Poster art of The Neptune Factor (1973, John Berkey)

Behold this amazing visualization for the 1973 underwater sci-fi film The Neptune Factor: An Undersea Odyssey.

This is the work of John Berkey, who did equally impressive paintings for the 1977 killer whale film Orca, the '76 remake of King Kong (hey--both of those films are on my Movies That Made Me Cry list!), Star Wars, as well as the National Geographic book Our Universe.

As for the film itself, The Neptune Factor doesn't come close to realizing the awe and adventure promised in the painting above.

Despite its ambitious title (it's an "Undersea Odyssey"!) the simplistic plot can be condensed into a single sentence that goes something like this: a submarine team dives deep underwater to rescue a sunken sea laboratory and encounters giant tropical fish along the way.

That really is it.

Oh yea--on the way down, the submariners (among them Ernest Borgnine and Yvette Mimieux--who'd crew together again a few years later in Disney's The Black Hole!) argue a few times over whether they should turn back or keep going (spoiler alert: they keep going!)

But it's mostly long stretches of people staring out portholes...

...and even when they finally reach the monsterously oversized sea life, it never gets more exciting than watching a plastic toy floating around the aquarium of your dentist's waiting room (which I'm pretty sure is exactly how these shots were achieved).

Even as a five-year old seeing this film for the first time, I didn't buy it.

The Neptune Factor is available on DVD by itself or in a 4-disc set that includes Battle For the Planet of the Apes, The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Poseidon Adventure.

The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)

SPOILER ALERT!!

Actually, is a spoiler alert required for a movie from 1945? I think the statute of limitations has run out. Anyway, safety first.

The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) was finally released to DVD this month. Based on the Oscar Wilde short story, its basically a classy, if overlong, episode of the Twilight Zone.

Set in Victorian London, aristocrat Dorian Gray, upon having his portrait painted by an artist friend, is struck with the idea that his image in the portrait will remain unchanged long after he has given in to old age and even death. This prompts him to make a wish that the effects could be reversed...so that his image in the portrait ages while he remains eternally youthful.

The wish seems granted, and the unaging Gray devolves into an endless, meaningless life of debauched pleasure-seeking.

You've seen the "before" portrait of the young, uncorrupted Dorian above. Scroll down to see how the portrait looked after a lifetime of hard living.

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This ravaged figure would like right at home on the cover of Tales From the Crypt!



A detail of the same portrait. It looks like there's a lot going on in the background. Unfortunately the limited resolution of the DVD prevents closer analysis.