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A journey looking for captain Grant (Jack Gwillim) is realized by a teenage girl Hayley Mills (Pollyanna), her little boy brother along with two veterans (Wilfrid Hyde White and singer Maurice Chevalier) and a young man (Michael Anderson Jr.) . During the long travel they find natural disasters as earthquake in the Andes , fire and flood in the ocean and volcano in New Zealand and they attempt to overcome . Besides they encounter different tribes as Araucans (an Indian chief played by Antonio Cifariello ), Patagons (Argentina) and Maoris (New Zealand).

The picture contains adventures , humor , emotion , songs , stirring action and sensational outdoors . The film displays some scenes have you on the edge of your seat as the amusing images when the protagonists sledge over floe . Excellent , powerful cast with sympathetic Hayley Mills and Maurice Chevalier and with the cynic George Sanders . Colorful cinematography reflecting marvellous landscapes by Paul Beeson . Lively and evocative music by Willyam Alwyn . Abounds matte painting and special effects by the Disney specialist Peter Ellenshaw . It's a winning Disney effort made by its usual director Robert Stevenson (Herbie , gnome mobile , Mary Poppins) . It's a must for the Disney fans but is beautifully released , being recommendable for all family and especially for little boys public . Rating : Good and entertaining.

Wonderful Jules Verne fantasy via Walt Disney has jolly, ne'er-do-well Frenchman Maurice Chevalier helping two children convince a ship's captain that the kids' father, a captain lost at sea, is shipwrecked on an island near South America. The journey begins, and soon the whole gang faces every form of a raging Mother Nature trying to reach the castaway. Hayley Mills is near the peak of her ladylike charms here, never lovelier than when singing "Castaway" under the stars by guitar or cooking breakfast with Chevalier in a treetop. Maurice himself is a wily coot, and Wilfred Hyde-White is brusquely amusing. Well-produced yarn with fine effects does tail off in the second-half, but there are many requisite Disney-adventure pleasures to be had. Enjoy it! *** from ****

First of all let me say that any film with Maurice Chevalier will automatically get a look from me. Even though Hayley Mills was Walt Disney's number one star at the time, Chevalier's international status as a performer guaranteed him top billing. The younger cast members had a lot to do in keeping up with him.

Robert Gwillim who is a sea captain and father to Hayley Mills and Keith Hamshere has been lost at sea for many years now and who knows where in this wide world with 5/6 of it covered by ocean. But a swallowed bottle with a note that was found in the belly of a shark by scientist Maurice Chevalier sends the three of them in search of Gwillim's employer Wilfrid Hyde-White to finance an expedition to search. Said note leads them first to South America and then to Australia because Maurice misreads the clues. He did that a lot in this film, an occupational hazard with eccentric scientists.

This was the Magic Kingdom's second dealing with a Jules Verne story, the first being the classic 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Sad to say while In Search Of The Castaways has some interesting moments and in spots looks more like an Indiana Jones film, it does not make it above the juvenile level. Watching it today, I expected to see Harrison Ford ride in with bullwhip cracking to save the whole kit and kaboodle of them from villain George Sanders.

Maurice's first mistake took them 10,000 miles out of their way. It's not often one gets a second chance there.

Let's be honest here: this movie is ridiculous. The special effects are laughable, the actors outrageously overact, the songs, though few, are completely forgettable, and the plot takes dreadful liberties with the book it is based on; Jules Verne would be spinning in his grave. All that being said, this movie is a lot of fun, just as long as you don't take it too seriously. The actors certainly aren't. They're having a damn good time and that rubs off on the viewer. It's great to see familiar faces like Maurice Chevalier, Wilfred Hyde-White and George Sanders hamming it up and the younger actors are having fun too. Kids should love this and so too should nostalgic adults.

Part of Jules Verne's trilogy that includes "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" with Captain Nemo as the antagonist, "Mysterious Island" with Captain Grant as the castaway protagonist going up against Nemo, and "The Children of Captain Grant...aka 'In Search of the Castaways'" with (as the titles suggests) the children of Captain Grant as the protagonists in search of their castaway father. Even if Walt Disney had made "Mysterious Island" (in 1961 another studio made a pretty nifty though obviously 60's style sci-fi movie from it) there still wouldn't be much to tie this film to Walt Disney's classic starring Kirk Douglas and James Mason. Without knowledge of the characters from "Mysterious Island" there is no clue that the Grant children live in the same world as the first film, let alone that of Captain Nemo. With that said, the film does work as a wild and fun Disney adventure (Disney films are a genre all their own). Starring familiar Disney faces such as Hayley Mills and Maurice Chevalier (hey it could have been Annette Funicello and Burl Ives) this is Walt Disney's film not Jules Verne's and a good time can be had by the whole family. Some of the special effects are inferior to Disney's standard but Mills and company are very watchable as are the endless stream of natural disasters that befall them. Recently remakes have been made of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." Too bad a mini-series involving the entire trilogy wasn't tackled. Just a thought.

Jules Verne gets Disneyfied again by the reliable Robert Stevenson, with Hayley Mills, Wilfred Hyde-White, George Sanders and Maurice Chevalier, singing some songs by the Sherman brothers. Given a story that traveled around the world and got its characters involved in floods, volcanic eruptions, mutinies, and capture by cannibals, somehow, everyone remains pink-faced & scrubbed clean at all times, with every bow-tie perfectly tied.

It's a perfect movie at a moment when the strains of Hollywood's erosion and its retreat into what is today called a "tentpole movie" model was just about to collapse. While the Major studios like Fox were still relying on blockbusters like THE LONGEST DAY (which outgrossed this film), cheap producers like AIP were serving the Teen market. By the end of the decade, everyone would be going after them and movies like this would be seen as quaint. Well, I guess I'm old-fashioned. I love it.

How wonderful to see a movie the entire family can watch. Fine acting and plenty of music and laughter along with suspense, drama and human kindness. Not to be scared if a child will curse or anything to upset the audience. Maurice Chaviar and entire cast is superb. What a wonderful movie to just sit and relax and know you will be entertained. I never get bored watching this movie. When I was stationed in the US Army at Russelsheim, Germany,I got to see this movie in the German language. Again, it is a pleasure to have another entertaining motion picture to view over and over with family and friends. Thank You Walt Disney and his staff.

I'll give Disney's "In Search Of The Castaways" a seven out of ten because of the possibilities, not for what it is! If you were to take all the noted bloopers from the original Star Wars series, you'd run out of fingers, instantly! Compared to other Disney live action films and some real turkeys, this film fared much better. Not everyone is into Maurice Chevalier and I am not one of them. But he did manage to play the bumbling fool of a professor very well. Sometimes you have to overlook the Disney staple of sticking to sugary family fare. We cant all have homeboys on top of a mountain, spraying graffiti. Quite frankly, the movie really suffers from simply becoming outdated. I wish the movie moguls would think to look at this movie one day-for a remake. If anything, I like the sudden idea of being caught and trapped on a slope, riding on a loosened mountain chunk down a ravine. The next in line biggest adventure, would be the tied to a rope, upside down, swinging wildly in the air! COOL. I give it a seven, for the possibilities. Robert.

Previous experience with this film: I went into this one blind. I like some of the old classic Disney films and had a crush on Hayley Mills when I was a kid, so my expectations were a bit higher than they should have been.

General Notes: In Search of the Castaways is not a great film. It is not a particularly good film, but if you are looking for basic, safe, family fare, this is your film. Mary Grant (Hayley Mills) and her younger brother Robert (Keith Hamshere) are two siblings in search of their missing sea captain father. With the help of French professor Jacques Paganel (Maurice Chevalier) and a stained note from in a bottle found inside the stomach of a shark; they scam their way onto the ship "Persevero" during a bon voyage party. That is when things start to get a bit unbelievable. Throughout the movie, the explorers endure many trials including an earthquake, an encounter with a giant condor, a flashflood and a tribe of cannibals. The storyline is over the top and the special effects are quite dated. The movie is based on a book by Jules Verne, Les Enfants du capitaine Grant or The Children of Captain Grant, published in 1873. Verne uses the travels of the expedition to describe plants, animals and geography of exotic places to his intended 19th century audience. Unfortunately, it does not translate very well to film.

Positives: About the only bright spot in this movie is Maurice Chevalier's portrayal of Professor Paganel. He is a very likable character and when he breaks out into song, (did I forget to mention that this movie has a couple of musical numbers), it doesn't appear forced; it seems as if it is something that his character would naturally do.

Negatives: This is a typical 1960s Disney family film so I am not going to hammer on it too hard. Yes, the plot is overdone. Yes, the special effects are laughable. My biggest gripe with the movie is that Hayley Mills is not given a lot to work with. She almost disappears in this film and that is a shame. One of the original taglines for this movie was "A Thousand Thrills and Hayley Mills". It really did not deliver.

Overall: This is a 1962 Disney family film. It is exactly what you would expect. There are no surprises in this one. I would recommend this movie to someone nostalgic for Disney. Maybe to seven to nine-year old's that might like some of the fantastic adventure elements of the film. I give it a tepid score of 5.

We loved this film as kids, now we're older it retains its appeal but in a different way. It really is the funniest film ever.

The search party:

• encounter a earthquake and survive by riding on two mini icebergs through ice palaces which appear to be inside a mountain

• have one member of the party (Robert, the sweet little brother) carried off by a giant condor to feed her young

• get flooded and live in a huge ombu tree for weeks (alongside some kind of big cat which is also trapped there)

• go through a thunderstorm that causes above-mentioned tree to catch on fire, giving them the option of being burnt to death or eaten by crocodiles, which are now of course swarming around the tree - or get rescued

• get locked up in a tiny hut with a madman who's been there for apparently about fifty years, after being chucked off their own ship by villainous scoundrels and being washed up on an island inhabited by Maoris

• and finally, survive a volcano (but the Maoris don't)

There is also a love interest in the form of John, the smarmy captain's son who fancies Mary (Hayley Mills) and some funny songs, like the one Chevalier and Mills sing when living in ombu tree. Brilliant!!!

In Search of the Castaways

Having children on a rescue mission is smart because when they find the corpse their piercing shrieks will alert everyone.

Unfortunately, the rescue effort in this adventure also includes a useless senior.

Convinced that their shipwrecked father, Captain Grant (Jack Gwillim), is alive somewhere between South America and New Zealand, Robert (Keith Hamshere) and his sister Mary (Hayley Mills) recruit a Scottish lord (Wilfrid Hyde-White) to lead their expedition.

Along for the ride are an elderly professor (Maurice Chevalier) and the Lord's son (Michael Anderson, Jr.).

Together, the quintet faces an array of adversaries, from giant condors to Mother Nature's wrath, to a nefarious gunrunner (George Sanders).

While the harrowing adventure is elongated by a red herring wrong turn, when Captain Grant's whereabouts is finally revealed this Disney adaptation of a Jules Verne tale really gets rolling.

Mind you, once they find their father alive, there goes the insurance money. Green Light

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Maurice Chevalier and Wilfrid Hyde-White are very good, but 'In Search of the Castaways' didn't quite capture my imagination.

I mostly like the adventure elements, as they cross land and sea in search of castaways. Despite that, I never properly felt attached to the story as the aforementioned isn't stitched together well with the characters and their motives/feelings. It's also paced too slow, at least for me.

As noted, Chevalier (Paganel) and Hyde-White (Lord Glenarvan) are solid in their respective roles, if only due to their amusing moments both together and on their own with the younger cast members; who aren't all that memorable, Hayley Mills (Mary) is the standout if I had to pick one.

The film hasn't aged beautifully in regards to the effects, a load of the scenes look rather awful nowadays but I can always let that pass in these older films; it's still worth noting, that's all. Away from that you have a few musical numbers, the ones featuring Paganel are pretty good.

I feel giving it less than this rating would be harsh, I definitely didn't enjoy it but I can see how others might.

In Search of the Castaways (1962) : Brief Review -

Only Disney could tell this adventurous tale of Jules Verne, and I couldn't agree more! Another nostalgia in Disney's Pandora box. Jules Verne's novels have been adopted many times on the big screen, and many of them have been great movies. Disney's early days were incredible, as they established many genres and themes through their imaginative world. Right from Animation in the 30s to delivering adventurers, that became nostalgia for children, who watched all those films with their parents at that time and then forwarded the nostalgia to their children. Being a 90s kid, I can tell how much those 90s classic animation movies mean to me, and I'll forward them to the next generation. The same thing happened with the 30s generation and then the next generation. In Search of the Castaways was a decade late, I believe, but it's a compelling feature film. Of course, Disney didn't have a budget as high as "The Ten Commandments" or "Ben Hur" at that time, but they still managed to pull off a decent visual spectacle in the early 1960s. The flood scene reminded me of Moses parting out the sea, the animals, the voyage, and all of it took me back to Disney's own "Swiss Family Robinson," and so on.. there are many references to point out. Nevertheless, In Search of the Castaways is a joyride, and that's all that matters. It's funny, it has good musicals, it has a variety of adventures, it has lovable characters, and at last, it's a reliable human story. A few scenes run out of fictional proportion, but it's not a big deal. Maurice Chevalier is charming as ever; Hayley Mills ruled the 60s with her roles, and others are very fine. Robert Stevenson's collaborations with Disney will always be remembered. What Tim Burton is trying today, Stevenson did way ago and much better. Overall, a complete family movie for all three generations.

RATING - 7/10*

By - #samthebestest.

In 1858, Professor Paganel (Maurice Chevalier), a French geography professor, finds a bottle containing a note which seems to have been written by the missing Captain John Grant (Jack Gwillim). Paganel and Grant's two teenaged children, Mary (Hayley Mills) and Robert (Keith Hamshere), approach John Glenarvan (Michael Anderson, Jr.) and his father, the wealthy shipping magnate Lord Glenarvan (Wilfrid Hyde-White), the owner of Captain Grant's ship, and persuade them to finance a search expedition. Paganel determines the bottle's origins to have been in South America and the group set off on a voyage to find the missing captain Grant contending with many manmade and natural hazards along the way.

The third of six films Hayley Mills made for Walt Disney Pictures, In Search of the Castaways was inspired by the success of Disney's previous Jules Verne adaptation 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea prompting production of Castaways in the hopes of recapturing that film's success. The movie was one of two films based on the source novel with Disney and Irwin Allen Productions planning separate adaptations of the novel until Disney bought the international rights in other territories leading Allen to abandon his own version for Five Weeks in a Balloon. The movie was a box office success and critical reception was mostly positive, but it does pale in comparison to the groundbreaking 20,000 Leagues.

Like with most of her films, Hayley Mills is a likable screen presence and is effortlessly watchable in a role such as this. It's a slightly more rough performance for Mills as she's called on to do more action/adventure elements in comparison to prior films such as The Parent Trap and Pollyanna and it showcases her range as an actress. The movie also has a nicely built out ensemble such as Maurice Chevalier as the quirky and humorous Professor Paganel, Wilfrid Hyde-White as Lord Glenarvan who serves as an effective straight man to the proceedings, and a host of other supporting players including George Sanders who plays one of the many antagonists who our heroes come against.

The movie features everything you've come to expect from an adventure story: exotic locales, intriguing action sequences, etc. The effects used for scenes such as an earthquake, a condor bird, and a volcanic eruption aren't quite as revolutionary as the effects work seen in 20,000 Leagues, but they are used for some quite memorable if preposterous sequences. Of course like many adventure stories it's unquestionably a product of its time, and while it does try to balance out some of the more troublesome aspects of the adventure genre by trying to have a broad portrayal of indigenous peoples, we still fall into some of the traps of this genre that are unfortunately held in the DNA of the its foundations laid by Edgar Rice Burroughs (albeit not to THAT extent). At the time of this writing In Search of the Castaways is one of a number of Disney films not available on Disney+ and having seen some of the other films on the service I'm not quite sure why. Unlike something like One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing that played up certain antiquated gags and motifs for straight humor, Castaways isn't nearly in the same ballpark but it does straddle the line (such as an Italian in redface). The movie also has a much more lighthearted feel to it than Treasure Island or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and feels like it was made in mind more for children than a broad family audience, not necessarily a slight against the movie, but noted nonetheless.

In Search of the Castaways is a solid live-action adventure from Disney. While it doesn't have the same polish and intensity seen in Treaure Island or 20,000 Leagues, it boasts a likable ensemble and some memorable set pieces for the adventure. It does feature some of the "othering" that's come t be expected from the adventure genre with natives portrayed as either more "civilized" or "cannibalistic savages" with not much subtlety, but it is a 60s Disney adventure film so it's hardly the worst offender out there.

as far as family entertainment goes,you can't go wrong with this Disney offering.i wouldn't use the word classic to describe it though.it has some fun moments.it's fairly fast paced.but it does tend to get a bit silly at times and it's very predictable and repetitive and there is a bit too much singing involved for my taste.it's very dated,with effects that are definitely from the stone age.the acting is no great shakes either.in fact,it ranges from adequate too downright atrocious.still,it does pass the time,and there's nothing offensive so it's safe for all ages.if you can get around the silliness and the bad acting,you just might be able to kill 98 minutes.for me,In Search of the Castaways is a 5/10

Theowinthrop should check the Disney Catalogue very thoroughly for the Captain Hattaras tale. We have that very movie available on DVD here in Australia. Or at least something with a similar storyline written by the same author. I'm not sure whether it is live action or cartoon though. Quite apart from the above though "In Search Of The Castaways" was in my opinion a very enjoyable movie. Hayley Mills as always is precocious in a serious way. Maybe it's me but I do not think that she was ever a good singer as I consider her voice too thin for singing. I also do not think that she really matured until after her Disney contract expired - compare her later movies to the earlier ones. From the land down under.

I think it can be agreed-upon that Walt Disney had no sense of humor. I mean, he thought that Donald Duck was funny. This may be why so much early Disney stuff is badly un-funny. Even things that should have been hilarious end up being slightly somber. But this is usually "camouflaged" by the fact that Disney's films (way back when) were so "different" that the lack of comic flair was just not noticed. The special effects, songs and acting talent tending to overwhelm the senses. The glare of Disney Magic made it difficult to see that what was missing here was a good laugh.

I saw this film as an eight-year-old and thought it was daft. As an old man, I can see what's wrong with it. It's as if the Disney studio simply had no one who could make a funny film-- and Disney's lack of a sense of humor probably contributed to that situation. It's sad, really, The cast of this film could have, and should have, been able to pull of some real hilarity-- but the guy who made this seems to have been unaware of the nature of comedy.

"In Search of the Castaways" is like a case-study on how NOT to do comedy. I mean, all the ingredients of a rollicking, ethnically targeted laugh-fest are there-- pompous Englishman? Check. Goofy Frenchman? Check. Naive little kids? Check. Silly young fellow with more courage than brains? WOOF! Now put that all together with a script that features unthinkable adventures, unimaginable stupidities, unholy stereotypes and unwavering optimism and you should have it all.

But it's as flat as a pancake. No juice. It may be funny now, to modern audiences, but that's for the wrong reasons. It should have been funny then, and it would have been if somebody with some comic talent had been in charge.

This movie should be studied in film school to demonstrate how comedy works by looking at the opposite. The timing is WAY off. The gags don't land because they are "way too soon" or "way too late." Serious-- even somber-- concepts are plunked down right before the laugh should appear. Way to blow it, Einstein!

No, this movie is a classic, but it's more of a cautionary tale than anything else. It could be a test to see if a director can do comedy. Show this, then ask how they would fix it. If they don't know-- you've got your answer.