9 / 10
Mysterious Island is the Harryhausen adaptation of Jules Verne. Cy Endfield directed it. The film adapts Verne’s 1874-1875 novel L’Île mystérieuse, with substantial creative liberty. Michael Craig plays Captain Cyrus Harding, a Union officer who escapes from a Confederate prison camp during the Civil War by stealing a hot-air balloon. The balloon carries Harding and his fellow escapees across the Atlantic and the Pacific until they crash on an uncharted Pacific island. The island is full of giant creatures. The eventual revelation is that the giants are the work of Captain Nemo, who has retired to the island after the events of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and is conducting experiments to feed humanity through gigantism. Herbert Lom plays Nemo. Joan Greenwood plays Lady Mary Fairchild, one of two women whose own balloon also crashed on the island. Bernard Herrmann scored the film.
The film was Harryhausen’s third collaboration with Bernard Herrmann and one of his strongest visual achievements. The Pacific setting, shot largely on the coast of Spain, gives the film a fresh look. The creatures include a giant crab, a giant bird, giant bees, and a giant cephalopod that pursues the survivors through an underwater cave system.
The Verne Adaptation
Verne’s novel is approximately seven hundred pages and contains many incidents the film cannot accommodate. The script keeps the basic premise (Civil War escapees on an uncharted island ruled by a hidden Captain Nemo) and rebuilds the middle to support Harryhausen’s creature sequences. Verne did not write giant crabs or giant birds. The gigantism subplot is the film’s invention and is the reason Captain Nemo is on the island. The change is defensible. The film needs the creatures to function as a Harryhausen production, and the gigantism rationale lets Verne’s strict scientific framework accommodate fantasy creatures.
Herbert Lom’s Nemo is one of the better screen Nemos. He plays the character as a man whose anger against governments has cooled into a more focused commitment to scientific progress. The retirement of Nemo from his earlier piracy into a philosophical project on a hidden island gives the character somewhere to be that fits both the Verne canon and the film’s specific story.
For Writers
An adaptation can add story material that the source does not contain if the addition is consistent with the source’s worldview. The gigantism subplot is not in Verne but it is the kind of project Verne’s Captain Nemo could plausibly have undertaken. The lesson is that adaptations are not faithfulness contests. The question is whether the added material respects the spirit of the source. Honor the source’s logic and you have permission to add. Violate the logic and the source fights back.
The Creatures
The giant crab sequence is the film’s first major creature encounter. The survivors are exploring a beach. A real coconut crab, scaled up through Harryhausen’s compositing, emerges from the surf and attacks. Harryhausen used a real dead crab purchased from a fishmonger for the puppet, which gives the creature a specific organic quality that a built model would not have had. The crab’s death involves the survivors throwing it into a boiling geyser. The creature dies in extended close-up.
The giant bees are the film’s strangest creatures. The survivors are exploring a cave when they encounter the bees, who have built a honeycomb large enough that a human could be sealed inside an individual cell. The sequence in which Captain Harding is briefly trapped in a wax cell while a bee attempts to feed him to its larvae is the kind of imaginative horror that the Verne novel did not contain but that the film earned through tone alone.
For Writers
An imagined scenario gains power from specific detail. The giant bees sequence works because the script and animation commit to the actual biology of bees scaled up to human size. The honeycomb cells. The wax. The feeding behavior. The detail makes the horror specific rather than generic. The lesson is that fantasy material benefits from rigorous attention to its own internal logic. The audience accepts the impossible if the impossible is treated with the same care as the possible would receive.
The Score
Bernard Herrmann’s score is one of his strongest collaborations with Harryhausen. The opening titles, the giant crab sequence, the bee cave, and the Nautilus reveal all benefit from Herrmann’s specific approach to building tension and wonder simultaneously. The score uses brass and percussion more heavily than Herrmann’s Hitchcock work. The result is a score that supports adventure without sliding into orchestral cliché.
The Herrmann-Harryhausen collaboration would end with Jason and the Argonauts two years later. Mysterious Island is one of the strongest entries in the four-film cycle. Listen to the score on its own and the structure of every sequence becomes clear.
For Writers
The score in a film functions like prose rhythm in fiction. Both control how the audience or reader moves through the material. Herrmann’s score for Mysterious Island guides the audience through complex action sequences by establishing tempo and weighting individual beats. The lesson is that pacing in any medium is a craft skill. In fiction, you control pacing through sentence length, paragraph structure, and chapter breaks. In film, the composer is the prose rhythm. The work of both is the same work in different media.
Craft Note
Cy Endfield directed. John Prebble, Daniel B. Ullman, and Crane Wilbur wrote, adapted from Jules Verne’s 1874-1875 novel L’Île mystérieuse. Ray Harryhausen animated and co-produced with Charles H. Schneer. Bernard Herrmann composed. Michael Craig as Captain Cyrus Harding. Joan Greenwood as Lady Mary Fairchild. Michael Callan as Herbert Brown. Gary Merrill as Gideon Spilett. Herbert Lom as Captain Nemo. Released December 1961. Columbia Pictures. Filmed in Spain. Approximately two million dollar budget.
The Verdict
9/10. The most thoughtful Harryhausen adaptation of a classic novel. The Bernard Herrmann score is one of his strongest. The creatures are well-designed and well-animated. Herbert Lom is excellent as Captain Nemo. Watch it as a Jules Verne adaptation, as a Harryhausen showcase, and as a strong adventure film on its own terms.
FAQ
Is it faithful to the Verne novel?
Substantially altered. The basic premise is intact. The gigantism subplot is the film’s invention. Nemo’s role is expanded. Verne purists prefer adaptations more faithful to the novel.
How does it connect to other Verne films?
It is set after 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) in narrative terms, though the production is unrelated to the Disney Nautilus film. Nemo is the same character in both stories.
Who is Cy Endfield?
American director who worked extensively in the United Kingdom after being blacklisted in Hollywood. Best known for Zulu (1964) starring Michael Caine.
How does it compare to other Harryhausen films?
Below Jason and the Argonauts. Comparable to The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. Above his earlier creature features.
Is Herbert Lom’s Nemo the best screen Nemo?
One of the strongest. James Mason’s Nemo in Disney’s 20,000 Leagues is the most famous. Lom’s interpretation is more contemplative.
Did Herrmann score all the Harryhausen films?
Four of them. The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, The 3 Worlds of Gulliver, Mysterious Island, and Jason and the Argonauts. He stopped after Jason for various professional reasons.
Should I watch this?
Yes. Especially if you have already seen the more famous Harryhausen productions.