Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
Episode Guide, Year One, show 13.
Production information and notes by Mark Phillips
Story synopses, Mike Bailey



 
The Blizzard Makers.  (Airdate: December 7, 1964)
STORYLINE:		 Screming headlines point out meteorological chaos.

Mr. Morton and Captain Crane exchange comments about curious weather.   Things are getting darn cold on the Atlantic coast, with snow falling as far south as Florida.  Admiral Nelson seeks Dr. Charles Melton's support to back up his contentions that the phenomenon is connected to changes in Gulf Stream flow.  But power-hungry Frederick Cregar is directing secret sub-oceanic nuclear tests for his country and has Melton kidnapped.  Cregar's scientists perform an experimental surgery that taps into Melton's brain and puts him blindly under Cregar's control thanks to a device taped to his stomach.

Great set design and photography in season one Voyage.
Nasty looking brain machine at work.
Just a touch more bias, please.
Cregar anxiously watches over procedure.
  Melton goes under for neurological customizing.
  Doctor checks his recording.

  Under Cregar's control, Melton is instructed to kill Nelson; he comes up with an ingenious plot to do so, which fortunately fails.  He winds up on Seaview, ostensibly to help the Admiral, but instead starts cabin fires and subverts Nelson's efforts.  Seaview inadvertently winds up positioned over Cregar's latest weapons test location and Crane and a landing party are captured.  The enemy is eventually foiled by Nelson and Melton, who having had the control device removed from his chest, immediately falls in with the Admiral and beats Cregar at his own game -- subversion, even as they free Crane and several other crew.   
Melton is under Cregar's control and believing a chemical beaker to be Nelson' head, is instructed to kill the Admiral.
Cregar instructs Melton that beaker jar is Nelson's head, then instructs him to kill the Admiral.  OUCH!

Written: William Welch
Story: William Welch, Joe Madison
Directed: Joseph Leytes
Simple yet effective sets worked marvelously well in black and white. Dramatic as all get-out.
Wonderful attention paid to cinematic detail.
Insidious brain surgery ahead.
    
 


Guest Cast
Frederick Cregar......Werner Klemperer
Dr. Charles Melton............Milton Selzer
Mrs. Melton..................Sheila Matthews
Pilot...................................William Boyett
Telephone Lineman..................Biff Elliot
Doctor.....................Kenneth MacDonald
Young Corporal...................Roger Bacon
Corpsman.................................Joey Tata
Surgeon’s assistant..............Paul Kremin
Crewman Rogers............William Kinney
Cregar henchmen.....................John Cliff
                                    George Robotham

Mark says:  A good idea yields pedestrian results.  This slow-moving episode picks up steam when Crane leads a shore party to a mysterious island.  Sheila Matthews was Irwin Allen’s girlfriend at the time (later his wife).

Mike says:  As always in the show's first season, the cinematography is a delight.  Mark's right about the script, but the actors deliver the goods.  Klemperer made a great villain.

 
Sheila Mathews, a competent actress, later to be Mrs. Irwin Allen.
Sheila Mathews, as Dr. Melton's wife.

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