Le retour du capitaine Nemo

The Amazing Captain Nemo is a movie not worth searching out, but definitely worth watching if it's on TV late at night, when you don't take everything that is shown very seriously anymore. The movie has a deliciously nonsensical story about 2 Navy-commando's who accidentally find Captain Nemo and free him from stasis. After a 100 years, the Nautilus is still light years ahead of other submarines in terms of technology. When a mad scientist threatens the world in exchange for a ransom, Captain Nemo's help gets asked, even though he really wants to continue his search for Atlantis.

The movie is full of over-wrought cheesy dialogue, over-acting, and unbelievable technology, but that's really the movie's charm. The mad scientist's dialogue could be used, line-for-line, as samples in techno-songs; that's how campy it is. Jose Ferrer is really the right man for the role. Although I know him more for his serious roles in secret intelligence movies, he plays the role of the larger-than-life Nemo fantastically. A fun movie to watch on a bored Friday night.

Captain Nemo is still alive in 1978.

The Amazing Captain Nemo (aka three episode TV series The Return Of Captain Nemo) is an odd ball mix of TV's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964), TV's Batman (1966) and Star Wars (1977). This show is totally unique. There has never been anything like this ever before where these three classic titles all come together so well.

I was just 12 in 1978 when this appeared on Australian TV in 1978. I had spent the last few years of my life watching Irwin Allen sci-fic TV like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Lost In Space but they were all afternoon re-runs of something that was made in another decade. Nemo was NEW!

Even today I remember the constant TV advertising that played for seven days and seven nights before the show screened! Then on a Saturday night it appeared and one of the characters even mentions the year as being 1978, which really pushed the point that it was current. I seem to remember enjoying the show at the time but I was perhaps a bit too young to like the well spoken lines of Jose Ferrer as Captain Nemo and Burgess Meredith as the Batman-ish bad guy. Seeing the sub encounter a force field and having the crew get frozen in time was interesting to a 12 year old. But now let me move on to my adult reaction ....

Never dull for a second.

Outstanding Richard LaSalle score.

The not perfect submarine miniatures do the job (better than having CGI).

The acting/dialogue from the whole cast is first class. Not a single dud cast member, they all shine!

It has a sense of playful fun not seen in Irwin Allen's City Beneath The Sea (1971) and other Allen TV movies.

Don't expect the Captain Nemo of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1954) or the Mysterious Island (1961). This is Jose Ferrer's fun loving version of the character that reminds me of his work in the movie Cyrano de Bergerac (1950).

In a nutshell: don't listen to the critics of this film (aka three episode TV series), who cares if Irwin Allen took his name off it, if you love Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and 1966 Batman, you will love this 1978 take on Captain Nemo!

This show had a pretty good premise. It took the Jules Verne's legendary character of Captain Nemo and placed him in the modern day facing various threats to mankind. If C.B.S. who broadcast this as a mini-series back in the 70's had any sense, they would have made it into a regular series. Also, I know the science is pretty bad, but this was an action packed show.

This short lived television series based on a cryogenically frozen Captain Nemo coming to life in the latter part of the 20th century and and putting his Nautilus at the disposal of the USA whom he sees as the good guys. Of course it helps that Naval Intelligence undersea branch in the persons of Tom Hallick and Burr DeBenning discover him and thaw him out. They serve as first and second mates on detached duty from the navy.

His Nautilus even beats our nuclear submarines, but it isn't the Russians who have a better boat. It's arch villain Burgess Meredith as a mad scientist who wants to rule the world with a half human, half robot crew that wants that.

This film is compilation of three episodes of the television series. While it was done it must have been a hoot for both Jose Ferrer and Burgess Meredith. These guys were just loving trying to top the other in outrageous displays of ham acting. They make it a joy to watch this most inferior science fiction film.

Best line in the film was when Hallick says Captain Nemo was a figure of fiction, Ferrer says that Jules Verne was a biographer as well as a science fiction writer. From there get set for some ham a la mode.

What was planned to be a TV series "Return of Captain Nemo" the producer Irwin Allen already aware just in three episodes envisages a failure or something alike, thus they adjust all fulfilled episodes in a TV movie "The Amazing Captain Nemo" Irwin Allen's concept, also he brought his old whole crew to do it according his early standards of cinema fantastic.

In far off 1877 the Nautilus struck in a cliff on deep water, thus Captain Nemo disbanded Nautilus's crew to surface and to save the advanced submarine he enters in a suspended animation on cryogenic chamber and 101 years ahead thru a war games on pacific area two Naval Officer finding him there, through a shock wave he awakes in 1978, soon they invite Nemo to Nautilus repair on US's Naval shipyard's drydock in San Francisco, in the meantime a diabolic genius Prof. Waldo Cunningham (Burgess Meredith) is willing to vanish of map Washington by a delta beam if the USA's president pay him on billion dollars in gold, he has another high-tech submarine.

In exchange of Nautilus's repair and upgrade Mr. Miller (Warren Stevens) chief of secret service asking for a help to Nemo aiming for locate the wild Prof. Waldo and try stop the menace at Washington, the same US's naval officers joint in a Nemo assignment as Nautilus's crew members, Captain Nemo has an agreement with Mr. Miller after struggles against the evil Prof. Waldo if he accomplishes the task, will be free to pinpoint the sunk Atlantis civilization after Hercules's portals.

As said for a reviewer here I've rather the older miniatures instead any CGI process, aside it has some technical aspects that will against beyond imagination as Nautilus is stronger under high pressure on deepest waters that any highest advanced Atom Submarine available in late seventies, well we've to stand such outrageous benchmarking, the obsolete Nautilus has a handheld operation, instead the US's Submarine are driven by high-tech computer, the casting is fabulous, José Ferrer and Meredith got the show for themselves, the supporting is fine as well, a hybrid of Voyage from the Bottom of the Sea and Galactica with those hooded machine men with metallic voice, great fun indeed.

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First watch: 2023 / How many: 1 / Source: Youtube / Rating: 6.