Il mistero dei due oceani

This film done in 2 parts (1955/56) seems at first to be a very James Bondian espionage film with sci-fi elements thrown in.....Ultimately it winds up almost like a Gerry Anderson style live action flick...Which is not a bad thing.

It involves enemy agents (from an unknown nation but it may be assumed it was the US) that have secret automated facilities set up in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans for the purposes of sinking ships.

The super submarine "Pioneer" and it's intrepid crew is dispatched to find the source of these mysterious sinking's...Unknown to the captain, his chief engineer is working for the bad guys, intent on stopping their efforts, at any cost...It seems the real chief had a twin brother who was a circus acrobat who murdered and replaced him.

There's a lot of subplot here...

Ultimately the ruse is discovered thanks to an intrepid diver, a kid rescued from one of the shipwrecks and the sub's female doctor...Who almost winds up as fish food when the engineer pulls her into the airlock during his escape....This, after leaving a time bomb on board...Nice guy!

The chief swims (with the help of a marvelous diving suit) to an Island where the fully automated hi tech base is located..As he comes ashore there are strange Easter Island-like statues that bear a remarkable resemblance to Elvis!

The chief, using voice recognition tech gains entrance to the facility In a set that would make James Bond's set designer Ken Adam drool the chief launches a whole series of torpedoes aimed at the sub. They bear a remarkable similarity to Star Trek's photon models...

The hero, discovering that the airlock's been sabotaged rides a torpedo to the island and subdues the chief..and destroys the torpedoes.

The special effects which are usually first class in most Russian films, run from so-so to pathetic....Looking like Derek Meddings' earliest efforts in programs like SuperCar...One cannot fault the imagination packed into this film though....The design of the sub was very interesting and unique, and the gadgets and design within had an oddly deco look to them. Sadly, the sub suffers from the "bigger on the inside, smaller on the outside" syndrome, as there was an actual "full sized" floating set used for surface shots.

Interestingly enough I found several films that came later that used major elements of this Soviet cold war thriller...."Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea-1961" "Atomic Submarine-1959" "Atragon-1963" "Latitude Zero-1969" "Thunderball-1965"......ETC....ETC.

There are scenes that indicate the film makers had seen Disney's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (1954) as well as Metro's "Mysterious Island"-(1929). The diving suits look like a cross between those seen in the two aforementioned films.

There are enough gadgets and goodies in this film to make even the most avid James Bond buff blush!....How about a grand piano that's a secret code transmitter or a device that looks like a retractable tape measure that will support a man's weight and allow him to scale the sides of buildings, that and a really spiffy car chase.

It's a very talky film - typically Russian in it's context,

but ultimately worth seeing - IF you're lucky enough to find a copy!

The film is adapted from Ukrainian writer Grigori Adamov's 1939 novel of the same name. Directed by Georgian filmmaker Konstantin Pipinashvili, the film was shot in Georgia, then a part of the Soviet Union. While this movie is often credited with kickstarting the second wave of science fiction films in Soviet cinema, its original title and most of the surviving records about it are in Georgian, not Russian. Unfortunately, due to the lack of archival awareness in Georgia, very little remains from the film itself or its production notes.

The film deviates significantly from the book, restructured with numerous additions to serve as a vehicle for heavy Soviet propaganda.

In literature and cinema, fantastical fiction, while not explicitly encouraged in the early Soviet period, was at least not prohibited. During the 1920s, before dictator Josef Stalin began perceiving science fiction and fantasy as subversive, Russia produced a handful of experimental and intriguing science fiction films. However, apart from a few carefully monitored propaganda films, there was virtually no science fiction output from the Eastern Bloc in the 1930s and 1940s. It is no coincidence that the resurgence of Russian science fiction on screen began after the dictator's death in 1953. In 1956 and 1957, two ocean-themed science fiction films were released: Tayna vechnoy nochi (The Mystery of the Eternal Night, 1956) and this one.

The visual effects in this film are abysmal; rear projection was used for backgrounds, but even this was executed poorly.

In comparison, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, released three years earlier, handled these elements with remarkable precision.

One might wonder, "Were the USSR and the US producing similar works despite the Cold War?" Indeed, Soviet filmmakers could import high-quality Eastmancolor film stock from the US for certain high-profile projects. However, it seems unlikely that this film utilized such material, opting instead for the Sovcolor system, which, while popular in the USSR at the time, had poor color fidelity and resulted in visually taxing imagery.

Creating the IMDb and Wikipedia pages for this film was particularly challenging. The Ukrainian and Russian entries were riddled with repetitive inaccuracies, while the Georgians had contributed virtually nothing to online platforms.

It is truly heartbreaking to witness the disappearance of certain films into obscurity.

In order for Stalin to wrest power from and crush the early revolutionary Soviet Union he had to imprison and kill millions of revolutionary's (disbanding the society of Old Bolshivics) and any one who he perceived as a threat to him and his degenerate bureaucratic castes privileges. During the Moscow frameup trials ever member of Lenin's Politbureau was tried and executed with the exception of Trotsky who was tried in absentia and later murdered in Mexico. Stalin saw plots every where. Engineers, Doctors, workers, peasants, military officers and people from ever part and segment of society. You constantly had to keep up with the "Great Georgian's" latest idea or risk prison and death. This movie like James Bond reflects the Stalinist and Bourgeoisie view alike that history is made by plotters and coup d'etat not the view that history is made and being made by the masses of working people. It may make good fiction but bad politics. To see the difference check out early Soviet movies and Cuban movies where questions like bureaucracy and revolution are the subjects.