Mysterious Island (1961) — a Mite-y Movie Mention
Movie
Mysterious Island (1961)
Genres
Action, adventure, science fiction
Source
Based on The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne. (Sequel to both Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and In Search of the Castaways.)
Elevator Pitch
Castaways fight giant animals and pirates with the help of Captain Nemo while trying to escape before the island’s volcano erupts.
Reasons to Watch
- Harryhausen creature effects
- Joan Greenwood
- Herbert Lom
Random Observation
Although based on a Jules Verne novel, the giant creatures came in by way of H.G. Welles’ The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth. Nemo is trying to solve world hunger through enlarging food sources, a common misconception about the motivation of the scientists in that book. This is an ironic combination of plots, as Verne despised the lack of scientific basis in Welles’ stories.
Valley Of The Dragons (1961)
aka Prehistoric Valley
Directed by Edward Bernds
Written by Edward Bernds and Donald Zimbalist
Based on the novel Career of a Comet by Jules Verne
Starring Cesare Danova, Sean McClory, Joan Staley, and Danielle De Metz
Jules Verne is perhaps best remembered today for the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. The story of Nemo and his advanced submarine has been adapted to screen many times, as have his works Journey to the Center of the Earth and Around the World in Eighty Days. So popular were movies of Verne’s adventure stories that it was tempting to produce anything that his name could be attached to. For instance, by using just the barest premise of Of On a Comet (here credited as the subtitle of the translation called Hector Servadac; or The Career of a Comet) the producers of Valley of the Dragons were able to promote a rambling Lost World ripoff as being a Jules Verne movie.
Web of the Big Damn Spider 
