#micharl callen

[silveragelovechild]

I’ve just rewatched “The Mysterious Island” (1961), based on a novel by French author Jules Verne. It’s set in the 1860s and tells the story of several Union soldiers who escape a Confederate prison via a hot air balloon. A fierce storm transports them to a remote and “mysterious” island in the South Pacific. There they help rescue two women, passengers of a boat that sunk in the same storm.

Things get interesting when they encounter several giant animals on the island - crabs, chickens, and even bees. All of them were achieved via the amazing effects created by Ray Harryhausen and his team. They holdup surprising well for a movie released over 60 years ago. Today, in a similar movie, the effects would be done via CGI. But Harryhausen’s stop motion effect feel so much more fresh and visceral.

The music for the film was done by Bernard Herrmann, Harryhausen’s frequent collaborator. The music is appropriately adventurous and dramatic.

The only effect that doesn’t stand the rest of time is the volcanic eruption at the climax of the film. It’s clearly a model and the lava doesn’t have the “weight” of liquid rocks.

Outdoor scenes were filmed on the Catalan coast in Spain, with indoor filming occurring in England. The overall design is pretty good, especially Captain Nemo’s ship the Nautilus.

The cast is mostly English, with three exceptions. Nemo was played by Czech actor Herbert Lom (best know for playing Inspector Dreyfus in the Pink Panther films); Gary Merrill (who divorced Bette Davis only a year earlier); and Michael Callen, a young actor popular on Broadway and films in the 1960s.

Callen is a prime example of how the perception of men has changed over the years. Callen plays the heart throb and is shirtless in most of the movie. But by today’s standard he looks incredible skinny with no muscle tone.

I particularly like Michael Craig who played the castaways leader. I thought I’d seen him in some old TV westerns but nearly all of his credits are British.

The two women are played by Joan Greenwood as Lady Fairchild and Beth Rogan as her niece Elena. Greenwood has a very artificial sounding voice and I thought her dialogue may have been dubbed over by another actress (it wasn’t). About half way into the movie, Rogan switches from a long dress with petticoats into a very small and revealing leather tunic. It’s so short that her underpants are frequently revealed as she runs across the beach.

I saw “The Mysterious Island” via TUBI, a free streaming service. There were occasional commercial but not as intrusive as broadcast TV.