Le retour du capitaine Nemo

Two years after Irwin Allen did some of his best work with his Time Travelers TV movie, he did some of his worst with this summer replacement series. I remember rather liking this back then. Revisiting it via the recently released Amazing Captain Nemo DVD, it's nothing like what I thought I remembered. It was much less fun and exciting. I think I'll stick with my memories. Thanks to the Towering Inferno and the Poseidon Adventure, Allen earned the sobriquet, "Master of Disaster." With this, that was certainly accurate. It was definitely a disaster.

The plot made no sense at all. At one point, Nemo tells Tom to set his hand weapon to stun because "We are not murderers." Never mind that a stunned scuba diver would probably drown, probably a less pleasant death. Only minutes later, they utterly destroy the villain's submarine, so presumably everyone onboard is killed. The Atlanteans appear to be able to breathe water, but Nemo insists that they take his mini-sub to escape. Amazing Captain Nemo, edited down to two hours from several episodes, was even worse. The editing was completely haphazard, jumping from scene to scene at times and being hard to follow.

This cast was utterly forgettable. Jose Ferrer chews the scenery but does little else, once flinging his cape backwards as if he were auditioning for Phantom of the Opera. Tom Hallick, who had previously appeared on Allen's Time Travelers, was okay, but the character was about as two-dimensional as they come, like all of the other characters. Lynda Day George stood around as decoration but didn't actually do anything to help the crew.

A superior undersea effort came a year earlier, with the Man from Atlantis TV movie. That also featured a former Batman guest villain, namely Victor Buono (King Tut) while this had Burgess Meredith (the Penguin). That movie also featured mind control devices. Was Allen cribbing again? Like most Irwin Allen works, there was no character development here. Nemo is stuffy and good. Cunningham is crabby and evil. The Navy pair are loyal. Nobody grows or changes at all through the series.

Allen stole from everything this time. It's no accident that the corridor on Professor Cunningham's sub resembles the one from the beginning of Star Wars. Even the music during that fight shamelessly apes John Williams' iconic score, but without the master's touch. Allen reused (twice!) a shot of two mines colliding and exploding, taken from his 1961 Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea movie.

Just how chintzy was the budget? The filming model of the villain's submarine was recognizably built using major parts from a model kit of the Space: 1999 Eagle, which you could buy from any hobby store at the time for less than $10. Maybe that's why they called it the Raven. I can't imagine any other reason why someone would name an undersea vehicle after an aerial creature. To mask the poor effects, every "underwater" shot was filled with swirling particles and silt. There were "robots" in cheap rubber masks and spray-painted wetsuits. The mask on Tor muffled the actor's voice and they never bothered to even dub it, even though it would have been easy since there were no lip movements to match. Not that hearing him more clearly would have been a blessing. His lines were monotonous, ridiculous ones like, "Aliens live! Aliens must be destroyed!" If you must watch one of Irwin Allen's undersea works, I strongly suggest going with his Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea series instead. That was ten times better than this. Or better yet, get the 1961 Voyage theatrical movie with Walter Pidgeon and Barbara Eden.

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.

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.

Thanks for reading

Resume:

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

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 is sort of a "1930s Serial as done by Irwin Allen". Imagine what Republic or Mascot could have done with 1970s movie technology. Superb special effects, the acting ranges from good to hammy, the dialog often inane, the premise preposterous, but if you don't take it too seriously, it's fun, a good rainy/snowy afternoon entertainment. It does contain one of my favorite movie scenes however. When the two Navy officers awaken Captain Nemo and he starts to talk about his crew and his ship, one of them says: "But Captain Nemo was a character in a book by Jules Verne!" To which he replies: "Had it perhaps occurred to you that that writer was a biographer as well as a novelist?"