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Thursday, March 25, 2021

MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (1961)

Giant Crab attack!
MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (1961). Director: Cy Endfield. 

Near the end of the Civil War, a group of Union soldiers, one rebel, and a war correspondent wind up in a balloon that gets caught in a major storm and dumps them on a large deserted island. On this mysterious island the men -- including Captain Harding (Michael Craig), young Herbert (Michael Callan), Sgt. Pencroft (Percy Herbert), Cpl. Neb Nugent (Dan Jackson) and Gideon Spilitt (Gary Merrill) -- encounter giant animals such as crabs and bees, and discover an unseen benefactor who turns out to be the infamous Captain Nemo (Herbert Lom). Jules Verne's novel has undergone a great many changes -- including the addition of the outsized monsters -- but it was a partial sequel to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. 

Michael Craig and Michael Callan
The big animals, of course, give FX wizard Ray Harryhausen a chance to exploit his stop-motion expertise, and we have very fluid crabs, bees, a big kind of chicken, and a bad-tempered squid with beady eyes. And then there's that outstanding score by Bernard Herrmann who brings every sequence vividly to life with his exciting music. Along with the aforementioned actors we have two shipwrecked ladies played ably by Beth Rogan and Joan Greenwood. Craig makes a handsome and authoritative captain, Merrill is amusing and adept as the newspaperman, and the others are all generally on target as well. 

Verdict: Very entertaining and colorful action-fantasy film. ***. 

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2 comments:

  1. angelman66March 29, 2021 at 5:34 PM

    I will look for this one. Michael Callan was very cute, he was an up and comer of the early 60s. Surprised to see Gary Merrill in the cast here, adventure and fantasy were not his usual genre!
    - C

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  2. WilliamMarch 29, 2021 at 6:03 PM

    You're right, and yet I found him to be much better in this film than he was in others. As for Michael Callan, he is now 86! Tried to find his first "bad boy" movie, "The Flying Fontaines," but it's not on youtube or amazon, unfortunately.

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