“The Mysterious Island” (1929) / Z-View
The Mysterious Island (1929)
Director: Lucien Hubbard, Benjamin Christensen (uncredited), Maurice Tourneur (uncredited)
Screenplay by: Lucien Hubbard based on Jules Verne‘s novel, The Mysterious Island
Starring: Lionel Barrymore, Jacqueline Gadsdon, Lloyd Hughes and Montagu Love
Tagline: METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER’S Dramatic Spectale Based on Jules Vern’s Immortal Novel!
The Overview: Beware of spoilers…
Count Andre Dakkar (Barrymore) is a brilliant scientist and beloved ruler of an island kingdom. Dakkar along with his daughter Sonia (Gadsdon) and her fiance (who is also Dakkar’s right hand man) have invented two ships that can go undersea. Just as they are about to test the first ship, the island is attacked by the evil Baron Falon’s (Love) army. Falon wants the island country and undersea ships for his own!
The attack damages the first ship which sinks to the bottom of the ocean. The crew realizes they have no way to surface and will die at the bottom of the sea… if they are not killed by the strange creatures and gigantic monsters that live on the ocean floor. Meanwhile, Sonia hopes to use the second ship to save the crew of the first vessel. Little does she know the horrors that await…
The Mysterious Island has some cool special underwater effects, but truth be told, I was enjoying the less scifi aspects of the film more. Still, you cannot go wrong with Lionel Barrymore in a Jules Verne adventure!
The Mysterious Island earns 3 of 5 stars.
