Fathom (film)

Plot

Fathom Harvill, a beautiful skydiver, is in Spain with a U.S. parachute team. She is abducted by a man called Timothy and taken to see Douglas Campbell, who says he is a Scottish agent working for NATO and wants Fathom to help him find a triggering mechanism for a nuclear weapon that has gone missing in the Mediterranean.

The device is hidden inside a figurine known as the Fire Dragon. In hot pursuit of it is an Armenian man named Serapkin who is working on behalf of Communist Chinese interests. Fathom skydives into the villa of a second man, Peter Merriwether, who has a trusted Chinese assistant Jo-May Soon, and is also searching for the figurine.

Fathom discovers that the Fire Dragon was stolen from a Far East museum by a Korean War deserter who is now being tracked by a private investigator. Campbell is one and Merriwether the other, but Fathom needs to find out for certain which is which.

After fending off a Serapkin knife attack and another from a harpoon, Fathom finds the figurine in a makeup case. She concludes that Campbell is the trustworthy one and boards a plane with Timothy and him, who promptly attempt to toss her from it. Merriwether arrives in another plane, disposes of Fathom's enemies and rescues her.

Cast

As appearing in screen credits (main roles identified):

Production

The film was made by 20th Century Fox to cash in on the success of the Modesty Blaise comic strip and film. It was written by Lorenzo Semple Jr and directed by Leslie Martinson who had just made the film of the TV show Batman. Semple says the studio were attracted by the fact that he and Martinson had made Batman so quickly and cheaply.

He wrote the script in Boris Karloff's old house. Semple wrote the first twenty pages "making it up as I went along... I made every page exciting".

Semple says he sent the first twenty pages to Fox and David Brown and Richard Zanuck liked it. They gave it to John Koch, who they wanted to produce. Koch insisted on writing the script with Semple line by line.

The lead was given to Raquel Welch. She was a 20th Century Fox contractee who had leapt to fame with Fantastic Voyage and One Million Years. This inspired Fox to give her her first starring vehicle.

Filming started September 1966. It was shot in Cártama, Mijas, Málaga, Torremolinos, Nerja, in Andalucía, Spain and Shepperton Studios, Shepperton, Surrey, England. Semple says that Welch and Martinson had a fight on the first day of filming and never spoke throughout the rest of the shoot.

Second unit director Peter Medak later said of working with Welch:

She was at that time quite inexperienced, exactly like one of those American drum majorettes. But she tried very hard and went to see the rushes each day, gradually improving. 'Who's this dumb broad?' people used to say. But I said: 'You wait. I'll bet she made it.' I liked her very much because she was such a genuine person. And she had a beautiful body which always helps.

"I played a blown up Barbie doll," said Welch later. "I have never appeared completely nude but I don't condemn people who do."

Shortly after filming ended Welch announced she would marry her manager, Patrick Curtis.

Reception

The Los Angeles Times film critic said that "each new Raquel Welch picture brings further proof that when Maria Montez died they didn't break the mold. Like Maria, Raquel can't act from here to there, but both ladies seem to have been born to be photographed... this sappiest of spy pictures." On the other hand, the New York Times called it "crackling good fun" and said, "Somewhere between her unfortunate arrival in the revival of 'One Million Years B.C.' and the new film...Miss Welch has learned to act."