Mysterious Island

"A world beyond imagination! Adventure beyond belief!"

1961 1h 41m EN

👍

6.6

SOLID

🍅

82%

FRESH

⭐

6.7

IMDB

★6.6TMDB · 214🍅82%Rotten Tomatoes★6.7IMDB · 9,579

AdventureScience Fiction

Synopsis

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During the US Civil War, Union POWs escape in a balloon and end up stranded on a South Pacific island, inhabited by giant plants and animals. They must use their ingenuity to survive the dangers, and to devise a way to return home. Sequel to '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea' .

“A world beyond imagination! Adventure beyond belief!”

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Cast

Michael Craig
Capt. Cyrus Harding
Joan Greenwood
Lady Mary Fairchild
Michael Callan
Herbert Brown
Gary Merrill
Gideon Spilitt
Herbert Lom
Captain Nemo
Beth Rogan
Elena Fairchild
Percy Herbert
Sgt. Pencroft
Dan Jackson
Cpl. Neb Nugent

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Cy Endfield
Writers: Crane Wilbur, Daniel B. Ullman, John Prebble
Languages: English
Countries: United Kingdom, United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Shot for just $2.0M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

ERA

Did you know

65 years old — a genuine piece of film history.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

International production across 2 countries: United Kingdom, United States of America.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Cy Endfield, shot by Wilkie Cooper. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Bernard Herrmann. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Frederick Wilson shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Michael Craig and Joan Greenwood and Michael Callan carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "A world beyond imagination! Adventure beyond belief!".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Cy Endfield directs. Wilkie Cooper behind the camera. Bernard Herrmann scores. Frederick Wilson cuts. Produced in United Kingdom, United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Shot for just $2.0M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
265 years old — a genuine piece of film history.
3International production across 2 countries: United Kingdom, United States of America.
4Directed by Cy Endfield, shot by Wilkie Cooper. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Bernard Herrmann. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor Frederick Wilson shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Michael Craig and Joan Greenwood and Michael Callan carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "A world beyond imagination! Adventure beyond belief!".
9IMDB entry: tt0055207 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Classified under 32 themes, including "exotic island", "based on novel or book", "submarine", "escape".

The technical file

Cinematography: Wilkie Cooper
Original score: Bernard Herrmann
Editing: Frederick Wilson
Runtime: 101 min · 1h 41m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $2,000,000
Original language: EN
IMDB: Mysterious Island (1961)
Rotten Tomatoes: 82% 🍅 Fresh
IMDB rating: 6.7/10 · 9,579 votes
MPAA: Approved

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Cy Endfield

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Community reviews

What people are saying

John Chard2019-01-05
★ 7/10
What I did was in the name of peace. Your war, like all wars, glories in devastation and death. Mysterious Island is a loose adaptation of Jules Verne's novel of the same name. It's out of Columbia Pictures and was filmed at Shepperton Studios in England with exteriors on the coast of Spain. Directed by Cy Endfield, with Ray Harryhausen working his stop motion genius for the creatures, it stars Michael Craig, Joan Greenwood, Michael Callan, Gary Merrill, Herbert Lom, Beth Rogan, Percy Herbert & Dan Jackson. Bernard Herrmann provides the score. The plot sees three Union soldiers escaping in a gas balloon from a Confederate prison camp during the American Civil War. Also caught up in the escape is a Confederate rebel and a newspaperman. As they battle the elements they are forced to crash land on some island they think is in the Pacific. Here they encounter giant animals that threaten their survival. Soon two ladies are shipwrecked onto the island too, but the strange animals are not the only thing to worry about, the island volcano is close to eruption and they appear to not be the only humans on the island? Though something of a lesser light in the pantheon of fantasy adventure films, Mysterious Island, in spite of its flaws, is rather good fun. Dramatically it's OK, with the creatures particularly memorable, but those in search of a science story befitting Jules Verne are in for a let down (though some small science interest does come in the last quarter). This is an out and out desert island survival movie with some Harryhausen kickers. There's a nice group dynamic as soldiers from opposing sides are forced to come together to survive. While the arrival of "posh stock" ladies throws up a class distinction issue, that is nice, if not fully exploited. There's the usual clichés of course, and as much as I enjoyed it as a red blooded man, did they really need to make Beth Rogan's newly made island dress the shortest in the land? And true enough, some of the matte paintings and effects have aged better in our childhood memories than actually on the print of the film. It's nicely photographed by Wilkie Cooper in Eastman Color using the Super-Dynamation process, but the film also suffers in parts for the restoration. For the prints that exist on DVD now are beset by spotting, fading and scratches. While of course the resolution now shows the flaws of the source material that were once never evident. Still this is a must have film for fantasy adventure enthusiasts.Yes, as with many Harryhausen based movies, the action sequences involving his creations light up an episodic picture. But with giant animals intent on eating our survivors, a Vernian turn of events in the last quarter, Herrmann's brilliant bombastic score and Rogan's dress! Who cares about routine narrative eh? 7/10

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