“A project like Apollo has only one chance or take. Where we have as many opportunities as we have film in the camera.”
In the 1966 film The Glass Bottom Boat, Jennifer (played by Doris Day) works in public relations at a NASA facility in Long Beach, California. While helping her father out with his glass-bottom boat business, she meets Bruce Templeton, a researcher at the same facility. When Bruce begins to court Jennifer, however, the security chief at the facility suggests that Jennifer might actually be a Russian spy. When Jennifer finds out about this, hijinx ensue. In this short film from Rockwell International, Doris Day simultaneously promotes Glass Bottom Boat and implores employees working on the Apollo spacecraft to be “extra, extra careful.” As she explains, when making a movie they have multiple tries to get a scene right, but this luxury does not exist when launching astronauts into space.
Date Released: June 1966
File #: N/A
Produced By: Rockwell International Space Systems Group
Program Duration: 3:35
Media: 16mm Film
Reel Length: 130 ft
Audio: Optical, Variable Area
Film Stock: Eastman Rev II
Film Stock Edge Code Date: 1965