FANTASTIC VOYAGE

   Film (1966). 20th Century-Fox. Dir Richard Fleischer, starring Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch, Edmund O'Brien, Donald Pleasence. Screenplay Harry Kleiner, based on a story by Otto Clement and J. Lewis (i.e., Jerome) BIXBY. 100 mins. Colour.

   A submarine and its crew of medical experts - plus a double-agent saboteur (Pleasence) - are miniaturized and injected into the bloodstream of an important scientist in order to remove by laser a blood-clot from his brain. In the finale - a race to escape before they revert to full size while still inside the body-they exit via a tear duct with only seconds to spare. The special effects by L.B. Abbott, Art Cruickshank and Emil Kosa Jr are impressive, as are the sets-duplicating in giant size various organs of the body, such as the heart, lungs and brain - designed by art director Dale Hennesy with spectacular histological surrealism. This vivid spectacle, however, does not compensate for the ham acting, the irrelevance of Ms Welch's lingered-on breasts, and the puerile melodrama. The novelization was Fantastic Voyage * (1966) by Isaac ASIMOV. A film using a very similar theme is Joe DANTE's INNERSPACE (1987).

   PN/JB

   See also: GREAT AND SMALL.