Mysterious Island

saw this as a kid & loved it...re-watched with my Mum, & it was still as good as I remembered. Joan Greenwood was just brilliant, & Percy Herbert, a very underrated actor, manages to get drunk on one sip of ancient rum!!! Loved the 'monsters'....although one very obvious one missing - you have to watch it & see if you think the same when Michael Craig's character views the cave!!!!

was hoping for more of a story and could of been better. the stop motion work is good though, but is only worth watching once

Excellent special effects and all round good family fun.

Somebody at a pub quiz i attended once thought Captain Nemo invented the Aqua-lung which made me laugh .All very funny but what has this got to do with the 1961 film Mysterious Island? Based on a Jules Verne story , itself a follow up to his other books 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea & In Search Of The Castaways Mysterious Island has a significant cameo for Captain Nemo( given considerable gravitas by Herbert Lom ) who is portrayed as a zealous humanist though not without uncompromising homicidal tendencies -an oxymoron i suppose.

The film starts with Union soldiers escaping from a Confederate prison camp in a hot air balloon . A violent storm propels them way out to sea where the balloon crashes and the group - Captain Cyrus Harding ( Michael Craig ) ,Corporal Neb Nugent ( Dan Jackson) Sergeant Pencroft( Percy Herbert) Gideon Spillit(Gary Merrill) are washed up on a seemingly deserted island.( the island scenes were shot in Spain , the rest in England) As luck would have it the same storm has also made castaways of Lady Mary Fairchild(Joan Greenwood) and her niece Elena ( Beth Rogan) so the group set about trying to survive until they can either escape or are rescued.

Surviving to do either will be difficult though because as well as being attacked by a giant crab, a giant bird ( regularly mistaken for a chicken but special effects guru Ray Harryhausen based it on a prehistoric creature ) encountering gigantic bees the group also run into marauding Pirates. But help arrives in an unlikely form and it turns out this individual has an altruistic agenda for all humanity and the beasties on the island have been bio -engineered in order to alleviate world hunger.

It’s this final spin on the tale that elevates Mysterious Island above usual b-movie shenanigans -though obviously there is still lots of that going on as well and very enjoyable it is too. The special effects are ,as ever with Harryhausen , top notch and the screenplay by John Prebble, Crane Wilbur. Daniel B Wilbur and the direction By Cy Endfield have wit and verve that make this a terrific guilt free romp. There is also some splendidly stirring music courtesy of Bernard Hermann . The DVD has some worthy extras too with a great featurette on Harryhausen narrated portentously by Leonard Nimoy. Like many films from that era Mysterious Island also has a certain charm that you just don’t seem to find in modern films of this ilk as the dire remake starring Vinnie Jones as a truly execrable pirate proves. That really is a mystery that does need solving .

RIP Jacques Cousteau & Emile Gagnan -the real inventors of the Aqua-lung .

this is quite dated now, but if you like a classic jules verne type adventure its an enjoyable watch.