| Mysterious Island | |
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Theatrical poster |
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| Directed by | Cy Endfield |
| Produced by | Charles H. Schneer Ray Harryhausen |
| Written by | Novel: Jules Verne Screenplay: John Prebble Daniel B. Ullman Crane Wilbur |
| Starring | Michael Craig Joan Greenwood Michael Callan Gary Merrill Herbert Lom Dan Jackson |
| Music by | Bernard Herrmann |
| Cinematography | Wilkie Cooper |
| Editing by | Frederick Wilson |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | December 20, 1961 |
| Running time | 101 minutes |
| Language | English |
Mysterious Island (UK: Jules Verne's Mysterious Island) is a 1961 film released by Morningside Productions. Based very loosely upon the novel The Mysterious Island (L'Île mystérieuse) by Jules Verne, the film was produced by Charles H. Schneer and Ray Harryhausen. Directed by Cy Endfield, it was released through Columbia Pictures. The motion picture was filmed at Shepperton Studios, Shepperton, England as a showcase for Harryhausen's stop-motion animation effects. Like several of Harryhausen's classic productions, the musical score was composed by Bernard Herrmann.
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The film centers around Union soldiers escaping in a gas balloon from a Confederate prison camp during the American Civil War. They end up crashing in the ocean, only to find themselves washed up on an unknown island where gigantic animals abound. It would later be revealed that the animals were the result of experiments by the presumed-dead Captain Nemo. He has been an unknown benefactor to the castaways as they struggled to survive on the island. The island's volcano threatens to erupt. After a skirmish with pirates, the stranded group manages to escape from the island on the pirates' ship as the volcano destroys the island.
The highlights of the film were Ray Harryhausen's animation sequences. The different animated "monsters" that the castaways encountered included a giant crab, a giant flightless bird (a prehistoric species called a Phorusrhacos), giant bees and a giant cephalopod resembling a prehistoric ammonite.
The book on which the film is based is a sequel to two other books by Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and In Search of the Castaways. The latter of these featured a character named Tom Ayrton, who does not appear, but is referred to, in this film. The only connection with the former is the presence of Captain Nemo and the Nautilus.