Drive in Sci-Fi: Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea (1961)

Humanity tests its new super submarine - atomic engine sub. Humanity had atomic submarine engines since USS Nautilus, the first nuclear submarine, in 1954. However this submarine lead by Admiral Nelson supposedly is super new tech. The movie from the first look is strangely well made. Looks like Irwin Allen knows what hes doing.
Anyway, the submarine starts its test diving in arctic ocean. Congressman and his wife is on the ship and the captain gives him and us a tour of the ship. strangely, the way he explains things makes it not boring. sort of like Charlie in his chocolate factory. They meet the other only woman on board - dancing to men watching. The congressmans wife expreses the look as "very gay". Its rare to see this expressing, and one must note that the original meaning of word "gay" is "happy". only later it turned into homosexual, and looks like nowadays it turned into "bad" (with expressions like "this game is gay"), so yeah English language evolution at its best here.
The first encounter happens right after the tour. A bunch of rocks, or ice boulders fall onto the ship. now it cant be ice because ice would float. it cant be rocks because there are no rocks in arctic ocean that would be of this size. so what the hell happened is beyond me. They resurface and notice that sky is on fire, literary. apparently whole arctic is melting due to that and once is sinking. but i guess thats a minor thing compared to sky being on fire. Apparently radiation has hit the earth for some reason and fighting the radiation earths defensive system is literary bursting into flame. they go full speed back to new york. they also pick up a civilian scientist trapped on water who was exploring the arctic. Whole earth is going in flames, forests burn an vatican is overflown by idiots. They blame Van Allen's radiation Belt for the problems. not sure what actually happened in it.
They want to explode the belt, but others suggest that belt will burn out. However they have to decide which is right, which makes a lot of anger in the scientists community. the admiral goes on with his plan anyway and ignores others. The admiral goes rogue as he cant reach the president to get permission to shoot the atomic missile into the belt so it would destroy the problem. They decide to contact president by telephone cable by hijacking cable underwater. However while doing so they are attacking by a giant... octopus. so this is also a monster movie now. They fend off the octopus but are uanble to reach washington via cable. So he decides to go with his plan anyway without presidential approval. The reactor of the ship has problems but they push on with the plan. the only defect is the sonar gets disabled so they are swimming blind. And as luck has it they get into a minefield. They use minisub to clear the way manually so the ship can get out of minefield and continue its journey. That doesnt end well. the minisub gets exploded and there is damage done to the ship. After that a suicidal guy turns up. he is dead and his death note tells that the generator problem was sabotage. The crew is starting to fall apart under the pressure. The admiral also has death treats sent to him. everyone is suspect. Shit just got real. And it does get real. someone sets his cabin on fire and he almost dies. though the perpetrator still remains unknown. Thats why you need security cameras everywhere folks. They find another ship, that looks like everyone was slaughtered. They however finda a newspaper that says that the ship should not fire the missile. The admiral however allows those that want to go to get on that dead ship and go home, while the rest will continue. his motivation is, this will remove the chance of mutiny.
However the second in command is restless. he wants to replace the admiral and don't want to fire the missile. as he is about to arrest a UN sub attacsk them. they dive to the bottom and the UN sub cant follow as it cant take the pressure. As they escape that they are attacked by an electric octopus. however looks like the ship can take it and kills it. The ships doctor meanwhile sabotages the reactor. as she is confronted she slips and falls into a shark pool. what kind of sub it is without a shark pool right? if evil geniuses can afford it then so can US military. The civilian they saved also shows up guns blazing. he has a bomb and dont want anyone to fire the missile. how many atrocities they can come up with. His excuse is religion. he claim that the disaster is gods will. However one guy goes around his back and launches the missile manually. they save the world.


Story: 8/10. not perfect, but its definatelly edge of your seat stuff
Acting: 6/10. a bit better than your typical 60s sci-fi.
Sound: 7/10. surprisingly good sound they had in this one. definitely smells of a nice budget.
Sci factor: 7/10. they had a lot of things right, and few things wrong, but this is far from being fantasy.
Lasting Appeal: 7/10. a atomic missile from atomic sub saving the world while feinding off UN submarines, sabotours and even giant electric octopuses!
Overall rating: 7.