Around the World Under the Sea’s title makes it sound like a portmanteau of Jules Verne’s two most famous novels, and therefore the kind of hastily assembled knock-off you’d have once found clogging up bargain buckets. But while it boasts an overgrown sea monster and, of course, takes place almost entirely underwater, this deep diving tale has no interest in smushing together the literary classics.
It did, however, ride the wave of the aquatic sci-fi that had become curiously commonplace during the 1960s. Indeed, before the film’s release 60 years ago today, cinemagoers had been treated to The Underwater City, Destination Inner Space, and the daddy of them all, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Small screen viewers, meanwhile, could get their nautical fix via the likes of Voyage’s spinoff and Stingray, along with two shows with specific links to Around the World.
