Mysterious Island

Charles Schneer and Ray Harryhausen's production of Mysterious Island, from 1961, ranks somewhere in the middle of their output. Shot in Spain and Shepperton Studios, the flick represents the producers' attempt to duplicate the commercial success of Disney's 20.000 Leagues Under the Sea and Swiss Family Robinson, albeit within the framework of a B level budget. The production team was fortunate in landing Cy Endfield in the director's chair. An expatriate who had fled the Hollywood blacklist to direct films in England, Enfield was adept at filming action sequences, see especially Hell Drivers and Zulu, and this greatly helps a film where the threats to life and limb border on the ludicrous.

It is Harryhausen's contributions that are the most distinctive aspects of Mysterious Island. The use of miniatures, matte painting, and the film's colorful production design all bear his imprint. He is most noted for his use of stop-motion animation which is in evidence here whenever the cast battles with an array of giant monsters: a dodo bird, bees, and a crab. The effects are dated, but charmingly so, like those from the fount of Harryhausen's inspiration, King Kong. Mysterious Island, like all of Harryhausen's work, has a magical storybook quality rarely found in the work of today's CGI wizards. 

The cast of Mysterious Island is slightly more impressive than in most Schneer and Harryhausen productions, but it still consists of has-beens (Gary Merrill, Joan Greenwood) and never would b's (Michael Craig, Michael Callan). However, I love, love, love Joan Greenwood and enjoy seeing her in anything, even though she has little to do here except express terror or pluck. Her voice is unmatched, raspy yet sweet, redolent of plums and corn husks. Most Gary Merrill performances during his decline are depressing, but he is less decrepit here than usual. Beth Rogan, reportedly the inspiration for Julie Christie's character in Darling, is on hand to show off her legs and décolletage. Somebody should have told Percy Herbert not to attempt a Sothern accent. However, Herbert Lom, who had worked with Endfield on Hell Drivers, is marvelously understated as Captain Nemo. Lom doesn't have the saturnine presence of James Mason (who does?), but he gives the film's best performance and Mysterious Island definitely picks up when Lom materializes onscreen at midpoint. 

Beth Rogan in her goatskin bathing suit and Joan Greenwood

The multiple screenwriters who loosely adapted Jules Verne's novel made some good choices. The employment of Craig's offscreen narration saves us from awkward expository dialogue. Bernard Herrmann, a frequent collaborator of the production team, gives the picture a magnificent score, one brimming with verve and humor. All in all, a much better  flick than The Three Worlds of Gulliver and The Valley of Gwangi, if not up to the level of Clash of the Titans or Jason and the Argonauts. Tom Hanks described the latter, after presenting Harryhausen with an honorary Oscar, as "the greatest picture of all time." If he was joking, it was only partly so. Harryhausen's films, with their mixture of fantasy and adventure, have a perpetual appeal to the six year old in all of us.