L'isola misteriosa

Mysterious Island is a loose adaptation of Jules Verne's novel of the same name. It's out of Columbia Pictures and was filmed at Shepperton Studios in England with exteriors on the coast of Spain. Directed by Cy Endfield, with Ray Harryhausen working his stop motion genius for the creatures, it stars Michael Craig, Joan Greenwood, Michael Callan, Gary Merrill, Herbert Lom, Beth Rogan, Percy Herbert & Dan Jackson. Bernard Herrmann provides the score.

The plot sees three Union soldiers escaping in a gas balloon from a Confederate prison camp during the American Civil War. Also caught up in the escape is a Confederate rebel and a newspaperman. As they battle the elements they are forced to crash land on some island they think is in the Pacific. Here they encounter giant animals that threaten their survival. Soon two ladies are shipwrecked onto the island too, but the strange animals are not the only thing to worry about, the island volcano is close to eruption and they appear to not be the only humans on the island?

Though something of a lesser light in the pantheon of fantasy adventure films, Mysterious Island, in spite of its flaws, is rather good fun. Dramatically it's OK, with the creatures particularly memorable, but those in search of a science story befitting Jules Verne are in for a let down (though some small science interest does come in the last quarter). This is an out and out desert island survival movie with some Harryhausen kickers. There's a nice group dynamic as soldiers from opposing sides are forced to come together to survive. While the arrival of "posh stock" ladies throws up a class distinction issue, that is nice, if not fully exploited.

There's the usual clichés of course, and as much as I enjoyed it as a red blooded man, did they really need to make Beth Rogan's newly made island dress the shortest in the land? And true enough, some of the matte paintings and effects have aged better in our childhood memories than actually on the print of the film. It's nicely photographed by Wilkie Cooper in Eastman Color using the Super-Dynamation process, but the film also suffers in parts for the restoration. For the prints that exist on DVD now are beset by spotting, fading and scratches. While of course the resolution now shows the flaws of the source material that were once never evident.

Still this is a must have film for fantasy adventure enthusiasts.Yes, as with many Harryhausen based movies, the action sequences involving his creations light up an episodic picture. But with giant animals intent on eating our survivors, a Vernian turn of events in the last quarter, Herrmann's brilliant bombastic score and Rogan's dress! Who cares about routine narrative eh? 7/10

I don't believe that you can make a bad film of a Jules Verne story. Some better than others, some inferior ones, but not a bad film. The plots and the characters were born for the screen. If Verne had been born later and allowed full credit control in writing and producing films, what films they would have been.

Mysterious Island with the help of that other creative genius Ray Harryhausen concerns some Union soldiers who escape from a Confederate prison in a Confederate observation balloon. There's also one Confederate stowaway as well.

In what is described as the greatest storm in American history this balloon is blown WAAAAAAAAAAAAY off course and they land on an island they later learn is 1000 miles from New Zealand. And what a place with all kinds of giant creatures, crabs, bees, and even a giant chicken all brought to life by Ray Harryhausen with some of his best work.

The man responsible for all this is Captain Nemo late of the Nautilus which it turns out was not sunk as written by Verne in 20000 Leagues Under The Sea, but rather limped into its home base by Herbert Lom in a measured and calculated performance. Nemo has reassessed his life and now thinks that instead of blowing up the ships of war from every nation, he should work toward providing abundance for man. Hence he pioneers organic food and that giant wildlife is part of the experiment.

Two women also are shipwrecked as well Beth Rogan and her aunt Joan Greenwood. Michael Craig and Michael Callan are Union soldiers, Percy Herbert who usually plays cockney characters didn't quite get the southern accent down for the Rebel hitchhiker and Gary Merrill is the war correspondent whose got the best lines and the best story in history and no way to report it out.

All the human players however pale in comparison to Ray Harryhausen's animation monsters. Mysterious Island which while not a faithful telling of Verne's story is still good entertainment, as good as I remember it at 14 seeing it in the theater.

Harryhausen crossed Jules Verne with King Kong in his version of Mysterious Island, giving the author's Civil War castaways something really mysterious to look at for a change. The result is a Skull Island-style adventure with a nifty 19th century set-up, and one of the stop-motion maestro's most satisfying films. Harryhausen movies are at their best when Harryhausen is unabashedly the star—-as he is here in Mysterious Island. From this high-water mark in the early Sixties, Harryhausen's films slowly began to shipwreck on two constantly reiterated movie-making clichés. First, writers began to tell Harryhausen that his effects ought to be better integrated into the overall plot, that they ought not to be isolated set pieces sprinkled through the picture like plums in a fruitcake. Secondly, critics continued to repeat the old film music legend that movie scoring is best when it fades unnoticed into the background. Both of these old saws were, in fact, horrible lies. And Mysterious Island is great because Harryhausen and his composer were still refusing to take any notice of them. The effects sequences in Mysterious Island aren't plums in a fruitcake, they're solos in a symphony, they're like the soliloquies in Shakespeare. And Bernard Herrmann's scoring for these episodes is in your face…as it should be. It jumps up and screams "THIS IS A SET-PIECE…AND A GREAT ONE. KICK BACK AND ENJOY IT!" And this, once again, is as it should be. The truth is, that stop-motion isn't an effects technique. It's an art form. If you can't enjoy it for it's own sake, then you can't enjoy it. Every attempt Harryhausen later made to "integrate" his stuff just encouraged people to take it seriously--as a serious attempt, that is, to duplicate reality. Which it isn't. We go to a Harryhausen film for Harryhausen, just as we go to a Chaplin film for Chaplin. If you came in for some other reason, then you picked the wrong movie. That said, Mysterious Island really does work, I think, as a 60s "Jules Verne" picture. The period atmosphere is some of the best in any of those movies and the interesting Nautilus variation we see here is fun to look at in its own right. The acting is quite good also, and Cy Endfield is one of the better Harryhausen directors. But the Verne elements are really just the frame around the picture. Like I said, go for Ray's monsters--then go out and tell the world.

Mysterious Island is a very political movie as it progresses, which is a sign of the times as opposed to the very traditional Journey to the Center of the Earth which was released just two years earlier. While Journey to the Center of the Earth was absolutely magical, Mysterious Island is explosive and dynamic. The magic is on hand, with wondrous shots and music to go along with the island's flora and fauna. The movie is also extremely charismatic. Michael Craig is too good to be true as the lead, Captain Cyrus Harding, but he has a hard edge that gets respect. The supporting players, especially Gary Merrill and Percy Herbert, more then pull their weight. Merrill's role reminds me a little of Dr. Smith from Lost in Space, and Percy Herbert is a gas as Pentcroft. Neb's character is treated like one of the gang, although I believe that Union regiments in the Civil War were either all white or all black so it is somewhat unrealistic. Indeed, how the character's mix together for the good of all is a hallmark of the movie. The strengthening of Michael Callan's character seems to be a major plot point but it gets lost along the way and is moot when Nemo shows up. Beth Rogan is sexy as Elena and the Lady Mary Faichild character ( I can't remember the actresses' name) shoots the movie full of musky, female intensity. The special effects are brilliant and (I hate to keep harping on it) blow away the "movie within a movie" digital nonsense of today. The bees are worth the price of admission alone and the movements of the crab are top notch. When Nemo arrives, the movie gets so political that I feel that I'm back in college. Herbert Lom is a little too snitty for me as Nemo but he's a cool guy and is great in other things so I accept him. The music is absolutely awesome and is one of my favorite musical scores of all time. A grossly underrated movie overall that is clearly meant to manipulate at the end. Along with Journey to the Center of the Earth, this movie would look incredible back on the big screen.

While most critics, and fans alike, consider Harryhausen's "Jason and the Argonauts" (released two years later) to be the apex of the special effects master's career, "Mysterious Island" stands as one of his best, also. Loosely based on the Jules Verne 19th century novel, the film boasts some memorable special effects wizardry: an awesome escape from a Confederate prison via balloon, the giant crab, the prehistoric "chicken," the bees, and a cool Nautilus - closely resembling Disney's version from "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." The cast is good, beginning with Michael Craig as the leader of the band of island dwellers. Gary Merrill, who at once was the husband of legend Bette Davis, as well as her co-star in "All About Eve," is effective as the war correspondent that serves as the voice of reason among the band, along with being the group's cook. Herbert Lom does a great "Nemo," significantly different from James Mason's interpretation in the Disney classic. English actress Joan Greenwood is appropriately aristocratic as "Lady Fairchild." But, it is Harryhausen's effects, along with Bernard Herrmann's brilliant score, that elevate this to one of the best fantasies of the 60's.

Filmed at a brisk pace, the story never lets up, keeping the viewer captivated until the thrilling conclusion.