ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

One of the earliest sci-fi films is also one of the most ambitious, requiring three years to film, employing three directors in the process — Benjamin Christiansen, Lucien Hubbard, and Maurice Tourneur. Impressive cast, too, including Lionel Barrymore and Montagu Love ("The Mark of Zorro", "The Adventures of Robin Hood").

The film was in production during Hollywood's transition from silent to sound films, so the producers elected to reshoot the opening scenes and use spoken dialogue, then employ music and limited sound effects to augment the on-screen written dialogue through the rest of the film.

The plot is a considerable departure from Verne's Novel about a group of Civil War soldiers whose balloon carries them to a strange island where Captain Nemo (now in his declining years) has taken refuge. In this film version, Captain Nemo is replaced by Count Dakkar (Barrymore), a brilliant scientist who lives on an island off the coast of a Baltic empire which teeters on the brink of revolution.

Barrymore employs hundreds of workers who labor to complete two super-submarines which he plans to use to prove his theory that a race of intelligent aquatic creatures has evolved on the ocean floor (shades of "The Abyss").

Barrymore shows co-star Montagu Love the skeleton of a strange, vaguely humanoid creature he has reconstructed from bone fragments retrieved from the sea. Unbeknowst to Barrymore, Love plans to steal the two submarines and use them to seize the throne of the nearby Baltic empire. His soldiers attack the island and capture one of the subs, but Barrymore escapes in the other, and the climax takes place on the ocean floor when both subs are captured by the undersea empire of aquatic creatures. The humans must also battle a giant octopus and an undersea dinosaur (a lizard with skillfully added fins, spikes, etc).

Some of the special effects scenes involving submarine miniatures are not overly impressive, but most of the special effects are extremely praiseworthy. The plot is action-packed, and there are some disturbing scenes in which Barrymore is tortured by the soldiers to make him reveal the secrets of the submarines.

The sets and props are remarkably well designed, including the armored high-pressure suits the men use to walk among the aquatic beings on the ocean floor. The science in this science fiction film maintains an admirable degree of accuracy, making the film highly enjoyable to watch, even after seventy-plus years.

Don't miss it.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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I watched this movie at a friend's house many years ago, and I was amazed by it!

And now we can all watch it at the link below. At first I thought it was colorized, but it might be a restored version of the recently discovered Technicolor print from the Czech National Archive.

If it isn't the Technicolor print, I consider it to be an above-average job of colorization.

Please watch this remarkable film so we can discuss it on All Sci-Fi.

Bud

______________ The Mysterious Island (1929)


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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This is an astounding item from IMDB! ]
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Although the entire film has always been available in black and white prints, film historians long believed that no complete color print of the film had survived — until 2013 when experts from the George Eastman House in the US discovered that such a print had been preserved in the Czech National Archive.

Until this discovery, it was thought that the only surviving Technicolor fragment of the film was a ten-minute reel reposing in the UCLA Film and Television Archive.
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Amazing! The print of a color science fiction movie from 1929 which managed to survive!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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Here’s one version of the movie which Archive.org has.

The Mysterious Island (1929)
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[WadeVC]

Daaaang....a day late.

I made a sandwich and was ready to watch this movie, which I had never seen before, and it appears as if Warner Bros. had different ideas about that. They've removed the darn thing for copyright issues.

Ah well, I'll try searching You Tube to see if I can find another copy of it floating around.
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"You look like a pooped out pinwheel."
-Robot Monster

[Bud Brewster]

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Good news, Wade! My post above has an updated YouTube link for The Mysterious Island which is either the recently discovered Technicolor ™ print or an above-average job of colorization.

Archive.org still has a video, but its a black & white version, and the Technicolor version on YouTube is terrific.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)