The DVD of The Vikings may be worth studying on how to direct an action set piece. Fleischer explains how the swordfight between Douglas and Curtis was created using shots of no more than three sword strokes. The cinematography is by Jack Cardiff who used creative angles is shooting the final duel, as well as creating the luminous shots of Janet Leigh. The commercial success of The Vikings may have contributed to Cardiff making his own Viking film, The Long Ships. Screenplay writer Calder Willingham worked previously for Douglas as one of the screenwriters for Paths of Glory as well as contributing to Spartacus. Screen story writer Dale Wasserman's most famous association with Douglas came with the play version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Between the action and some sly humor, what's best about The Vikings is that it is a reminder that one could make a big costume epic without being bogged down with too many pretensions of self-importance.

Briefly in Fantastic Voyage, rival brain surgeons Arthur Kennedy and Donald Pleasance briefly debate evolution versus intelligent design. The debate effectively ends when the micoscopic sized Pleasance is consumed by a while corpuscle. The discussion is a small portion of the film that may have been no more than a thought provoking blip forty years ago, yet unintentionally acts as a reminder of more recent events. The story of a group of doctors shrunk so small that they take a voyage in a man's bloodstream to do brain surgery is silly. The shrinkage can only last for sixty minutes. Even within the logic of the basic premise, my significant other and I wondered why the tiny medical team wasn't injected into the ear or brain in the first place instead of taking the long way to their destination. It was probably written that way, but the film is crafty enough to have the sixty minutes of shrink time last exactly that long in screen time. The best moments of Fantastic Voyage are pre-CGI special effects of blood, tissue, bacteria and other microscopic matter that in their own way anticipate some of the psychedelic wonder seen two years later with 2001.