Yet Another Mysterious Island

To quote an article from a 1970 issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland: "Mention Mysterious Island and all but a few of our readers will automatically think of the exciting Harryhausen version of 1961."

I wrote about the 1961 version just a few weeks ago. But 32 years before that movie was made, right at the cusp between the Silent Film Era and the Sound Film Era, MGM released a wonderfully bizarre and entertaining version of the story.

Actually, it's not so much a version of Verne's novel as it is a "Let's use the title and a few details, the wrap an entirely new story around it" film. Lionel Barrymore is Count Dakkar, the benevolent ruler of a small island nation. Dakkar, of course, is Captain Nemo's real name. The Dakkar in the film, like Nemo, has also designed and built his own submarine. But the similarities pretty much end there.

Barrymore's Dakkar has eliminated class distinction on his island, making everyone equal as he prepares to use his submarines (he's actually built two) to explore the ocean depths and maybe discover an undersea humanoid race of sentient creatures. He's found skeletal remains of these guys, which makes him anxious to meet a living specimen.

We learn a lot of this backstory while Dakkar is giving a tour to Falon, the ruler of a mainland nation who has a more dictatorial approach to running a country. Despite this, Falon and Dakkar maintain a friendship. But, tragically, this is because Dakkar doesn't fully appreciate just how much of a poopie-head Falon is.

The dictator lands troops on the island and soon takes over, planning on using these new-fangled subs to increase his own power. But one of the subs is off on a test-dive, piloted by Nikolai, Dakkar's chief engineer. When Nikolai realizes that something is wrong, he sneaks ashore in a diving suit, rescuing Dakkar from Falon's clutches.

Nikolai, by the way, is in love with Dakkar's sister Sonia. Sonia is played by Jacqueline Gadsden, who exhibits that unique quality of attractiveness that only women in the 1920s had.

Anyway, shenanigans ensued involving traps, escapes and battles, in which both subs end up damaged. Sub #1 contains Dakkar, Nikolai and a number of crewmen and ends up on the bottom of the ocean, half-flooded with most of the crew dead and very little air left.

Sub #2 is also sinking. On board is Falon, some of his troops, Sonia and a few crew being held at gunpoint. Sonia, who has been showing more than her share of spunk since Falon attacked the island, blows up the sub's air compressor. This means that water can't be blown out of the ballast tanks and the sub can never surface.

It's at this point that the film takes its most bizarre turn. Those little humanoid guys Dakkar wanted to find do indeed exist. In fact, they have their own little civilization going at the bottom of the ocean. At first, they seem hostile, trying to batter open the few intact compartments of Sub #1. But when Dakkar saves them from a sea monster with a well-placed torpedo, it looks like the humanoids might be willing to give peace a chance.

This doesn't last long. Sub #2 arrives and factions from both crews (wearing bulky metal diving suits to protect themselves from the enormous pressure) are soon confronting one another on the sea bottom. Blood is spilled and the humanoids discover they like the taste of blood. They are driven into a frenzy. The humans have to fight their way through hoards of humanoids and a giant octopus, while trying to salvage the air compressor from Sub #1 so they can use Sub #2 to get back to the surface.

So much for giving peace a chance.

The Mysterious Island is a part-talkie, which means its mostly a silent film using title cards for dialogue, but also has sound effects and music. There are two or three scenes with spoken dialogue as well.

It looks wonderful from start to finish, with views of the undersea civilization being the highlight of the film. Particularly noteworthy is a short scene in which Dakkar and Nikolai see an ancient Roman galley, sunken centuries earlier and with the skeletons of the slaves still manning the oars.

The 1929 version of The Mysterious Island is an example of an early science fiction film done right--good story, striking visuals and good acting. Other early Sci-Fi films, like Metropolis and The Lost World,  are remembered and appreciated for their influence on later works. But this one seems to have dropped off the radar of film buffs. That's too bad. It also deserves to be remembered.

It's a pretty faithful adaptation. Well, aside from the ladies and the giant animals, that is.

I recently started an "Adventure Classics of Western Literature" group on Facebook and the first book we read through was Jules Verne's The Mysterious Island (1874). And, by the way, the book is over 140 years old, so it's long past its Spoiler date. I'm not gonna even worry about spoiling it for anyone.

Anyway, its a sequel to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea--Captain Nemo turns out to be a mysterious benefactor who saves the lives of the castaways on several occasions and otherwise helps them out. It's also a sequel to In Search of the Castaways, since the villain in that one (a pirate named Aryton) turns up after being stuck alone on his own island. He's a bit on the nutty side for awhile, but then turns out to be repentant and eager to join the good guys.

The book involves five guys escaping from a Confederate prison camp towards the end of the Civil War, stealing an observation balloon to make their getaway. A hurricane blows them clear across the U.S. and into the Pacific, where they end up on a remote, uninhabited island. They are later joined by Aryton and gradually build their own miniature version of civilization on the island.

The book drips with Verne's usual enthusiasm about men exploring, learning and using their intelligence to improve their lives. The adventure aspects of the novel are also excellent, especially a sequence in which the castaways have to face off against a ship-full of heavily armed pirates.

The novel does have its flaws, though. What many of us in the Adventure Classics group agreed upon was that the characters were flat, without the sort of distinctive personalities that Verne gave his protagonists in other novels. This is especially true of Cyrus Harding, a Captain of Engineers in the Union Army and the leader of the group. Harding's entire reason for existence is to be smarter and more capable than everyone else. He simply doesn't have any significant character traits beyond that.

In 1961, an extremely fun movie version (titled Mysterious Island without the "The"), with special effects by the great Ray Harryhausen, was released. It's interesting to read about the history of the film in Ray's book Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life.

It turns out that the film was originally supposed to be a straightforward adaptation of the novel, with Nemo and the Nautilus providing the only science fiction elements. But when Ray and his partner Charles H. Schneer got hold of it... well, this is Ray Harryhausen we are talking about. Of course there's going to be giant creatures in it.

At first, the idea was to have the island inhabited by dinosaurs and giant carnivorous plants. This is an idea so breathtakingly cool that its amazing the world didn't explode from pure disappointment when it didn't happen. Instead, it was decided to have the island contain more mundane types of creatures enlarged to giant size. So the castaways in the movie encounter a giant crab, giant bees and a giant baby chicken. Despite not being dinosaurs, these creatures manage to add a lot of fun to the movie. (The crab, by the way, is not a model, but a real crab bought live at a local market, eaten by the crew and cleaned out on the inside so Harryhausen could insert the armatures needed to use it for stop-motion.)

There was talk of getting James Mason to reprise his role as Captain Nemo (having brilliantly played him in Disney's version of 20,000 Leagues a few years earlier). In fact, the design of the Nautilus in this movie is obviously influenced by the Disney version. But Mason was too expensive. Herbert Lom, though, does an excellent job with the role. It's tempting to consider this movie a direct sequel to the Disney movie, but since Mason's Nemo unquestionably dies in that one, we can't quite swing that.

Nemo, by the way, provides a reason for the existence of the giant animals on the island. I won't spoil that reason for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.

The rest of the cast is fine as well. In his book, Harryhausen makes a point of praising the performance of Gary Merrill as newspaper reporter Gideon Spillett--and he's correct in doing so. Merrill brings a cynicism to the reporter that doesn't quite cross the line into making us dislike him.  And he does rapidly become more a team player.

Other castaways, including Harding (played by Michael Craig), are given more personality as well. In this sense, the film can be legitimately said to have improved upon the book.

There are other changes. Originally, Aryton was supposed to still be there--found on the island and (in at least one early script) turned green from something he'd been eating. But budget and script reasons mean that, in the end, Aryton only appears as a pile of moldy bones. (Which, unlike other Harryhausen films, do not come to life.)

In the book, the castaways had a dog named Top, but dogs and stop-motion animation don't mix. Actors, remember, have to use carefully rehearsed, exactly timed movements in filming any scene in which stop-motion creatures will later be added. That would be hard for even a well-trained dog, so poor Top doesn't make it into the film.

The book, by the way, is an all-male affair. Not surprisingly, the movie has a couple of ladies wash up on the island to join the castaways.

Despite all these changes, the movie is actually a pretty faithful adaptation of Verne's novel. The basic bones of the story are still there and the movie still manages to celebrate man's ingenuity in surviving and even prospering in a difficult situation. And none of the additions are jarring or unpleasant.

It probably takes a genius like Ray Harryhausen to insert a giant crab into a story that was meant to be fairly realistic and make it seem so natural.