The Glass Bottom Boat (1966)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Must See Movie...

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

As Good As It Gets

"The Glass Bottom Boat" offers what, in the mid-1960s, was a powerhouse cast. Some of the stars are still remembered today. Dick Martin and Dom DeLuise, for instance; and Paul Lynde, whose presence was guaranteed to brighten up any dull movie.Some stars have, over the years, lost their lustre. Arthur Godfrey's, for instance. The comedy team Bob & Ray once poked fun at Arthur Godfrey by saying he seemed to be on every station all day long. Godfrey was an early form of Dick Clark. A television pioneer, he was probably most famous during his day for "Talent Scouts," though his credits at the time were numerous.Eric Fleming also has flowed through the fingers like the sands of time. It was Fleming and not Clint Eastwood who was the top-billed star of the then-popular show "Rawhide." Whether Fleming would have gone on to any sort of movie career is unknown since he drowned the same year "Glass Bottom Boat" was released.John McGiver and Edward Andrews are also welcome faces to movie buffs. Though probably most famous for appearances in "Sixteen Candles" and "Gremlins" Andrews had a long and industrious career as a supporting actor.What of the real stars, who are meant to carry the movie? Doris Day is Doris Day. Her acting range was minimal but she was all right if you liked that sort of thing. Her biggest selling point was her singing but, apart from the title song, she has little opportunity to exert her lungs. Though the DVD shows her in some sort of exotic dancing outfit, she's only in it for a few seconds of screen time.As for Rod Taylor, despite anchoring several well-known features (including "Separate Tables" and George Pal's "The Time Machine"), I've always found him an actor lacking in charisma. Early on in "GBB" he has his shirt off. I suppose beef-cake is his biggest selling point. To me, his best acting job was the voice work he did in Disney's animated "101 Dalmations." The Glass Bottom Boat itself has little screen time. This is not a movie about oceanography, though that might have made it interesting. It's a movie about space. In the 1960s, space was the big thing, and everyone from Gregory Peck ("Marooned") to Don Knotts ("the Reluctant Astronaut") were making pictures about astronauts.The movie seems to be about some aspect of the space program, with spies trying to get their hands on some gismo or the other. The actual plot hardly matters. It's just an excuse to let grown people run around like children. And not-too-bright children, at that. I had just turned five when this movie came out, and I didn't want to see it. My parents and brother went, but I protested and spend a lovely evening with my grandmother instead. Viewing it at last as an adult, I believe I made the right decision.The best thing that can be said about "The Glass Bottom Boat" is that it is innocuous, with some very funny stuff interspersed in all the other goings-on.

I was in my mid-20s when this came out, but I never saw it. Doris Day is as cute as ever, and very appealing. The supporting actors are perfect for their roles. The movie seems to me to be a spoof on the cold war, and contains something of a prescient comment about CIA ineptitude; something I would not expect from a major studio. Overall, an enjoyable film with guffaw-generating moments.That said, I am also interested in knowing a bit about the locations. The "NASA" exteriors look very much like California State University at Northridge, CA where I began my own college career in 1959. What looks to be the library building was not there then. The genuine rocket engine tests and locations shown were almost certainly shot at the Rocketdyne facility in the Santa Susana Mountains. The Saturn 2nd stage J-2 rockets were tested there. The first-stage F-1s were tested at Rye Canyon in the Castaic area. I worked graveyard at Santa Susana for 1-1/2 years 1963-65, and also watched a night J-2 test; possibly from the same bunker that Day and Taylor watched from. Any information on these locations will be appreciated.

I loved this movie when I saw it as a 13 year old. But seeing it as an adult, I was disappointed at how lame it is. The supporting cast is terrific - Lynde, Martin, DeLuise, McGiver and the great Alice Pearce - but the story and main characters just don't have anything to offer to someone beyond adolescence. And so little of the story actually happens aboard the titular Boat! It seems like more of an excuse to sell a hit song. I always enjoyed Doris Day movies as a kid, also. But now I realize how mediocre they were. I guess Pillow Talk was the best and actually in a class by itself. It would have been interesting to see The Graduate with her as Mrs. Robinson, but she was too protective of her virginal image to appear in such a racy role.

We visited Catalina 2 weeks ago. (Oct. 2006) The current Glass Bottom Boat operation claims that the actual glass bottom boat used in the movie is float in the harbor. In fact, they report to use the old boat in peak season.This is contrary to the statement on the IMDb website which reports "Trivia" that the boat sank earlier in 2006 off the coast of LA. The IMDb story reports that the vessel was en-route to San Francisco to become a restaurant. The glass bottom boats are hardly big enough to be a restaurant. I suspect that someone confused the ferry boat or some other vessel with the actual Glass Bottom Boat.