20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

In 1868, shipping becomes a nightmare, since vessels are vanishing the in the South Seas. The tabloids attribute the disappearances of the ships to an existence of a sea monster. The US government invites Prof. Pierre Arronax (Paul Lukas) and his assistant Conseil (Peter Lorre) to investigate what is really happening and they embark in a ship navigating to the Orient. In the crew, Ned Land (Kirk Douglas) is a happy member. After a long period on the open sea, a submarine, the Nautilaus, commanded by Captain Nemo (James Mason), attacks the steamship. Prof. Arronax, Conseil and Ned are rescued by the submarine, and share the dreams and madness of Captain Nemo. Although being a 1954 film, "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" is a great and funny adventure, which has not aged. The adaptation of Julio Verne's novel "on the screen" is a great entertainment recommended for all families. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "20.000 Léguas Submarinas" ("20,000 Leagues Submarines")

This is not my absolute favourite of the live action Disney movies but I am still very fond of it. The pacing can be sluggish on occasions, but compensates hugely are the acting, special effects and the way the story is told. The special effects even after all these years are still highly impressive, and the locations are beautiful. The score is rousing too, and the story is superbly told complete with some clever dialogue. The direction is adept, and the acting is excellent. James Mason plays the cantankerous captain with a certain grit and presence that makes him so compelling to watch, while Kirk Douglas is his usual likable self. All in all, not a favourite but a very impressive film. 8/10 Bethany Cox

The Disney studio's first American-made live-action spectacle remains one of its best,thanks to James Mason's portrayal of Jules Verne's anti-hero submarine commander,Captain Nemo,as a misguided Victorian-era terrorist. Mason brings such feline assurance to the part that he makes Kirk Douglas' hound-dog overacting as captive harpoonist Ned Land a forgivable counterpart. Disney milked every promotional angle for the film's debut which was the studio's first feature to filmed in widescreen Cinemascope and breathtaking Technicolor. It went on to become of the top ten highest-grossing pictures of that year,going up against contenders like "On The Waterfront",not to mention a horror-film as well intitled "The Creature From The Black Lagoon". It also went on to win several Oscars for special effects and for its cimematopgraphy. It was included in the Best Actor category with a nomination for James Mason's brilliant performance as Nemo.

The film is a classic and it stands behind several other Disney films which include "Old Yeller","The Parent Trap",and also "Mary Poppins".

The DVD version is out on this which includes several batches of goodies including the excerpts from the classic Disneyland TV show cannily plugging the picture,and also includes the theatrical trailer,and interviews with actors Kirk Douglas,James Mason,director Richard Fleischer with footage of scenes where the film was being shot at on locations in Florida and in the Bahamas. The movie itself is a breathtaking achievement and it includes the scene where the submarine the Nautilus rams a ship into the abyss,and the scene where the crew tangles with a bloodthirsty squid,and an encounter with a giant octopus under the depths. See It On DVD in the widescreen format! Rating: 5 stars.

Magnificent adaptation based on Jules Verne's fantasy-adventure novel with good cast and extraordinary scenarios . New take on for cinema , filmed in Cinemascope widescreen with agreeable casting and an awesome James Mason as Nemo. The film talks about the known story from Jules Verne novel and previously rendered in a silent film . 1868 ,the oceans are no longer safe , many ships have been lost, the sailors have returned to New England's fishing port with tales of vicious giant whale with long horn . The naturist and biologist expert named professor Pierre Aronnax ( Paul Lukas) and assistant Conseil (Peter Lorre) undertake a dangerous mission . Aronnax and his helper , along with a professional whaler named Ned Land( Kirk Douglas) join forces in an expedition commanded by captain Farragut (Ted De Corsia) that attempts to unravel the mysterious sinking ships by an unknown creature . Aboard the ship called USS Abrahan Lincoln , they go out to investigate . At sea, Professor Aronnax was aboard the ship when Nautilus rammed it and threw the Professor, his helper and Ned Land into the water .Their ship is sunk and are captured and get thoroughly involved with power-hungry captain Nemo ( James Mason) and take an extraordinary adventure underseas in an advanced submarine called Nautilus. Prisoners at first, they are now treated as guests to view the underwater world and to hunt under the waves. Nemo will also tells them about the riveting submarine of the future and the revenge that has driven him for all these years .

This fantastic movie displays sensational adventures, drama, intrigue, marvelous scenarios and is pretty enjoyable. Fascinating submarine movie blends action, , disaster spectacle, hokey fun ,suspense and emotional happenings . Our heroes incarnated by a throughly believable casting of the first-rate character players get stuck in the ship before the island explodes , undergoing numerous adventures and suffering innumerable perils . Surprise-filled entertainment and with plenty of action on grand scale with breathtaking special effects and some ships and submarine by maquette or scale model . The underwater scenes , explosions , pyrotechnics, flood , flamboyant FX to make large-size Octopus seem like horrible monster , all of them are spectacular and the film is another exceptional Hollywood product . However, overlong runtime is not boring but is entertaining and amusing . Memorable and great cast as James Mason plays a serious revenger captain Nemo ; Paul Lukas plays perfectly Annorax as intelligent scientific ; and Ned Land played by Kirk Douglas as an obstinate , stubborn sailor who spends most of their time devising intelligent ways for escape , in addition singing a catching song titled ¨A whale for a tale ¨ . Atmospheric and vivid score by Paul Smith . Colorful cinematography by Franz Planer in Cinemascope and Technicolor reflecting wonderfully underwater scenes . Filmed on location in Jamaica and Caribbe and interior scenes in Burbank studios. This splendid picture is lavishly produced by Walt Disney Productions. Won deservedly Academy Award for Special Effects by Hench and Meador and extraordinary participation from Peter Ellenshaw and Ub Iwerks ; besides achieved Oscar for Art Direction by Meehan and Goff.

This classic movie is marvelously directed by Richard Fleischer. Other versions from the vintage story are an old mute (1916) by Stuart Paton , and for TV directed by Rod Hardy with Michael Caine , Mia Sara and Patrick Dempsey ; and directed by Michael Anderson with Ben Cross and Richard Crenna ; furthermore a cartoon movie directed by Arthur Rankin. The motion picture will appeal to fantasy-adventure buffs and it's a wonderful popcorn story . Rating : Above average , the mightiest motion picture of them all, it's a real winner .

The Walt Disney film of 1954, "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" is nothing short of a masterpiece within its genre. While comparing it to "Gone With The Wind" or "Citizen Kane" might be done by others in calling "Leagues" a 'masterpiece', it would be comparing apples to oranges, for this epic, while not overlong as are most masterpieces, it is completely contained to tell a gripping story with wonder acting, production values and the special effects of the day.

It is had to know where to begin to list the wonderful achievements here, especially in adapting a book of almost a thousand pages, much of it filled with endless lists of the fish and fauna of the sea, of which Jules Verne was especially fond. Such was unfilmable, of course, and the script writer, Earl Felton, was wise in paring down the verbosity of the novel, which, of course, was the usual for the prolix Victorian style of Verne's day. From that wonderful opening of the titles shown against lush drapery illuminated by rippling water reflections of the undersea cast upon it, to the beginning of the inspired, majestic score by Paul J. Smith, one is transported to a fantastic time and place and the artistry to come is well intoned. Customarily, the Director is given the lion's share of the credit for a film's success, but here it is an almost perfect melding of the story, the acting and the visuals as well as the music that combine with seeming effortlessness to entertain.

James Mason as Capt. Nemo is superb, with his wonderful bearing and diction lending the aura of both contained madness and yet sympathetic grace to a character who could have been so easily overplayed. Disney wisely selected Kirk Douglas and Peter Lorre as the physical foils of Nemo and to provide the comic and action relief. Had this not been done, the intellectual bearings of Nemo and Paul Lukas' Professor Arronax would have overloaded and stilted the film, rather the way they do in the novel. Some take exception to the device of "Esmeralda" the seal, but that too is a needed counterpoint to the otherwise dark theme of the implied mission of the Nautilus: the destruction of warships that spread "man's inhumanity to man." Such is the skill of the spare dialogue in the film that one never is hit over the head with the sermon of the hopelessness and wickedness of war and the nations that sponsor it. This film carries the message of the novel, but it never looses sight of its first purpose, which is to entertain. Even the implied nuclear destruction is not trumpeted, but only alluded to, since such energy source was unknown to Jules Verne in the 19th Century, of course, but was highly topical in the 1950s.

One of the glories of the movie is the marked artistry in all the careful details in the film. It was just then that the USA was planning its first nuclear submarines, the first of which was even named the "Nautilus" in memory of this immensely popular film. But the art director, John Meehan, the production designer, Harper Goff, and the set decorator, Emile Kuri, were never carried away by allusions to then modern technology, but kept faith with the setting of the day, by making the ship a wonderful creature-like form, the interiors a skillful blend of needed science for function, coupled with a lush decor that bespoke not only the Victorian times, but also the sensitivity of man of its genius of design. Look at the touches: the electric iris covering the massive bubble window, the fountain in the captain's drawing room, complete with an artistic pipe organ properly intoning Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D-minor, as most appropriate. Even the uniforms and upholstery are embroidered with the 'N' of Nemo's monogram as are the galloons on the edges of the draperies. The inventiveness of the electric charge upon the hull is also one of the clever devices to invoke the future, yet help make the existence of the undersea ship believable.

Everyone who sees this epic will always remember, the night scene of a hand-to-tentacle fight with a giant squid, as truly unforgettable and most appropriate again, for it was only a few years before that the first complete corpse of such a squid was found in complete form and thereby documented what others had only written of. This film exceeded its class in that day and age, yet even if equal actors could have been found for the earlier versions, they would have been too early to truly depict the vision of Jules Verne's technology of the future.

Some have criticized that the entire novel was not on film, but were the entire book to be filmed, it would exceed five hours, and Disney knows that even with the finest production, a film must be limited to approximately two hours in order to get both an audience willing to sit through it, as well as exhibitors willing to show it. In making a movie, the constraints are much more severe than in writing a novel; a movie is a collaboration of many people and many conflicting desires and egos must be assuaged. The flow of an entertaining story is paramount, since this was never to be a documentary. Each actor's agent works to try to get the maximum time on screen for his client, which gets maximum credit and fee for the actor. The limitations of filming such an imaginative novel also created large costs which the producers would try to show on screen to justify it all to the accountants, since a film is created with the aim of making a profit for the studio and its investors. We must agree that they succeeded in making one of the most interesting and visually spectacular films ever made, whereas the book contained a great deal of unfilmable ichthyology that was more of an excursus into the expertise of Jules Verne than any dramatic device. All in all, I think that were Jules Verne alive in 1954, he would have been well pleased with this celluloid version of his epic story.