20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Stuart Paton directs. Friend Baker behind the camera. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in No Language.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

• 1Shot for just $0.2M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
• 2Grossed $8M — a 40.0× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.
• 3110 years old — a genuine piece of film history.
• 4Lean credit list — fewer than 30 people officially credited.
• 5Directed by Stuart Paton, shot by Friend Baker. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
• 6Allen Holubar and Jane Gail and Howard Crampton carry the top of the cast.
• 7Marketing tagline: "The First Submarine Photoplay Ever Filmed".
• 8IMDB entry: tt0006333 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
• 9Only 65 TMDB ratings — you're getting ahead of the curve on this one.

The technical file

Cinematography

Friend Baker

Runtime

99 min · 1h 39m

Status

Released

Budget

$200,000

Box office

$8,000,000

Return

4000% of budget

Original language

EN

Certification (US)

PG

IMDB

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916) ↗

Rotten Tomatoes

100% 🍅 Fresh

IMDB rating

6.1/10 · 2,172 votes

MPAA

Passed

Also by

Stuart Paton

• 
  The Hope Diamond Mystery

  1921 · ★ 10.0
• 
  Fangs of Destiny

  1927 · ★ 10.0
• 
  Conflict

  1921 · ★ 10.0
• 
  Wolf Law

  1922 · ★ 10.0
• 
  The Terror of the Range

  1919 · ★ 10.0
• 
  The Bullet Mark

  1928 · ★ 10.0

Community reviews

What people are saying

• CinemaSerf2022-06-06
  ★ 6/10

  Based on Jules Verne's story of revenge, this is actually quite an impressive production that tries pretty hard to deliver a reasonably plausible production of this tale of "Nemo" (Allen Holubar). He has built this magnificent undersea vessel so he can avenge the death of his beloved Princess "Daaker" at the hands of "Denver" (William Welch). Meantime, acclaimed French scientist "Aronnax" (Dan Hanlon) and his daughter (Edna Pendleton) have embarked upon a ship that is sunk by "Nemo" and both of them, as well as harpoonist "Ned Land" (Curtis Benton) are taken on board. Initially as prisoners, but once the captain discovers the credentials of "Aronnax" that regime is relaxed. How long can this man continue to raid the shipping lanes before the military might - and a bit of a fifth column - track him down? To get any joy from this, you have to remember not just how embryonic cinema was then, but underwater photography (and action imagery, at that) too. Certainly, the cast are really nothing to write home about and much of the start has more to do with the author's "Mysterious Island", but it is still a groundbreaking piece of cinema that though frequently rather slow and stodgy, is still worth watch.

  Read full review ↓
• robinh74672026-02-15
  ★ 5/10

  A very cool production, unfortunately dragged down by whatever the SE Asian term is for blackface. Well worth watching the underwater footage, but skip the rest.

  Read full review ↓

Production companies

Who made it

• TH

  The Universal Film Mfg. Co.

Key crew

• ProducerCarl Laemmle
• CinematographyEugene Gaudio
• Art DirectionFrank Ormston
• Underwater CameraGeorge M. Williamson
• Underwater CameraJ. Ernest Williamson
• Supervising Technical DirectorH.H. Barter
• Executive ProducerCarl Laemmle
• NovelJules Verne

Themes & keywords

What it's about, really

• revenge
• captain nemo

Release history · US

When it landed

• Theatrical1916-12-24PG

Also known as

International titles

• 20.000 Meilen unter dem MeerDE
• 20.000 leguas de viaje submarinoES
• Vingt Mille Lieues sous les mersFR