The Neptune Factor | |
---|---|
Directed by | Daniel Petrie |
Written by | Jack DeWitt |
Produced by | Sandy Howard (as Sanford Howard) |
Starring | Ben Gazzara Yvette Mimieux Walter Pidgeon Ernest Borgnine |
Cinematography | Harry Makin |
Edited by | Stan Cole |
Music by | Lalo Schifrin |
Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release date |
|
Running time | 98 minutes |
Countries | Canada United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $2.5 million [2] |
Box office | $2,750,000 (US/ Canada) [3] |
The Neptune Factor, also known as The Neptune Disaster, [4] is a 1973 science fiction film directed by Daniel Petrie, featuring underwater cinematography by Paul Herbermann. The film's special effects utilized underwater photography of miniatures with actual marine life.
Marine scientists prepare to leave their underwater ocean lab after an extended stay performing oceanographic research. An underwater earthquake interrupts their plans. Dr. Andrews (Walter Pidgeon) enlists experimental sub captain Adrien Blake (Ben Gazzara) to survey the damage and rescue the oceanauts. He brings along chief diver "Mack" MacKay (Ernest Borgnine) 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 trench, presumably intact. With the lab's reserve air supply dwindling, the team descends into the unexplored trench and finds an incredible ecosystem 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.
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. [5] The film was based on an original story by writer Jack DeWitt. Gazzara and Borgnine's casting was announced in August 1972. [6] The movie has a subtitle of "An Underwater Odyssey". [7]
The film was shot from 25 September to 16 December 1972, on a budget of $2,500,000 (equivalent to $17,933,790in 2023). The Canadian Film Development Corporation contributed $200,000 to the film's budget under the demand that Daniel Petrie be the director. [8] [9]
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, NASA's NEEMO, and the US Navy SEALAB.
The film was released on 26 June 1973, in Ottawa. [8] The film premiered in Florida in May 1973 and grossed $203,000 in its first four days. [1]
TV Guide 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. [10] The New York Times also praised the photography, but found little else of value in the film. [7]
Biagio Anthony "Ben" Gazzara 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 nominations for three Golden Globe Awards and three Tony Awards.
Yvette Carmen Mimieux was an American film and television actress who was a major star of the 1960s and 1970s. Her breakout role was in The Time Machine (1960). She was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards during her acting career.
The Aquarius Reef Base is an underwater habitat located 5.4 mi (8.7 km) off Key Largo in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, Florida, United States. It is the world's only undersea research laboratory and it is operated by Florida International University. It is deployed on the ocean floor 62 ft (19 m) below the surface and next to a deep coral reef named Conch Reef.
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 gained from the SEALAB expeditions helped advance the science of deep sea diving and rescue, and contributed to the understanding of the psychological and physiological strains humans can endure.
Underwater habitats are underwater structures in which people can live for extended periods and carry out most of the basic human functions of a 24-hour day, such as working, resting, eating, attending to personal hygiene, and sleeping. In this context, 'habitat' is generally used in a narrow sense to mean the interior and immediate exterior of the structure and its fixtures, but not its surrounding marine environment. Most early underwater habitats lacked regenerative systems for air, water, food, electricity, and other resources. However, some underwater habitats allow for these resources to be delivered using pipes, or generated within the habitat, rather than manually delivered.
The Hall of Great Western Performers is a hall of fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It is a 4,000-square-foot (370 m2) presentation that explores how the American West has been interpreted in literature and film. Each year, the museum inducts performers to the hall in conjunction with the awarding of the Western Heritage Awards.
Skyjacked is a 1972 American disaster film starring Charlton Heston and Yvette Mimieux. Directed by John Guillermin, the film is based on the David Harper novel Hijacked. James Brolin lead an ensemble cast primarily playing the roles of passengers and crew aboard an airliner.
An aquanaut is any person who remains underwater, breathing at the ambient pressure for long enough for the concentration of the inert components of the breathing gas dissolved in the body tissues to reach equilibrium, in a state known as saturation. Usually this is done in an underwater habitat on the seafloor for a period equal to or greater than 24 continuous hours without returning to the surface. The term is often restricted to scientists and academics, though there were a group of military aquanauts during the SEALAB program. Commercial divers in similar circumstances are referred to as saturation divers. An aquanaut is distinct from a submariner, in that a submariner is confined to a moving underwater vehicle such as a submarine that holds the water pressure out. Aquanaut derives from the Latin word aqua ("water") plus the Greek nautes ("sailor"), by analogy to the similar construction "astronaut".
Ron Josiah Taylor, AM was a prominent Australian shark expert, as is his widow, Valerie Taylor. They were credited with being pioneers in several areas, including being the first people to film great white sharks without the protection of a cage. Their expertise has been called upon for films such as Jaws, Orca and Sky Pirates.
The Bounty Hunter is a 1954 American western film directed by Andre DeToth and starring Randolph Scott, Marie Windsor and Dolores Dorn. It was the last of six Randolph Scott westerns with DeToth and the first film to feature a bounty hunter as its hero. It was released by Warner Bros. It was filmed in 3-D but released in standard format, though a 3-D print exists in the Warner archives. Stock footage from the 1952 film Carson City is used at the beginning of the film. Portions of the film were shot on location in California at Red Rock Canyon and the Mojave Desert.
Kenneth Pogue was a Canadian actor.
The Delta Factor is a 1970 American crime adventure film, co-produced and directed by Tay Garnett who co-wrote the screenplay with Raoul Walsh. It stars Christopher George and Yvette Mimieux. The film is based on the 1967 novel by Mickey Spillane.
Jackson County Jail is a 1976 American crime film directed by Michael Miller, and starring Yvette Mimieux, Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Carradine.
Craig B. Cooper is a professional aquanaut from the United States who served from 1991 to 2010 as Operations Manager for the Aquarius Reef Base underwater habitat. Cooper is known to fellow divers by the nickname "Coop".
Destination Inner Space is a 1966 science fiction film produced by Earl Lyon, directed by Francis D. Lyon, written by Arthur C. Pierce, and stars Scott Brady, Gary Merrill, and Sheree North. The film was released to theaters in the US in May 1966 on a double bill with Frozen Alive (1964); its broadcasting rights were pre-sold to television so that some of the licensing fee could be used to finance the film's production. The story centers on scientists working in a laboratory on the floor of the ocean. They encounter an undersea flying saucer, after which the lab is attacked by a colorful aquatic humanoid monster who they fear may be the first in an alien invasion.
Hit Lady is a 1974 made-for-TV film which aired on October 8, 1974. Starring Yvette Mimieux as artist and assassin Angela de Vries, it was written by Mimieux and directed by Tracy Keenan Wynn.
John Morgan Wells was a marine biologist, and physiologist involved in the development of decompression systems for deep diving, and the use of nitrox as a breathing gas for diving. He is known for developing the widely used NOAA Nitrox I and II mixtures and their decompression tables in the late 1970s, the deep diving mixture of oxygen, helium, and nitrogen known as NOAA Trimix I, for research in undersea habitats, where divers live and work under pressure for extended periods, and for training diving physicians and medical technicians in hyperbaric medicine.
The following index is provided as an overview of and topical guide to underwater divers:
This is a list of underwater divers whose exploits have made them notable. Underwater divers are people who take part in underwater diving activities – Underwater diving is practiced as part of an occupation, or for recreation, where the practitioner submerges below the surface of the water or other liquid for a period which may range between seconds to order of a day at a time, either exposed to the ambient pressure or isolated by a pressure resistant suit, to interact with the underwater environment for pleasure, competitive sport, or as a means to reach a work site for profit or in the pursuit of knowledge, and may use no equipment at all, or a wide range of equipment which may include breathing apparatus, environmental protective clothing, aids to vision, communication, propulsion, maneuverability, buoyancy and safety equipment, and tools for the task at hand.
Valerie May Taylor AM is an Australian conservationist, photographer, and filmmaker, and an inaugural member of the diving hall of fame. With her husband Ron Taylor, she made documentaries about sharks, and filmed sequences for films including Jaws (1975).