Raquel Welch title sequence for Fathom (1967)

[Video Link] It's been over three years since I posted a video of Raquel Welch in a space girl outfit dancing in front of the 1968 Mexico City Olympics public sculpture project, so I think it's time for another video starring Ms. Jo Raquel Tejada. Above is the title sequence to the movie Fathom (1967). It was created by Maurice Binder, who also created the famous "gun barrel" sequence for the James Bond movies, and the zero gravity striptease title for Barbarella. (Via Little Hokum Rag)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

MORE: Entertainment

More at Boing Boing

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Hackers prepare for first "national holiday" in their honor

inflatabill

As a parachute rigger myself, I have to say she’s doing a decent job packing that rig. Or to put it in skydiver lingo, “I’d jump that.”
- Torchwood
  
  or “she can pack my rig any day”
  works just as well.
  
  T
DrPretto

She’s older than my mother but wow, those women from the 60s were beautiful and really sexy like Jane Fonda, Brigitte Bardot, Sharon Tate, Audrey Hepburn, etc..
There is a book:
“Swingin’ Chicks of the ’60s: A Tribute to 101 of the Decade’s Defining Women”
Nadreck

Another fine screen play by Lorenzo Semple Jr.!
Anonymous

Oh man. I actually saw this film when it was released. I watched it one night as a ten year old crossing the Atlantic on the Queen Mary.

As I recall, I enjoyed it a lot, but probably for all the wrong reasons.
frankieboy

Probably the only people to notice the names in the credits were the other actors and their Mothers.

@Antinous; I hear that. I’ve had “A Taste of Honey” saved with those assholes for years. It’s in release, but they don’t have it. I actually called and got some lame, unacceptable, explanation from them.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  I’ve got about 50 titles saved, some for as long as six years. None of the films has ever materialized. ‘Saved’ is only useful for the next season of a current television show.
jasonq

Lovely. Now…what’s this about a parachute?
sdaris

For some reason this reminded me of “The Gates” in NYC by Christo. It has that almost holy vibe to it, concentrated, fetishistic.
akbar56

Not just the gun barrel sequence. Maurice was responsible for all of the main title credit sequences for all of the Bond films up through Licence to Kill (except for From Russia with Love and Goldfinger)
InsertFingerHere

Something about that woman oozes sexy.
igpajo

Trying to figure out what’s sexier, her in that suit or the fact that she’s packing her own chute!
I’ve jumped a few dozen times in the military, and though I never packed my own, I’m pretty sure our chutes were pretty similar. So with that said I’d have to say that looked like a fairly accurate packing sequence.
Anonymous

okay, i hear you.
so i can trust her to pack my parachute?!
Raquel…? RAQUEL…???
dougrogers

That was *also* educational.
boo

Great sequence. I was a little surprised by the massive amount of ‘cover’ under Ms. Welch’s eyes, easily visible around second 40 and for a bit after.

I will not try to imagine what she had been doing to create dark under-eye circles that required heavy make-up masking!
- bat21
  
  They really trowelled it on back then. When I first saw the remastered episodes of Star Trek, I noticed that Bones, Spock and Sulu were wearing more makeup than Uhura and Nurse Chapel.
Cochituate

I loved Richard Briers in Good Company (years before Monarch of the Glen), back in the day, and laughed when I saw him as one of the leads in this. Someday I’ll have to watch this.
netsharc

Now I know how to (approximately) pack a parachute and why it’s important, just in case I need it in an emergency, where the choice is between taking a chance in a parachute I pack, or death.

Sexy, and educational too! It’s edutainment!
3lbFlax

Oh, Tony Franciosa. He used to date my ma.
Tdawwg

The very first shot in the scene is like the tracking shots in the second scene (featuring Brigitte Bardot lying in bed) of Godard’s Contempt (1963), only less artsy and more objectifying (and far less self-aware)!

Are there similar tracking shots across female bodies from this period? Fun mashup montage, anyone?
ROSSINDETROIT

I watched this with the sound off while listening to the adagio movement of Mendelssohn’s 3rd symphony. Certainly not what either artist had in mind but it works.
Just gonna hang around for a minute until someone drops in to critique the parachute packing technique…
nixiebunny

I wanna see her rigger’s certificate.
Anonymous

FATHOM has been in regular rotation on the “THIS” network (HD TV channel available via HD Antenna in some major metro markets… Dallas and Nashville for certain) for the past month or so, airing a couple of times per week.

It’s a painfully bad movie though.
- mikedt
  
  Yup, it’s on tonight 3/16 at 10:30. Tivo all set
- dr
  
  The movie is fairly good in a pleasant, light-entertainment kind of way. Of course it is mainly a vehicle for Welch and Franciosa to look good, but that is hardly a criticism by itself. At the time this movie was made poking fun at Welch was already kind of a minor sport among media watchers, and the in-your-face prurient opener was obviously at least in part an ironic reference to this.
msl87

Forgive me if I’m getting the symbolism wrong, but she’s playing with a gigantic penis, right?
- feminismisfun
  
  at least she’s practicing safe parachuting.
- Anonymous
  
  i was wondering, too. i don’t believe parachutes are wrapped this way, in the real world…
  @ Mark: thanks for posting this. Raquel Welch was one of the sex-symbols of my childhood (along with Cyd Charisse and Audrey Hepburn), and i really love the henry-mancini-esk ripoff music, too.
  great plunge into adolescent regression. especially regarding the dire news we get right now…
  - nixiebunny
    
    Parachutes are packed this way – at least the guy I used to work with who has done thousands of skydives used this method. Raquel was obviously trained in the art of parachute packing.
Donald Petersen

I’d be mildly surprised to learn her chute-packing technique was substandard. They went to the trouble of getting what looks like a real parachute and coaching La Welch in some painstakingly methodical technique for packing it. It might as well be the real one.

Of course, I’m just being sexist here. Who’s to say that Raquel Welch wasn’t a perfectly competent paratrooper on her own?

I know I couldn’t pack a chute without pants with this much aplomb.
Anonymous

Made my morning!
Anonymous

Wow she is amazing. I think I cried a little. Just didnt realize how amazing until this video.
-Barnyard
Walks

Absolutely LOVE her. Maurice Binder, too. And Sean Connery.
Imagine the Sean and Raquel together in a Bond film…
*cue dream music & wavy screen effect*
http://russellwalks.com/PROPERTY3.jpg
bobrk

Where can you get the movie? I’m getting a “Save” on Netflix…
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  I’m getting a “Save” on Netflix…
  
  For films, ‘save’ is a euphemism for never.
- akbar56
  
  Netflix may not have it, but amazon has it for under 12 bucks. A decent little film if my memory serves me correctly.
Italico

By the looks of the footage at the 1:50 mark, I think it is a practice session for massaging a giant squid.
Bender

Makes me want to do a certain kind of diving, but no parachute would be needed.