''The Neptune Factor'', also known as ''The Neptune Disaster'', is a 1973

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

film directed by

Daniel Petrie Daniel Mannix Petrie (November 26, 1920 – August 22, 2004) was a Canadian film, television, and stage director who worked in Canada, Hollywood, and the United Kingdom; known for directing grounded human dramas often dealing with taboo subjec ...

, featuring underwater

cinematography Cinematography () is the art of motion picture (and more recently, electronic video camera) photography. Cinematographers use a lens (optics), lens to focus reflected light from objects into a real image that is transferred to some image sen ...

by Paul Herbermann. The film's

special effects Special effects (often abbreviated as F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the fictional events in a story or virtual world. ...

utilized underwater photography of miniatures with actual marine life.

Plot

Marine scientists prepare to leave their

underwater An underwater environment is a environment of, and immersed in, liquid water in a natural or artificial feature (called a Water, body of water), such as an ocean, sea, lake, pond, reservoir, river, canal, or aquifer. Some characteristics of the ...

ocean lab after an extended stay performing oceanographic research. An underwater earthquake interrupts their plans. Dr. Andrews (

Walter Pidgeon Walter Davis Pidgeon (September 23, 1897 – September 25, 1984) was a Canadian-American actor. A major leading man during the Golden Age of Hollywood, known for his "portrayals of men who prove both sturdy and wise," Pidgeon earned two Academy ...

) enlists experimental sub captain Adrien Blake (

Ben Gazzara Biagio Anthony "Ben" Gazzara (August 28, 1930 – February 3, 2012) was an American actor and director of film, stage, and television. He received numerous accolades including a Primetime Emmy Award and a Drama Desk Award, in addition to nomina ...

) to survey the damage and rescue the oceanauts. He brings along chief diver "Mack" MacKay (

Ernest Borgnine Ernest Borgnine ( ; born Ermes Effron Borgnino; January 24, 1917 – July 8, 2012) was an American actor whose career spanned over six decades. He was noted for his gruff but relaxed voice and gap-toothed Cheshire Cat grin. A popular perf ...

) and Dr. Leah Jansen ( Yvette Mimieux), fiancée of one of the scientists. Blake finds the lab has been ripped from its moorings and has tumbled down an unexplored,

deep sea The deep sea is broadly defined as the ocean depth where light begins to fade, at an approximate depth of or the point of transition from continental shelves to continental slopes. Conditions within the deep sea are a combination of low tempe ...

trench, presumably intact. With the lab's reserve air supply dwindling, the team descends into the unexplored trench and finds an incredible

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) is a system formed by Organism, organisms in interaction with their Biophysical environment, environment. The Biotic material, biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and en ...

populated with monstrously oversized fish. After surviving encounters with unfriendly denizens, they find the lab partially intact, the surviving scientists breathing from scuba tanks and fending off giant, hungry eels. Diver Moulton sacrifices his life distracting the eels in order to enable the others to be rescued. The submarine returns to the surface with the two rescued scientists.

Cast

– Commander Adrian Blake * Yvette Mimieux – Dr. Leah Jansen *

– Dr. Samuel Andrews *

– Chief Diver Don MacKay *

Donnelly Rhodes Donnelly Rhodes Henry (December 4, 1937 – January 8, 2018) was a Canadian actor. He had many American television and film credits, probably best known to American audiences as the hapless escaped convict Dutch Leitner on the soap opera spoof ' ...

– Diver Bob Cousins *

Chris Wiggins Christopher John Wiggins (January 13, 1931 – February 19, 2017) was a Canadian actor. Career Wiggins was born January 13, 1931, in Blackpool, England. He started out as a banker in his home country before he began his acting career in Canada ...

– Captain Williams * Michael J. Reynolds – Dr. Hal Hamilton * Mark Walker – Diver Dave Moulton * Leslie Carlson – Brigs, Triton Radioman *

Stuart Gillard Stuart Thomas Gillard (born April 28, 1950) is a Canadian film director, writer, producer, actor and television director. He is best known for directing the films '' Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III'' (1993) and '' RocketMan'' (1997). He also w ...

– Diver Phil Bradley * David Yorston – Diver Stephens

Production

Sandy Howard, a film producer from the United States, brought the idea of ''The Neptune Factor'' to David Perlmutter and Harold Greenberg, who chose to produce the film. Howard wanted the film to be made in the United States, but Greenberg was able to have the film shot in Canada. The film was based on an original story by writer Jack DeWitt. Gazzara and Borgnine's casting was announced in August 1972. The movie has a subtitle of "An Underwater Odyssey". The film was shot from 25 September to 16 December 1972, on a budget of $2,500,000 (). The Canadian Film Development Corporation contributed $200,000 to the film's budget under the demand that

be the director. The nature of the ''Oceanlab'' underwater facility bears a resemblance to real-world projects of the 1960s such as the ConShelf Two project of

Jacques Cousteau Jacques-Yves Cousteau, (, also , ; 11 June 191025 June 1997) was a French naval officer, oceanographer, filmmaker and author. He co-invented the first successful open-circuit self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (SCUBA), called the ...

, NASA's NEEMO, and the US Navy

SEALAB SEALAB I, II, and III were experimental underwater habitats developed and deployed by the United States Navy during the 1960s to prove the viability of saturation diving and humans living in isolation for extended periods of time. The knowledge ...

Release

The film was released on 26 June 1973, in Ottawa. The film premiered in Florida in May 1973 and grossed $203,000 in its first four days.

Reception

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, vi ...

'' gave the film one out of 5 stars, stating that while its underwater photography was well done, the film was predictable, the characters stereotypes and the story lacking. The ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' also praised the

photography Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...

, but found little else of value in the film.

References

Works cited

* *

External links

* * *
Entire film on YouTube
* – Discussion of the special effects techniques used in the film. {{DEFAULTSORT:Neptune Factor, The 1973 films 1970s disaster films 20th Century Fox films American disaster films Canadian disaster films American science fiction films Canadian science fiction films English-language Canadian films Films scored by Lalo Schifrin Films directed by Daniel Petrie Films set in Nova Scotia Films shot in the Cayman Islands Science fiction submarine films 1970s English-language films 1970s Canadian films 1970s American films 1973 science fiction films English-language science fiction films