Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3348 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-12-02
• Rating: Universal, suitable for all
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Dubbed, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Arabic, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish
• Dubbed in: French, German, Italian, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 97 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Notable neither for its director nor its stars, Mysterious Island has been given the widescreen DVD treatment rather because of its special-effects man, the legendary Ray Harryhausen. And though his input here is minimal compared with other movies, his stop-motion contributions add zest to a cracking good yarn. A gang of American Civil War soldiers hijack a hot-air balloon and escape from the frying-pan of a military prison to the fire of a deserted tropical island. When a couple of English girls are washed ashore and a legendary nautical figure resurfaces, the scene is set for a ripping survival adventure, taking in weighty theories of political democracy, equality and cowardice, and still managing to add a healthy dollop of stirring music, dodgy accents, old-fashioned sexism, pirates, giant bees, a giant crab and a fearsome, err, giant chicken.

Harryhausen's eighth feature contains all the elements that make his movies great, and the pacey script, based on the Jules Verne novel, has you gripped from the off. One of his more modern-feeling early films, the colour film stock, the exotic settings and wider stable of stars (black and English actors feature alongside a pre-Clouseau Herbert Lom) move it forward an era from his dated black-and-white schlock-fests. Gripping, erudite and easily on a par with the more well-known Sinbad and Argonauts movies, this is one to be marooned with.

On the DVD: Mysterious Island's colour picture is bright, clean and crisp in this anamorphic 1.85:1 widescreen transfer, and the Dolby digital mono soundtrack is clear enough. The theatrical trailer will please the kitsch fans, as will the featurette "This Is Dynamation" produced at the same time as the first Sinbad movie. The real corker here though is the generously lengthy documentary "The Harryhausen Chronicles". Narrated by Leonard Nimoy, it features a stellar cast of devotees (George Lucas among them) waxing lyrical about the influence of Harryhausen's films, and allows the man himself to ramble fascinatingly over clips of his filmic canon. If you're a fan, it's Harryhausen heaven. --Paul Eisinger

Special Features
English Aspect Ratio 1.85:1 The Harryhausen chronicles
Mysterious Island Featurette
This is Dynamation Featurette
Photo Gallery
Theatrical Trailer
Trailers

Synopsis
This fantasy adventure is based on the 1870 novel by Jules Verne. A small, motley group of soldiers and civilians flee the 1865 siege of Richmond via a hot air balloon, and end up on an isolated island crawling with over-sized crabs, birds, and bees. Even more astonishing, they discover three other humans inhabiting the island: two shipwrecked women and the illustrious, long-lost Captain Nemo. Ray Harryhausen's special effects, which include a battle with a giant crab and abduction by an enormous bird, still have the power to thrill and amaze.

Customer Reviews

Joan Greenwood and Ray Harryhausen: Great!
This is a nice, satisfying telling of the Verne story, with special effects by Ray Harryhausen and a good score by Bernard Herrman. Escapees from a Civil War prison camp are blown way off course in a balloon they stole. They find themselves on an apparently deserted island somewhere in the Pacific, are joined by two women who were shipwrecked, and eventually come face-to-face with Captain Nemo and the wrecked Nautilus.

They have to deal with pirates, an erupting volcano and Harryhausen's creature threats. These include very large versions of a hungry red crab, an aggressive chicken, a bee and an unhappy squid. Some of the creatures turn out to be very good boiled or roasted.

The movie holds up well because of a strong story, good action, and fairly well-defined characters. It features Herbert Lom, in my view an under-rated actor, and Joan Greenwood. By this time Greenwood was taking character parts and doing a lot of stage work. But from the mid-Forties to the mid-Fifties she was, I think, one of the sexiest, smartest and funniest star actors Britain has ever produced. Her plummy, smoky voice is inimitable. She is coy and slightly lascivious in Kind Hearts and Coronets, sexy and brave in The Man in the White Suit.

The DVD transfer is just fine.

Ray Harryhausen lends his talents to the Jules Verne story
There was a woefully bad 15-part serial version of Jules Verne's "Mysterious Island" released in 1951 that stupidly gave away the big surprise by listing Captain Nemo's name in the credits. Fortunately a decade later the release of this version of "Mysterious Island" replaced that one in the public's consciousness. The team that put together "Mysterious Island" consisted of producer Charles Schneer, special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen, and composer Bernard Herrmann, which is important because it puts the film more in the tradition of their earlier collaborations, "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" and "Jason and the Argonauts," than it does Verne's novels. Obviously the 1954 Disney film version of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" had an influence on this 1961 film by director Cy Endfield ("Zulu") as well.

During the American Civil War, Union Captain Cyrus Harding (Michael Craig) is being held prisoner in a Confederate prison camp along with young Herbert Brown (Michael Callan), cynical "New York Herald" reporter Gideon Spillett (Gary Merrill), and a former slave named Corporal Neb Nugent (Dan Jackson). During a massive hurricane the group escape by stealing an observation balloon and sailing over the palisade, taking with them a Confederate soldier, Sergeant Pencroft (Percy Herbert). The storm is so fierce that it blows them to an uncharted (and dare I say, mysterious) island somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, where the balloon crashes.

Harding is pulled from the water by unseen figure and the group decides to put the war behind them and work together to survive (I was going to say this is sort of like "Survivor," after the merger, which Nemo playing the Jeff Probst role, but clearly the more relevant television analogy today would be to "Lost"). But beyond the basic requirements of staying alive they learn that they have to contend with monstrously giant crabs, equally giant bees, and a ship full of bloodthirsty pirates. To make things more interesting a pair of shipwrecked female castaways are added to the little band, namely Lady Mary Fairchild (Joan Greenwood) and her pretty young niece, Elena (Beth Rogan). Using the abandoned cliff side cave of the pirates as their new home the castaways settle in for the long haul, all the while receiving timely help from their mysterious benefactor.

I never read the novel, but I still have the "Classics Illustrated" comic book version of "Mysterious Island." For me the big impression was the things the castaways did to bring a touch of civilization to the island, and while that is greatly reduced in the film you do get a least a visual sense of what they have been up to in order to make the best of a bad situation. Of course, the situation proceeds to get even worse, which forces the unseen benefactor, Captain Nemo (Herbert Lom), to reveal himself and his identity, and to help the castaways one last time.

It is a good thing that Lom does not show up until the end of the film, because he overpowers the rest of the cast, just as his character enjoys superiority over them as well. Merrill stands out from the rest as the crotchety reporter, who is almost as smart as he is cynical, and Craig manages to hang on to the hero role throughout, but Herbert and Elena descend to the puppy love phase and are just begging to be eaten by one of the giant creatures on the island, preferably the giant chicken. This is not a great film for this genre, but it certainly holds up as a more than decent Saturday matinee movie.

Harryhausen's stop-motion animation is always fun, even though no one will consider his work in "Mysterious Island" to be up to the finest moments of "Sinbad" or "Jason." The link between the giant animals and Captain Nemo is a bit absurd, since hunger has never been considered one of the causes of the American Civil War, but by the time we learn about these we have already enjoyed the castaways trying to fight the monsters (the crab is the best and the chicken has to be the nadir of Harryhausen's distinguished career). Actually, the balloon journey at the beginning provides the best special effects in the movie, especially given the impressive musical score by Herrmann. This movie is not about political philosophy, but about monsters in an exotic location and the sense of adventure that has thrilled young schoolboys for generations.

Great fun !
This 1961 picture was a box office hit not only because of his special effects but most of all because it's great fun.
Loosly adapted from Jules Vernes Book, this picture offers one hour and a half of fantasy and entertainment that will appeal to everyone that's young at heart.
With a classic Bernard Herman score, great color photography and sequences like the one of the giant Crab this is truly a classic 60ths adventure film!