★ 7 / 10
What I did was in the name of
John Chard
What I did was in the name of peace. Your war, like all wars, glories in devastation and death. Mysterious Island is a loose adaptation of Jules Verne's novel…
What I did was in the name of peace. Your war, like all wars, glories in devastation and death.
Mysterious Island is a loose adaptation of Jules Verne's novel of the same name. It's out of Columbia Pictures and was filmed at Shepperton Studios in England with exteriors on the coast of Spain. Directed by Cy Endfield, with Ray Harryhausen working his stop motion genius for the creatures, it stars Michael Craig, Joan Greenwood, Michael Callan, Gary Merrill, Herbert Lom, Beth Rogan, Percy Herbert & Dan Jackson. Bernard Herrmann provides the score.
The plot sees three Union soldiers escaping in a gas balloon from a Confederate prison camp during the American Civil War. Also caught up in the escape is a Confederate rebel and a newspaperman. As they battle the elements they are forced to crash land on some island they think is in the Pacific. Here they encounter giant animals that threaten their survival. Soon two ladies are shipwrecked onto the island too, but the strange animals are not the only thing to worry about, the island volcano is close to eruption and they appear to not be the only humans on the island?
Though something of a lesser light in the pantheon of fantasy adventure films, Mysterious Island, in spite of its flaws, is rather good fun. Dramatically it's OK, with the creatures particularly memorable, but those in search of a science story befitting Jules Verne are in for a let down (though some small science interest does come in the last quarter). This is an out and out desert island survival movie with some Harryhausen kickers. There's a nice group dynamic as soldiers from opposing sides are forced to come together to survive. While the arrival of "posh stock" ladies throws up a class distinction issue, that is nice, if not fully exploited.
There's the usual clichés of course, and as much as I enjoyed it as a red blooded man, did they really need to make Beth Rogan's newly made island dress the shortest in the land? And true enough, some of the matte paintings and effects have aged better in our childhood memories than actually on the print of the film. It's nicely photographed by Wilkie Cooper in Eastman Color using the Super-Dynamation process, but the film also suffers in parts for the restoration. For the prints that exist on DVD now are beset by spotting, fading and scratches. While of course the resolution now shows the flaws of the source material that were once never evident.
Still this is a must have film for fantasy adventure enthusiasts.Yes, as with many Harryhausen based movies, the action sequences involving his creations light up an episodic picture. But with giant animals intent on eating our survivors, a Vernian turn of events in the last quarter, Herrmann's brilliant bombastic score and Rogan's dress! Who cares about routine narrative eh? 7/10
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★ 7 / 10
A Fantastic and Enjoyable Adventure
claudio_carvalho
In 1865, during the siege of Richmond, Virginia, the union soldiers POW Captain Harding (Michael Craig), Neb (Dan Jackson) and Herbert (Michael Callan) escape…
In 1865, during the siege of Richmond, Virginia, the union soldiers POW Captain Harding (Michael Craig), Neb (Dan Jackson) and Herbert (Michael Callan) escape in a balloon during a storm with two confederate prisoners, Sergeant Pencroft (Percy Herbert) and the journalist Spilett (Gary Merrill). The uncontrollable wind takes the balloon to a mysterious island in the South Pacific in the area of New Zealand. Captain Harding self-proclaims the leader of the group and they look for food; sooner they discover that they are stranded in an island. Further, they are attacked by a giant crab that becomes their first meal. Along the days, they build a shelter and finds that the island is inhabited by giant animals. A couple of days later, they find two castaways on the beach, the aristocratic Lady Mary Fairchild (Joan Greenwood) and her sexy niece Elena (Beth Rogan). Later they find a trunk with weapons and instruments like sextant and shelter with a journal of a man left alone in the island by pirates. When the pirate vessel arrives in the island, they are helped by Captain Nemo (Herbert Lom) of the Nautilus, a submarine that had supposedly sunk in the coast of Mexico eight years ago. Nemo is famous as the man that tried to end strike among man. When the volcano begins activity, they need to leave the island to save their lives.
"Mysterious Island" is a fantastic and enjoyable adventure from the 60's that recall many films that I used to see in my childhood. The naive story has great special effects for a movie of almost fifty years ago, excellent music score and still is a wonderful family entertainment. While watching this movie, the costume of the sexy Ms. Beth Rogan called my attention and I glanced in a review an humorous comment from an IMDb User about the dress of this actress. Unfortunately in the modern world of satellites and communication, there are no more space for movies about lost worlds; maybe the exceptions are the TV series "Lost" and M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village". "Mysterious Island" is a highly recommended voyage to not only a lost world, but also to a time that has gone by. My vote is seven.
Title (Brazil): "A Ilha Misteriosa" ("The Mysterious Island")
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Worst Chicken Kiev recipe... EVER !!! :)