The mysterious island (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The mysterious island |
| Original title | Mysterious Island |
| Country of production | USA , UK |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1961 |
| length | 97 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Cy Endfield |
| script |
John Prebble Daniel B. Ullman Crane Wilbur |
| production | Charles H. Schneer |
| music | Bernard Herrmann |
| camera | Wilkie Cooper |
| cut | Frederick Wilson |
| occupation | |
| |
The Mysterious Island is an adventure , science fiction film from 1961. It is a film adaptation of Jules Verne 's novel of the same name . Directed by Cy Endfield . Ray Harryhausen was responsible for the special effects .
action
During the American Civil War , Union soldiers, Capt. Cyrus Harding, Herbert Brown, the war correspondent Gideon Spilitt and Cpl. Neb Nugent with a gas balloon from captivity. Sgt. Pencroft of the Confederate Army becomes an involuntary passenger. After a long journey the balloon ruptures and Herbert, Spilitt, Neb and Pencroft can only just escape to an island. Shortly afterwards, they also discover Capt. Harding. However, nobody knows who saved him.
You decide to explore the island. After walking for a while, the troop is attacked by a giant crab. This grabs Neb, but is killed by the others, Neb is freed.
After living on the island for a while, two other people are stranded on the island. These are Lady Mary Fairchild and her niece Elena. The men soon become friends with the women. Together they want to build a boat to escape. After working with self-made tools for a while, Neb discovers a floating box with valuable contents that, as it later turns out, comes from the Nautilus . But since the Nautilus supposedly sank a long time, one is not entirely sure.
A while later, however, Spilitt and the ladies are attacked by a giant bird. Fortunately, Herbert, who appears in time, rescues them before Elena can be eaten. It then turns out that Herbert did not kill the bird with his knife, but that a stranger shot him from a distance.
The rescue seems to have begun soon, as the boat will be ready soon. But then they are attacked by pirates. At the same time Herbert and Elena are attacked by a giant bee. They flee and discover the Nautilus. There seems to be no escape for the others as the pirates are shooting at them with cannons. But then part of the ship explodes, which then sinks. Finally, Captain Nemo appears and introduces himself. It turns out that it was Nemo who saved Harding and killed the bird. He explains to them that he bred giant animals to free the world from hunger.
To the horror of the others, Nemo also explains to them that the island volcano is about to erupt. So they are working on a method to lift the sunken pirate ship in order to escape with it. But the volcano seems to erupt earlier, which is why Nemo wants to give up. But the others don't give up and manage to lift the ship after being attacked by a gigantic octopus. Nemo fails to escape the collapsing cave and dies in the Nautilus. The others manage to escape.
Differences from the novel
Like almost all novel adaptations, the film about the novel differs in some parts. For example, the island the characters landed on is not called Lincoln. The dog Top and the shipwrecked Ayrton do not appear in the film, as does the island of Tabor. Mary Fairchild and her niece Elena only appear in the film. Cyrus Smith became Harding, and Neb is not his servant either.
Special effects
- Ray Harryhausen was responsible for the special effects.
- The giant crab was not like the other animated animals from Harryhausen. For the animation he used shells from a real crab.
Others
- The bird in the film is said to represent the prehistoric bird Phorusrhacos .
- There was a scene in the movie where actor Nigel Green plays a person named Tom Ayerton. However, the scene fell victim to the scissors.
- Spillett mentions that the "Nautilus" sank 8 years ago. The information from Verne is contradicting itself, but in fact almost 8 years had passed since Disney's " 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea " was created.
- When the Phorusrhacos puts the claw on Elena, who is lying on the ground, she gives a short scream. But she has just fainted and doesn't move for a few more seconds, so something can't be right here. Since the scream is anchored on the sound tape, the error also occurs in the synchronized versions.
World premieres
- USA: August 1961
- Germany: December 22, 1961
Reviews
The lexicon of international films wrote: "Naive, but above all entertaining thanks to the fantastic trick shots by Ray Harryhausen."
literature
- Jules Verne : The mysterious island (original title: L'île mystérieuse ). Adapted from an older translation by Waltraut Henschel-Villaret . With all illustrations from the original edition by P. Ferat. Deutscher Bücherbund, Stuttgart and Munich 1989, 611 pp. (Special edition with the splendid binding of the classic Hartleben edition. Overall, by far the most complete, best translated and furnished German edition of the novel.)
Web links
- The Mysterious Island in the Internet Movie Database (English)