Review of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) by Edith N — 20 Jul 2008

I've loved this movie since I first saw it in that long-ago Disney Channel-watching childhood of mine. At the time, I had no idea who Peter Lorre was, and I don't think I'd seen Kirk Douglas in anything else, either, though I had some idea that he was famous. Strangely, though, I remember the seal as having belonged to Kirk Douglas, not Captain Nemo. And that's how I think of them--not Ned Land and Captain Nemo, and not Kirk Douglas and James Mason. Kirk Douglas and Captain Nemo. It wasn't until fairly recently that I even knew who James Mason was. It was even more recently than that when I finally associated him with that other beloved movie of my childhood, [i]North by Northwest[/i]. (I was a film buff young, you see.).

I cannot, to my shame, tell you how accurate to the book the movie is without consulting Wikipedia--and trusting that Wikipedia is right! However, it's a familiar-enough story. Three men are spared from the sinking of a ship--Ned Land, Professor Arronax (Paul Lukas), and Conseil (Lorre), the professor's apprentice. (At 50, Lorre was a little old to be an apprentice, but he was still younger that Lukas's 63.) They are taken aboard the [i]Nautilus[/i], the fantastical vessel of Captain Nemo. They find Nemo to be a cruel man, little given to human feeling. Indeed, he considers humans little better than a blight upon the planet, and he never sets foot on dry land if he can avoid it. He lives under the sea quite happily, alone down there with his books and his organ and his revenge.

In the commentary track of [i]League of Extraordinary Gentlemen[/i], the guy who plays Tom Sawyer comments that it's an anachronism to have a nuclear-powered submarine. I noted at the time I heard him say it that [i]League[/i] never says what powers the [i]Nautilus[/i]. However, it is at least implied in this film that it's nuclear powered; he must have gotten it here. (Apparently, he didn't get it from the book, as Verne's [i]Nautilus[/i] is electric--though Wikipedia does not enlighten us as to where the electricity comes from.) Indeed, this is the iconic version of the story, to the extent that, for many years, it simply didn't occur to me that anyone else had ever made the movie. (Someone else is again, release date sometime in 2010.) True, I've never read the book, but true at least that I knew about it, which I suspect is more than some people can say.

The iconic moment of this iconic film is, of course, the battle with the squid. There are all kinds of failings in the scene from a logical point of view--such as what interest a squid would have in a submarine anyway--but it is engrossing. It is probably what is responsible for the film's win for Best Special Effects. For years, even after I'd seen him in other roles, Kirk Douglas was represented in my head by a man throwing a harpoon at a giant eye. Of course, my view of giant squid--and I'm not alone on this--comes pretty much entirely from this movie as well.

This was Disney's first Cinemascope film--the cartoon accompanying it, "Grand Canyonscope," references the camera type as well. It is a good choice for the style. It is vast and sweeping--the camera is put to good use when showing the mass of tiny men against the huge backdrop of the phosphate mine. And Gods know it's better than the Paul Gross version.