world without sun

“All forms of life evolved from the sea, and there we find the greatest variety of species.”

Scientific mysteries and cinematic blossomings on the edge of the continental shelf.

The first oceanauts, an underwater station, the diving saucer, a deep sea cabin (petite maison), a marine biological laboratory.

Score by Serge Baudo.

As stated, an inverse proposition to mountain-climbing (or space exploration, for that matter).

“Some are nothing but organized water.”

Academy Award, Best Documentary Feature. An undoubted influence on Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. “I found myself alone, staring with fright at a bush that walks,” cp. Fantastic Voyage (dir. Richard Fleischer).

Bosley Crowther of the New York Times criticized “obvious faking”. Andrew Marton’s Around the World Under the Sea bears a great resemblance, even Lewis Gilbert’s The Spy Who Loved Me. The influence of Menzies’ Things to Come cannot be overestimated.

First experience at a sustained depth, successful (in their silver diving suits, chevaliers). Parrot fish amidst fire coral by narrow-beam searchlight are already Yellow Submarine (dir. George Dunning).

A thousand-foot dive in the saucer, an undersea lake...