20,000 Leagues Under Sea (1954)

Nemotherapy

20,000 Leagues Under Sea
Directed by Richard Fleischer
USA 1954
Disney DVD Region 2

Much as I would have liked to watch this 1954 Disney version of 20,000 Leagues under the Sea on a nice Blu Ray transfer, I was unable to afford the frankly extortionate cost (plus club membership fee for the privilege) that Disney charge for their Blu Ray of this one (around the area of treble figures is not my thing). So I just picked up their old DVD for a fiver, thanks very much!

Now, I know I must have seen this at least once as a kid on television (possibly not in colour) but there’s not a great deal I remembered about it, to be honest… so it was like discovering this film all over again, this time around. It’s got a great cast too… although, as usual, there are elements, about the casting even, that are at odds with Jules Verne’s original novel. And by that I mean we have the great James Mason playing Nemo himself so… as you can see, not an Indian with a turban etc as I seem to remember him appearing in the novel (something the 1916 version, which I reviewed here kinda got right… but not without its own problems). That being said, the trade off is worth it as he embodies Nemo, who is often depicted as more an enigma than a real person, with great depth and soul and you can see the struggle of his torment as Professor Aronnax (played by Paul Lukas), one of his prisoners/guest on the Nautilus, challenges his ideas and motives. 

Two other big names also join the cast, with Kirk Douglas performing the rebellious and often comic relief spirit of harpooner Ned Land. And not to forget Aronnax’ life long assistant Conseil, played here by the mighty Peter Lorre himself. I mean, Lorre is always fantastic to watch but the chemistry he has with Kirk Douglas here is off the charts. 

The real stars of this movie, though, are the wonderful sets and designs. I mean, everything looks so big. Even the small hotel room Arronax and Conseil are sharing at the start of the adventure looks so large and ornate it’s like a palace. And that’s before we even get to the Nautilus submarine, which is itself a nice ornate design (not much like the plain one in the original novel, to be fair) and the interiors are equally large and colourfully lit. Indeed, it’s a big, bright, colourful film (even on this DVD transfer) and it must have cost Disney a lot of money to produce this.

And, as I mentioned in my review of the 1916 version of the tale (which is nowhere near as aligned to the original novel as this one), Disney went to the same location in the Bahamas to do all of the underwater photography scenes. But here, of course, they’re writ large in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, in colour and look equally fantastic. This one must look great in a cinema.

And the effects look wonderful too. Even the giant squid attack towards the end of the movie looks great. Now, I know they had to reshoot it because it didn’t look so fantastic in the daylight so they reshot the fight with the squid in a rainy, night time storm setting but, honestly, for a practical effect this one looks way more convincing than CGI could have done. I was totally sold on it… which I wasn’t expecting. 

So... great colours, great performances, a cute seal and some very grand music makes 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, in this iteration, a big winner. And, to boot, there’s that thing about Jules Verne never seeming to have female characters who are in with the main antagonists. Well, I was wondering who the leading lady would be that they would add in the story and… woah… there isn’t one. They did it straight to the book on that account. That being said, when Kirk Douglas enters the picture he has a woman on each arm so… maybe the producers were trying to compensate for the lack of female presence for the rest of the movie. Personally I think all films should have lots of cool women in them but… when it comes to adaptation then maybe follow the source would be my motto.

And that’s me done with the 1954 version of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea… Mason’s performance as the Captain is the one to measure others by (in all but ethnicity), even if he continually decides to play exactly what you’re expecting him to on that big organ of his (yeah… it’s Bach’s Toccata And Fugue In D Minor again people!). Disney would, of course, partially remake this film in the late 1970s as The Black Hole… and you can read my review of that one here.

20,000 Leagues Under Sea (1916)

Little Slumber 
In Nemo Land

20,000 Leagues Under Sea
Directed by Stuart Paton
USA 1916
Imprint Blu Ray A/B/C

Warning: Some slight spoilers here. 

I’ve been wanting to see this silent version of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea for some time now, since I loved the original novel by one of my favourite authors, Jules Verne. I didn’t get the UK release of this because it was bundled in with a bunch of movies I wasn’t that interested in but, I’m glad I waited now because this Australian edition is part of their Tales Of Adventure Collection 8, with some other Verne movies and some slightly adjacent tales in its make-up.

Now, I was both impressed and disappointed in this in equal parts so, I’m not quite sure how to organise this review... 

Okay, the first thing I was impressed with was that, unlike 99.5% of the Captain Nemo films I’ve seen in film versions, they actually get the character’s ethnicity correct to the book.. so an Indian, turban wearing guy (I think they actually got it right in the movie version of The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen too but, that movie was also an incredibly poor adaptation of its source material). That being said, the caveat here is that he’s portrayed by a white dude, Allen Holubar, in brown face. Swings and roundabouts I guess, people. 

Another impressive thing is the Williamson brothers and their invention. Highlighted in footage before the film gets properly underway, along with a photo of Jules Verne, the Williamsons went with the director on location (the same locations used for the Disney version a few decades later) because they'd invented cameras for underwater photography. So there are lots of shots of divers and fish and coral etc in the movie. I can’t imagine what this might have looked like to the inhabitants of the world at the time, many of whom would never had been able to see what this stuff properly looks like before this motion picture was released. So it’s a landmark film for inventing and demonstrating the world’s first underwater photography, if for nothing else.

However, there are some problems I had with the film. 

Asides from lots of almost superfluous women in the movie… Verne didn’t really do much in the way of meaningful female characters, certainly in his most famous books… the story is an absolute mess and Jules would have been scientifically rotating in his grave at such shenanigans (and don’t get me started on the 50s serial of Mysterious Island, with its alien queen hell bent on world conquest, either). What we have here is very little to do with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea after about the first 10 mins… it’s also taking portions from The Mysterious Island (probably my favourite Jules Verne novel) and then grafted onto it another story featuring a.. ‘child of nature’ as she is credited in the cast list (a euphemism for someone who’s ‘gone native’)… who, most viewers will twig, long before the end of the picture and the big reveal, turns out to be Captain Nemo’s long lost daughter. 

About her... one of the crew of the balloon that lands on the island finds her and, she’s played by a lady called Jane Gail, again in brown face make up. And all I will say about her is… she’s an absolute comic genius. The scene where the poor white guy is trying to show her how to put on a shirt and trousers... and she’s waggling her toes at him… had me in stitches. I need to see more things with this lady in because she tickled my funny bone somewhat. She was the truly bright spot of this film for me, for sure (she died on her 74th birthday, I’m informed). 

Things all come around and she is reunited with her father who dies, is buried at sea and then we also see the Nautilus submarine (which appears to be quite different in long shot as opposed to when it surfaces, it seems to me) sink beneath the waves one final time. Leaving us with a romantic entailment involving one of the crew of the original balloon and Jane Gail’s character. Which also leaves me with the question… was this the first time an interracial romance had been depicted on screen or were there earlier films?

And that’s me done with this iteration of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, I think. It was a pleasure to watch this version, despite the enormous liberties taken with the original source materials… I’d certainly recommend this one to lovers of silent movies and will probably watch this one again at some point (if only for the comical shenanigans of Jane Gail). I’m pleased I finally got to see this one.