame.
@@charlesmills8712 No attention span. It's why the world is becoming more and more of a mess. They can't concentrate long enough to find solutions to problems.
@@charlesmills8712 You also have to remember that we grew up with the imminent possibility of nuclear war, something nobody has really taken seriously since the late 1980's. The idea that something like Colossus might be built, and the idea that it might proceed to do what Colossus did, rang very real to those of us who were young when the movie came out.
@@localroger True. The risk is still there, it may even be higher, but it isn't binary any more. The risk is now either a terrorist group or something like India & Pakistan. But they didn't do the things we did. I recall the school sending us home with different school bus routes which supposedly would get us home in time to die with our parents. We used to see the symbols for fallout shelters on some buildings.
@@charlesmills8712 Born in 72 (Gen X) and I LOVE 2001: A space Odyssey! Unless you mean an Xennial, then yeah sadly they dont like things over 20 minutes..
Fail Safe. Left a knot in my stomach.
I remember seeing Colossus as a kid, was shown early Saturday evening in the UK in 80s. And the ending has stayed with me ever since, such a good film, or for young me a frightening film. I did hear it was out on blu ray, I think I might check it out. I did hear about a decade or so ago talk of a remake with Will Smith in the lead, but of course never happened.
The Harry Palmer films edged into techno-thriller terratory, especially Billion Dollar Brain. On TV, the later Avengers and of course The Prisoner.
The hard to find " the presidents analyst 1967" is the most amazingly prescient film l've ever seen relating to what is going on today. It was buried not long after release as it offended some v.i.p.
You always bring the best stuff. Fail safe is fantastic, edge of you seat tension. Eric Braeden I always knew as Hans Gudegast. He was the German captain in Rat Patrol and of course young and the restless which I was into in the 80s. I have seen Fantastic Voyage. The other 3 I have not but will be watching soon. The Andromeda Strain is a favorite of mine. Technically the early 70s though
I can't see Eric Braeden in anything and not think about Rat Patrol 😁
@@billsinkins361 Me too, they must have pretended to blow up the same German half track and tank a hundred times.
@@godzillafan4033 They could all throw a grenade and hit a vehicle's weakest, most flammable spot in a fast moving, bouncing vehicle from yards away while under enemy fire. What baseball players those guys would have made!
The chilling part to me of "Colossus: The Forbin Project" was the moment the two computers were communicating so rapidly that they'd clearly gone beyond the control and even comprehension of their makers...in a matter of moments. The possibility of Colossus is still ahead of us.
The Singularity is a plausible threat.
Just came across the techno-thriller term and it is exactly my favourite genre of movies and books, I just never had a name for it.
And yet techno-thrillers have existed since at least the 1920s when Fritz Lang made them for UFA.
Good choices! I remember them all. Colossus: The Forbin Project is a favorite, but somehow the Fantastic Voyage (good or bad) sticks and my memory.
Fantastic Voyage had all the groovy visuals and set designs.
That moment when Colossus stops being civil, and just launches the missile. Terrifying. The look of fear on Gordon Pinsent's face. One of the most startling scenes in cinema.
As I recall, it didn't "launch" anything. It showed it could blow up the ICBMs in their silos via demonstration.
@@JAMESLEVEE The silo scene was at the end. The scene i'm referring to was near the beginning. When the US and USSR presidents agree to block communications between Colossus and Guardian, Colossus launches a missile at the USSR, then Guardian launches one at the US.
@@AndrejPanjkov sorry. It's been decades since I saw the movie.
Fail Safe and Fantastic Voyage are favorites. I'm looking forward to Colossus and The Satan Bug (I'm a big fan of Andromeda Strain), too.
I have to say, I'd love to see a list of the best sci-fi submarine or undersea movies sometime.
Extra thumbs-up for the Bastista praise :) Glad to see Colossus:The Forbin Project on the list. Skynet!!
Woah thank you for this list. Been randomly googling old sci-fi films to check out and I stumbled into this randomly today. I love the old films, they have a certain charm to them 👍🏼
Glad you enjoyed it!
A great list. Colossus is my favorite of the batch. This one was made in the late 60's. Some sources have said it was around 1967 but this one apparently had a delayed release. Anyway I think this is one of the best examples of technology gone awry. Battle Beneath The Earth is pure popcorn fodder fun!
You're right about both movies.
Awesome ❤️🐸All great movies but Fantastic Voyage is my fav.
The timeline goes like this:
_Colossus_ (masterpiece film) is created in 1968, then becomes Skynet when it joins with the Soviet "other", the nukes are launched & the world falls into _Mad Max_ / _Soylent Green_ ruin, the machine war against the human survivors begins, eventually Skynet wins & _Colossus_ evolves into _The Matrix_ & the underground _Colossus_ bunker becomes _THX-1138,_ then Neo defeats Agent Smith, some humans are released from _The Matrix,_ & let free into the wastelands where they're soon captured by evolved, talking apes on horseback.
Holy crap...somehow, it all makes sense!
Wow. If you write the script for THAT movie, I'll get the money for it, somehow. Should be a couple of 100 million, at least.
When collosus and the Russian computer contact each other, they quickly create their own language so the humans won't know what their saying. Thats actually mirrored in real life, 2 AI's that were linked in a University study did exactly the same thing, Prophetic .
Thanks for summarizing 55 years of dystopian crap generated by the Botox Babylon by the Pacific.
How does the world forests launched into Saturn orbit fit in. The books all burned by the salamander firemen, rollerball tournaments and Omega Man fit in?
@@STho205 When Colossus - now Skynet - launches the nukes, _The Terminator_ ground war begins in Los Angeles because that's where the Colossus control station is located. But the nuke attacks didn't wipe out humanity completely, Colossus just brought the 🌎 to heel & carried out the plan to make humanity love it. Soon, a "truce" is formed with the surviving global governments & Colossus becomes an omnipotent global control. Society continues under the invisible, terror reign of Colossus.
New York is spared from the nukes but Colossus releases a biological agent to subdue the populace into obedience. It mutates into the _I Am Legend_ virus. NY is walled off & becomes the prison in _Escape From New York._ The virus mutates further, creating super smart apes on the East Coast.
Resistance continues sporadically throughout the globe. Further measures are taken. In Europe, the Firemen in _Fahrenheit 451_ are doing the bidding of Colossus by eradicating all record of human independent thought & resistance. Violent games like _Rollerball_ become one of the few outlets of human expression permitted.
_Silent Running_ is in the Weyland/Yutani universe.
I was expecting to see Colossus on the list. Some honorable mentions maybe...
Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea 1961
2001: A Space Oddessy
Doppleganger (Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun)
Another great roundup, thx TTM!
I loved fantastic voyage as a kid in the 70's! The closest i've seen to a reboot is the 2 episode "spoof" season 6 ender of Archer. It also generated the IntelliVision game Microsurgeon in the early 80's which I played a lot.
don't forget Futurama - Parasites Lost
Same. I watched Fantastic Voyage several times on TV as a kid. Haven't seen it for about 40 years now. I'm curious now to see it again and see what I think of it now.
I just remember the scene with the entire crew trying to free Raquel Welch from the antibodies that were strangling her ah, uniform.
@@dmrr7739 I haven't seen this film in decades but I think I remember that scene!
How many people remember the episode of "Lost In Space", which aired shortly after "Fantastic Voyage" was released, where Dr Smith and Will Robinson were shrunk to micro-size in order to repair a problem in the robot's inner circuitry, which was unreachable from the outside
Foretelling a future when mankind trusts technology, ,computers and artifical intelligence and the horrific consequences.Truly a masterpiece.
Indeed.
Colossus the Forbin Project was the movie I had hoped you'd put on this list. It's one of my favorites.
"Fail Safe" always scared the heck out of me. The gut-wrenching emotion as a president orders the annihilation of 8 million people including his wife. "Fantastic Voyage" is among my favorite sci-fi movies of all time; sci-fi meets the cold war. You are right about it being silly, but it is a fun ride.
@@desperatemohammedantheworl5833 -- I saw the movie as a teen in the 1970's -- and I think that living here in the US it really hit home, at the time anyway -- almost certainly not now -- that the public still felt a hope that our leaders had a huge amount of integrity -- and the ending is the ultimate in integrity. We wanted to think that our leaders would do the "moral" thing -- and of course the Soviets would not. So the movie takes you down this path where at the end what the President does is really the only "moral" and "ethical" solution. So it brought me anyway to the thinking that if I hope our leaders are moral and ethical, then if we ended up in a similar situation, our leaders would sacrifice some of our own population. That's frightening enough -- but at the same time I thought, it would save lives if our leaders did not follow that moral and ethical path and did not "reciprocate." Which then makes me feel like, yikes, I am rooting for our leaders to *NOT* do the moral and ethical thing. What other important decisions for our country could that affect???
I forgot about The Satan Bug. That was a great movie. I also really like Colossus, The Forbin Project.
Both are very underrated.
@@terrytalksmovies After I posted I remembered the ending of The Satan Bug. I remember when the two men were fighting to get it in that bubble canopy helicopter that was spinning around out of control and it looked like that beaker was about to fall out. I haven't seen either of those two movies for decades. I would like to see them again.
I remember the live television broadcast of 'Failsafe'. George Clooney was trying to repress his laughter during a scene in the airplane. LOL. My father took me to see 'Fantastic Voyage' when it premiered. I think I was around 11 at the time. LOVED it. That submarine was the star for me.
Out of all the 5 you reviewed, the only one I never saw was 'Battle Beneath the Earth' the only one that might be similar to it was 'Dooms Day Machine' a 1967 movie where China has built a Dooms Day Bomb to destroy the earth and on the day of launch it is postponed to replace 3 of the 6 man crew with women hoping they will be able to start over. I saw all of the others and really enjoyed 'The Satan Bug', a great mystery movie. There were two other books in the Colossus series, too bad they didn't continue with the trilogy. Thanks for a great review.
Regarding Grant’s presence on the submarine in “Fantastic Voyage”, far from having no good reason, there is a very good one. Grant was the agent who helped the Russian/Soviet scientist escape, therefore he is the only person the US government can trust as not being a sleeper agent, as well as having both a professional interest in seeing the scientist recover ( he does not want to see his work nullified) and possibly a person one ( he has grown to like him). He is aboard the submarine to,prevent sabotage ( he fails) and to stop the Soviets from killing the scientist.
Thanks for the reminder that I'm old enough to have seen all of these movies.
I recall watching Fantastic Voyage in the cinema when I was a kid,
the rest I saw on TV much later.
The best of this bunch here has to be "Fail Safe" in my point of view.
Oh, where did the years go?
👨🦯
I have a soft spot for Battle Beneath the Earth. I know it's a silly movie but I like watching it.
Terry the funny thing is the events depicted in The Bedford Incident almost happened. During the Cuban missile crisis while the US was blockading Cuda a Soviet submarine was detected in the area. Apparently a US destroyer started firing depth charges at the Soviet sub to get it to surface. This depth charging apparently went on for hours and this was an old diesel sub which couldn't stay submerged for long so there was a discussion among the leadership on the sub whether or not to use a nuclear tipped torpedo to destroy the US destroyer. At that time it took 3 of the command staff to agree to use nuclear weapons; 2 or them agreed but thankfully 1 of them did not...so no nuclear war that day.
Interesting. I always loved "Colossus", saw it in a theater in 1970 when a 9 year old....I was old enough to understand it and let it scare me then, as it does now. Two of the movies here I've never even heard of, Failsafe and Satan's Bug. On my watch list now.
Enjoy!
Satan's bug is good also. But I think in some countries it had another name.
I love 1955 - 1975 Sci Fi, because of the underlying commentary. It is honest and to the point. So much of the current Sci Fi is trite and without gravitas. The late 60's early 70's really strived to be honest and candid. Less about preaching and more about what you see is what you get. When you watch these movies with a critical eye on history. You get a real sense of where we were at and where we should be going.
Sometimes I think a lot of today's sci fi tries to add complexity with unnecessary parallel timelines and character arcs as a substitute for gravitas.
As a kid I LOVED Fantastic Voyage (and read the novelization. As a teen I LOVED Colossus: The Forbin Project and I really think this film holds up amazingly well. I did not know there was a Blu-ray release. Time to go shopping!
Collosus is one of my favorite sci fry movies. I remember seeing it at the movies and have since purchased it on videotape and dvd.
The computer indeed becomes a “person” capable of misdeeds despite its intentions. The ending is perfect and was not ruined in typical Hollywood fashion.
If memory serves me well, I remember in Failsafe Henry Fonda is watching a bank of tv screens. There a disembodied voice announces that the scenes he's watching come from a satellite "one million miles" in space. It gave me a nice chuckle.
"The Andromeda Strain". I was nine and loved it. My sister went to an advance screening where everyone received a replica of the all-important "object". She said everyone in the audience went nuts at a "key" point in the story. Sorry.
The Andromeda Strain was 1970s, not 60s, but I agree.
Thank you for this! It led me to Colossus The Forbin Project. I just watched it today and it was incredible. I can't believe I had never heard of it till a few days ago. I should have known Cameron stole the idea, you don't go from Piranha 2: the spawning to The terminator without some luck or help. lol
Glad you enjoyed it. 😀
He claimed he dreamt it lol. But we all know Soldier from The Outer Limits and Colossus were the real inspirations!
Hey Terry. The movie I'd like you to look at is 'Foot prints on the moon'
Also a note. The character in Doctor Strangelove 'i.e. doctor Strangelove ' as well as the professor in Fail Safe was more based on Rand Corp researcher Herman Kahn.
Thanks for the info!
You should definitely watch the Fail Safe remake
Another great video Terry! Really enjoyed it.
Superb episode! Well done Terry!
Thanks!
A TV station in New York showed FANTASTIC VOYAGE and a notice about it in TV GUIDE said "Fantastic Voyage must be science fiction...Raquel Welch is all over a man's body and he doesn't even know it."
Ice Station Zebra deserves an honorable mention.
Fail Safe was charged with plagiarism by the publishers of Red Alert, which was the basis for the tongue-in-cheek movie, Dr. Strangelove. The parallel between the two books IS unmistakable.
Thanks Terry, have just got a slightly larger TV in my room and these look like movies to get lost in! Already own Fail Safe, quite an overlooked film in comparison with Dr. Strangelove - but very gripping. Keep up the good work.
Thanks Selwyn!
I am not sure I would describe Fantastic Voyage as silly without saying Battle Beneath The Earth is really very silly indeed( I love them both).
Both are silly!
I will now go and track down "The Satan Bug"
I've seen most of these, but Colossus is in a class of its own. Brilliant. Rewatch it each chance I get. Failsafe is pretty good too.
Fail-Safe, Fantastic Voyage, and Colossus are my favorites.
I saw Fantastic Voyage in the theater. Enjoyed it greatly. Mostly I suspect because of Raquel Welch. Ah, the joys of puberty.
It's still a mid movie with eye candy and good sets.
Terry, you didn't mention Viviane Ventura in Battle Beneath the Earth. That scene of her unzipping her jump suit motivated my young teenaged self for a long time...
As for technology one of my favorite scifi was Fahrenheit 451. Where fireman were not stopping fires but they burn things like books. Not allowed to read. Very shocking but great how this came to survive and learn books as who people became as the titles of the books.
I'll have to revisit Fahrenheit 451 soon.
Best Fantastic Voyage remake is the Archer episode!!!
Yes! They were some good movies!
Colossus: the Forbin Project was wonderful! We are, again, hearing warnings about too much AI control. We should listen - not from fear but from sensible caution.
I was waiting the entire video for you to mention Colossus - The Forbin Project.
A film that you could also have mentioned: Doppelganger: Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun.
Made in 1969 with effects and production from Gerry Anderson (more famous for his Supermarionation shows like Thunderbirds amd Captain Scarlet) going well into politics, intrigue and the idea of a mirror Earth orbiting the Sun exactly and perpetually 180 degrees from our Earth.
Colossus came out in 1970 in most markets.
This was excellent Terry. I have always loved The Satan Bug and have the KL version. I have not yet watched it. I just took delivery of the Criterion Fail Safe. I’d not head of Colossus and will check it out.
Dude! Those views! You’re killing it!
It surprises me as much as you!
Saw Satan Bug & Fantastic Voyage in the cinema. Loved Satan Bug. Asimov’s novelization fixed some major plot holes. Fail Safe gave me nightmares, having endured the Cuban Missile Crisis in a target zone.
Loved all of those films. Satan Bug freaked me out as a kid. One of the most memorable scenes in Fantastic Voyage was with the crew feverishly clawing at Antibodies that clung to Raquel Welch's body. Particularly around her protruberencies. Doppelganger (Journey to the Far Side of the Sun) was a great Gerry Anderson outing. Does Quatermass and the Pit qualify? Or X the Unknown?
"Q Planes", very good movie with Ralph Richardson having a lot of fun in the role
Didn't we already have an
yearlong experience with
something like The Satan Bug?
Ex cellent series of books, Colossus.
Interesting video, thank you. Colossus: The Forbin Project is a forgotten gem.
My pleasure.
I think colossus is the most underrated movie of all time. I love it!
Terry -- always great to see your reviews and hear your comments. Bringing back movies that I have seen but long forgotten (though I had not heard of Battle Beneath The Earth before).
The 1968 movie, "The Power", made an impression on me. This film by George Pal and Byron Haskin, stars George Hamilton and Suzanne Pleshette. It has a nice techno/thriller vibe that no one does better than George Pal (War of the Worlds-1953).
I mentioned it in a previous video. Search back and you'll find it.
@@terrytalksmovies What a joy to meet someone who's movie knowledge isn't limited to the 90's and newer! 👍