The Neptune Factor

The Neptune Factor
Directed by	Daniel Petrie
Produced by	Sandy Howard (as Sanford Howard)
Written by	Jack DeWitt
Starring	Ben Gazzara Yvette Mimieux Walter Pidgeon Ernest Borgnine
Music by	Harry McCauley Lalo Schifrin
Cinematography	Harry Makin
Editing by	Stan Cole
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	August 3, 1973
Running time	98 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

The Neptune Factor 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.

Plot

Marine scientists prepare to leave their underwater Sealab 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. Taking Chief Diver "Mack" MacKay (Ernest Borgnine) and Dr. Leah Jansen (Yvette Mimieux), fiancée of one of the scientists, in the sub, Blake finds the lab has been ripped from its moorings and tumbled down an unexplored, deep ocean trench, presumably intact. With time running out (due to the lab's dwindling reserve air supply), the team descends into the unexplored trench, and finds an incredible ecosystem populated with monstrously over-sized 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. All but one of the scientists are rescued, and the submarine returns to the surface.

Production

The nature of the "Sealab" underwater facility may have been suggested by real-world projects of the 1960s: the ConShelf Two project that Jacques Cousteau participated in, or the US Navy SEALAB.

External links

• The Neptune Factor at the Internet Movie Database
• The Neptune Factor at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Neptune Factor at AllRovi