According to an article in the January 20, 1953 edition of the Los Angeles Daily News, about 1,620,000 feet of 16mm color film was collected from 2,341 sources for use in this film.
On August 19, 1949, Otis Barton in the Benthoscope (similar to the Bathysphere), a 7,000 pound steel ball, descended 4,500 feet into the sea, setting a new record for the deepest dive by a human. (This is still the record for deepest dive in a submersible suspended by a cable.) The Benthoscope cost more than $15,000 (equivalent to about $180,000 in 2022) to build. The Benthoscope is now on display in front of the Los Angeles Maritime Museum in San Pedro, California.
The film ends with a statement that the temperature of the Arctic climate has been rising steadily since 1900 and if this warming continues, the oceans will flood many major cities and could result in the end of the world. All this was decades ahead of Al Gore and his efforts to raise awareness among the general public about global warming.
Rachel Carson hated the completed documentary. She had submitted rewrites and concerns to Irwin Allen, whose approach to the material was less scientific and more show business. However, rights had been sold and Carson had no power over the film, which was presented as the authorized, big screen equivalent of Carson's book. Although the film won an Oscar for Best Documentary, Carson was so disappointed with the experience that she never again authorized film rights to any of her work.