As Grandes Aventuras do Capitão Grant

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.

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 ****

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.