The Mysterious Island
by Jules Verne
Confusion. That's what you could get on a film with 3 directors. Lucien Hubbard was listed as the director but Maurice Tourneur and Benjamin Christiansen also shot footage. Inevitably a bit of a hodge-podge will be created. That's especially the case when some sequences are shot in color and some are recorded with sound.
But most confusing of all is trying to figure out how the movie bears any relationship whatsoever to the Jules Verne novel. That point was particularly made to me in recently reading the Grosset & Dunlap 1929 photoplay edition of The Mysterious Island. Literally every scene inserted into the book and almost every character shown bears absolutely no relation to the written story!!
SPOILERS
In the novel, 5 men escape capture as the Civil War is raging. They fly off in a balloon and eventually land on an uncharted island. This they dub Lincoln Island (a.k.a. "The Mysterious Island"). In a pure Robinson Crusoe fashion and led by the resourceful Cyrus Harding the castaways settle in and turn the island into a "colony" that would make Gilligan's gang envious. As resourceful as the colonists are, an unexplained hand appears to aid them at key moments.
The settlers manage to even create a small vessel to sail to nearby Tabor Island. There they rescue castaway Ben Joyce a.k.a. Ayrton (a character from Verne's Children of Captain Grant). Ayrton had been left there in punishment for his evil deeds. Once among the others, he reforms. Now six strong on Mysterious Island the group is forced to defend the island against invading pirates. At the very end, their benefactor finally shows himself in assisting their defense. He is Captain Nemo known formerly as Prince Dakar. His sub, the Nautilis, is now disabled and he has secretly been inhabiting Mysterious Island. Nemo dies but not before assuring that a search party looking for Ayrton are aware of the settlers. Rescue arrives just in time!! Myterious Island is destroyed in a volcanic eruption.
The film uses almost none of this story. Dakar (who is never referred to as Nemo) is from "Hetvia". Dakar is inventing a submarine for science and his subjects are on the island assisting him. Amongst other things, he wishes to possibly uncover the mystery of the "Men from the Abyss". (Actually, Dakar builds not one but two subs.)
Baron Falon wants to become king of Hetvia. He betrays Dakar and wants a submarine for military purposes. The two men finally encounter each other underwater in each of the subs. They meet up with the undersea men and a couple of sea monsters along the way!! Dakar ultimately gets his retribution against Falon..But Dakar is mortally wounded. His last wish is to destroy the submarines so that they will not be used for war.
Imho Mysterious Island, for all of its flaws, is not as terrible a film as it is sometimes made out. Far from a masterpiece, it is a good action-oriented s.f. silent. The ending scenes with the undersea men stuck me as a little silly though.
The book is a classic. I got a bang out of reading a copy with the film scenes...even if they didn't match!
written: 6/24/2002
