Fathom (film)
| Fathom | |
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Promotional film poster by Tom Chantrell
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| Directed by | Leslie H. Martinson |
| Produced by | John Kohn |
| Screenplay by | Lorenzo Semple Jr. |
| Based on | Fathom Heavensent (unpublished novel) by Larry Forrester |
| Starring |
Raquel Welch Anthony Franciosa Ronald Fraser |
| Music by | John Dankworth |
| Cinematography | Douglas Slocombe |
| Edited by | Max Benedict |
| Distributed by | Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation |
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Release date
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Running time
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99 min. |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $2,225,000 |
| Box office | $1,000,000 (US/ Canada) |
Fathom is a 1967 British spy comedy film directed by Leslie H. Martinson, starring Raquel Welch and Anthony Franciosa.
Fathom Harvill (Welch) is a skydiver touring Europe with a U.S. parachute team. She is approached by a Scottish agent to recover an atomic triggering mechanism. The film was based on Larry Forrester's second Fathom novel Fathom Heavensent, then in the draft stage but never published. His first was 1967's A Girl Called Fathom.
This was one of three 1967 20th Century Fox films about female spies, the others being Doris Day's Caprice and Andrea Dromm's Come Spy with Me.
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.
As appearing in screen credits (main roles identified):
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.
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