Mysterious Island (1961)

Director:

Cy Endfield

Writers:

John Prebble (screenplay) &
Daniel B. Ullman (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

20 December 1961 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Family | Sci-Fi | Fantasy

Tagline:

adventure! mystery! excitement!

Plot:

During the US Civil War, Union POWs escape in a balloon and end up stranded on a South Pacific island...

Plot Keywords:

Escape | Island | Bee | Giant Chicken | Bird

Cast

Michael Craig	...	Capt. Cyrus Harding
Joan Greenwood	...	Lady Mary Fairchild
Michael Callan	...	Herbert Brown
Gary Merrill	...	Gideon Spilitt
Herbert Lom	...	Captain Nemo
Beth Rogan	...	Elena Fairchild
Percy Herbert	...	Sgt. Pencroft
Dan Jackson	...	Cpl. Neb Nugent

Also Known As:

Jules Verne's Mysterious Island (UK) (complete title)

Runtime:

101 min

Country:

UK | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Australia:PG | Iceland:12 | Netherlands:12 | Argentina:Atp | Finland:K-8 | Sweden:11 | UK:U | USA:Unrated | West Germany:6

Filming Locations:

Benidorm, Alicante, Comunidad Valenciana, Spain

Company:

Ameran Films

Trivia:

The opening scenes at the Confederate prison camp were shot in England and the exteriors were shot at Shepperton Square.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Capt. Nemo plays the organ he begins with the opening toccata of Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D minor. His hands are not even playing notes, it seems he is just massaging the keys. The second time you see his hands, they are quite still showing in both instances that he is obviously not playing and that the organ sound was dubbed in.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Confederate soldier: All right, now get down.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Land of the Lost (2009)

Soundtrack:

Toccata and Fugue

Jules Verne Meets King Kong

Harryhausen crossed Jules Verne with King Kong in his version of Mysterious Island, giving the author's Civil War castaways something really mysterious to look at for a change. The result is a Skull Island-style adventure with a nifty 19th century set-up, and one of the stop-motion maestro's most satisfying films. Harryhausen movies are at their best when Harryhausen is unabashedly the star—-as he is here in Mysterious Island. From this high-water mark in the early Sixties, Harryhausen's films slowly began to shipwreck on two constantly reiterated movie-making clichés. First, writers began to tell Harryhausen that his effects ought to be better integrated into the overall plot, that they ought not to be isolated set pieces sprinkled through the picture like plums in a fruitcake. Secondly, critics continued to repeat the old film music legend that movie scoring is best when it fades unnoticed into the background. Both of these old saws were, in fact, horrible lies. And Mysterious Island is great because Harryhausen and his composer were still refusing to take any notice of them. The effects sequences in Mysterious Island aren't plums in a fruitcake, they're solos in a symphony, they're like the soliloquies in Shakespeare. And Bernard Herrmann's scoring for these episodes is in your face…as it should be. It jumps up and screams "THIS IS A SET-PIECE…AND A GREAT ONE. KICK BACK AND ENJOY IT!" And this, once again, is as it should be. The truth is, that stop-motion isn't an effects technique. It's an art form. If you can't enjoy it for it's own sake, then you can't enjoy it. Every attempt Harryhausen later made to "integrate" his stuff just encouraged people to take it seriously--as a serious attempt, that is, to duplicate reality. Which it isn't. We go to a Harryhausen film for Harryhausen, just as we go to a Chaplin film for Chaplin. If you came in for some other reason, then you picked the wrong movie. That said, Mysterious Island really does work, I think, as a 60s "Jules Verne" picture. The period atmosphere is some of the best in any of those movies and the interesting Nautilus variation we see here is fun to look at in its own right. The acting is quite good also, and Cy Endfield is one of the better Harryhausen directors. But the Verne elements are really just the frame around the picture. Like I said, go for Ray's monsters--then go out and tell the world.