Unlike the eponymous Jules Verne book, which is a sequel to the famous "Twenty thousand Leagues beneath the Sea", the 1929 film "Mysterious Island" is a prequel of sorts, as it dramatizes the backstory of "Captain Nemo". Briefly, Verne's Nemo (Latin for "No one") was an Indian Prince named Dakkar who rejected society after his family was killed in the 1857 "Indian Mutiny". A scientific genius, he secretly designed and built the submarine "Nautilus", on which he sailed seeking revenge against the world that he felt had wronged him. In the book "Mysterious Island", he is found by a group of escaped American soldiers, living as an elderly recluse on the titular island. The film completely changes Verne's story (and IMO not for the better), with Dakkar (Lionel Barrymore) now a nobleman in some fictional Balkan kingdom called Hetvia, betrayed by villainous Count Falon who covets the scientist's armed submersible ships. After the capture of Dakkar's shipyard (on the titular island), the two submersibles end up damaged and stranded in the abyssal deeps, where a civilisation of underwater humanoids has developed. Adventures involving the gill men, dragons and a giant octopus ensue before justice is done and love prevails. Given the survivability of fantasy heroes, the ending could still presage the events in "Twenty thousand Leagues beneath the Sea" but that is not explicit. The film is an odd mix of silent and sound, which does not work very well. The version I watched on TCM was in black and white but apparently a technicolour version exists (with green tinted underwater scenes). The cast is fine although the acting includes the melodramatic flourishes common in silent films but, for an adventure fantasy, the pace of the film is leaden at times. What makes the film worth watching are scenes when the two submarines are stranded in the kingdom of the underwater people, which are entertaining, effective and imaginative.
Review of The Mysterious Island
