Le retour du capitaine Nemo

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?"

I know this film was shown on local TV when I was a kid, but I can't remember whether I watched it or not; seeing it now, considering how utterly forgettable it is, I still don't know – so I counted it as a first viewing! There have been several films featuring the title character, a creation of visionary French author Jules Verne; these include: 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (1954; with James Mason in the role), MASTER OF THE WORLD (1961; Vincent Price), MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (1961; Herbert Lom), CAPTAIN NEMO AND THE UNDERWATER CITY (1969; Robert Ryan) and THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND OF CAPTAIN NEMO (1973; Omar Sharif).

This version stars Academy Award winner Jose' Ferrer. However, even if the premise itself isn't half-bad – awakened from suspended animation in his submarine, "The Nautilus", and finding himself in modern times, Nemo adopts all his ingenuity to aid the U.S. Navy in defeating megalomaniac scientist Burgess Meredith – it emerges as easily his most infantile adventure yet! For instance: five seconds into the film, Meredith's assistant – donning a steel mask – rants that "The World Shall Be Ours!"); equally hilarious are the zealous gesticulations of the similarly decked-out midget, whose task it is to fire The Professor's all-important "Delta Beam" - and how about those android-type minions aboard Meredith's vessel who never seem to do much of anything?!

Ferrer manages to maintain his dignity throughout, but Meredith is an embarrassment (in what is virtually a retread of his Penguin characterization from the 1960s BATMAN TV series and film) where the budget was so tight – mostly invested in bland production design and shoddy special effects, no doubt, and both evidently influenced by STAR WARS (1977) – that, apparently, they couldn't even afford him a decent costume (he looks positively idiotic wearing a tie in a sub)! The supporting cast includes Mel Ferrer (playing a saboteur in the vein of Joan Fontaine from another Irwin Allen production, VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA [1961], and who engages in a swashbuckling routine with his namesake inside the engine-room of "The Nautilus"), Lynda Day George (unsurprisingly, she's the only female character around) and Horst Buchholz (as the King Of Atlantis – for whatever reason, Nemo is obsessed with locating the famed Lost Continent).

By the way, having been reduced from a three-part mini-series for theatrical exhibition, the film obviously feels choppy – though one is still able to discern where one episode ended and another began.

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.

I fondly remember watching this show when it first aired in 1978. I was very excited about it thanks to previews in Starlog magazine, and had been waiting for it for months. I videotaped all three episodes on my dad's Betamax. I was 11.

I enjoyed it, but even at 11 I was *very* aware that it was, at root, a retread of the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea premise about a super-sub and it's super-genius owner/builder who save the world from certain annihilation every week. The sets were similar to Voyage ones, the feel of the show was similar, and at one point during a dive scene, we even get a few bars of the old Voyage theme music. I would not have been surprised if Admiral Nelson or the Seaview showed up at some point, it was just that similar. (And I later found out that the Nautilus miniature was actually a heavily re-worked Seaview miniature!) That said, it wasn't that good. I enjoyed it as only an 11-year-old weaned on crappy Irwin Allen shows can, but I was very much aware that it wasn't a really great show. It's about on par w/ some of the 4th season episodes of Voyage: watchable, but kinda' lame. Not only was it derivative of Allen's earlier work (And even managed to use a lot of stock footage), it had a strong dose of "Whatever people like right now" so you had shootouts very similar to the ones in Star Wars in corridors that resembled those of the Death Star, etc.

I'm a bit confused about the production, however: This aired as a 'series' that ran for 3 weeks, and wrapped up it's entire storyline. Years later, I saw it as a movie version that included - as far as I can tell - all of the 3 episodes of the series. I get the feeling this was perhaps filmed as a 2-hour-and-change movie, and then chopped into three parts to fill a hole in CBS' schedule or something.

I wouldn't mind watching it again, just to see how fuzzy my memory has gotten, but I didn't mind too much when it got canceled.