20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a 1954 American science fiction adventure film from Walt Disney Productions. Adapted from Jules Verne's 1870 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, the film was directed by Richard Fleischer, from a screenplay by Earl Felton. It stars Kirk Douglas, James Mason, Paul Lukas, and Peter Lorre. Photographed in Technicolor, the film was one of the first feature-length motion pictures to be filmed in CinemaScope. It was Disney's first feature film to be distributed by Buena Vista Distribution.
Upon its premiere on December 23, 1954, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was a critical and commercial success, with particular praise going towards Mason's performance as Captain Nemo. At the 27th Academy Awards, the film received three nominations, winning two—Best Art Direction and Best Special Effects.
Plot
In 1868, rumors spread of a sea monster attacking many ships in the Pacific Ocean. Professor Pierre Aronnax and his assistant, Conseil, are asked to investigate the scene. They board a U.S. Navy frigate with Ned Land, a master harpooner.
After months of patrolling, the monster is spotted. The frigate's crew opens fire, but the monster rams the ship. Ned, Conseil, and Aronnax are thrown overboard, while the disabled frigate drifts away. While clinging to wreckage, Aronnax and Conseil come upon a metal vessel, realizing that the monster is a man-made "submerging boat", which appears deserted. Below deck, Aronnax finds a large viewport and witnesses an underwater funeral, while Ned arrives on an overturned longboat from their ship.
Spotted by the divers, Ned, Aronnax, and Conseil attempt to leave in the longboat, but they are captured. The vessel's captain introduces himself as Captain Nemo, master of the Nautilus. He returns Ned and Conseil to the deck while offering Aronnax the chance to stay. After Aronnax proves willing to die with his companions as the ship submerges, Nemo allows Ned and Conseil to remain aboard. He explains that he has intentionally withdrawn from civilization, and that the sea provides all he needs. Arronax is amazed by Nemo's discoveries and inventions, including the advanced technology of the Nautilus and the crew's ability to harvest an abundance of sea creatures for food.
The Nautilus arrives at a penal colony island, where the prisoners are loading a munitions ship. Nemo, who was once a prisoner there, rams the ship and destroys it. Nemo tells Aronnax that he has just saved thousands from death in war, and that "this hated nation" tortured his wife and son to death while attempting to force him to reveal his discoveries. In Nemo's cabin, Ned and Conseil discover the coordinates of Nemo's secret island base called Vulcania, where the Nautilus is now heading. Hoping to be rescued, Ned loads bottles with the coordinates and throws them overboard.
Off the coast of New Guinea, the Nautilus becomes stranded on a reef. Nemo allows Ned to go ashore with Conseil, ostensibly to collect specimens, while admonishing them to stay on the beach. Ned instead goes exploring for avenues of escape, and finds human skulls posted on stakes. Ned runs back to Conseil, and they row away pursued by the cannibals. Aboard the Nautilus, the cannibals are repelled by electrical charges sent through its hull, and Nemo confines Ned for disobeying orders.
A warship fires upon the Nautilus, which descends into the depths, attracting a giant squid. After an electric charge fails to repel the creature, Nemo and his men surface to fight it off. Nemo is caught by one of its tentacles, and Ned, having escaped from captivity, fatally harpoons it. He then saves Nemo, who had been pulled into the sea. Having had a change of heart, Nemo decides to make amends with human civilization.
The Nautilus enters Vulcania through an underwater passage to avoid the warships that now surround it. Nemo rushes ashore to activate a time bomb, which will destroy all evidence of his discoveries, but he is shot and mortally wounded as he returns onboard. Nemo announces that he will be sinking with the ship, and the crew agrees to accompany him.
Aronnax, Conseil, and Ned are confined to their cabins. Refusing to be part of the suicide pact, Ned escapes and brings the submarine to the surface. The Nautilus strikes a reef and begins to flood. Nemo dies while viewing his beloved undersea domain through the hull's viewport.
Aronnax tries to retrieve his journal, but the urgency of their escape obliges Ned to knock him unconscious and carry him out. Aboard a skiff, the three companions witness Vulcania explode. As the Nautilus sinks, Nemo's last words to Aronnax echo: "There is hope for the future. And when the world is ready for a new and better life, all this will someday come to pass ... in God's good time."
Cast
Kirk Douglas as Ned Land James Mason as Captain Nemo Paul Lukas as Professor Pierre Aronnax Peter Lorre as Conseil Robert J. Wilke as Nautilus First Mate Ted de Corsia as Captain Farragut Carleton Young as John Howard J. M. Kerrigan as Billy Percy Helton as Coach driver Ted Cooper as Abraham Lincoln First Mate Fred Graham as Casey (uncredited stuntman) Laurie Mitchell as Hooker (uncredited debut)
Production Walt Disney first expressed interest in an adaptation of Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas after seeing some marine footage and storyboards created by Harper Goff during the production of the True-Life Adventures series. At the time, the film rights were owned by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and King Brothers Productions. The film was originally conceived as an animated feature. In November 1950, film producer Sid Rogell announced he had acquired the screen rights to the novel, as well as a film adaptation prepared by Robert L. Lippert's production company. He had planned to start filming within a year at the General Service Studios. In December 1951, it was reported that Disney had purchased the film rights from Rogell. Goff's storyboards and art designs formed the film's basis.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was filmed at locations in The Bahamas and Jamaica, with the cave scenes filmed beneath what is now the Xtabi Resort on the cliffs of Negril. Other scenes were photographed in Nassau, Lyford Cay (where the 1916 version was filmed), and Death Valley. Filming took place between January 11 and June 19, 1954. According to the two-disc DVD documentary, the scenes in San Francisco at the beginning were filmed at Universal Studios while most of the modeling shots were done at 20th Century Fox.
Some of the location filming sequences were so complex that they required a technical crew of more than 400 people. The production presented many other challenges. The famous giant squid attack sequence had to be entirely re-shot, as it was originally filmed as taking place at dusk and in a calm sea. The sequence was filmed again, this time taking place at night and during a humongous thunderstorm, both to increase the drama and to better hide the cables and other mechanical workings of the animatronic squid.Bourne, Mark. "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Special Edition DVD." The DVD Journal, 2003. Retrieved: January 9, 2015.
The film's total production cost has been reported as $5 million and $9 million respectively but,"The Reel Thing XXVII: Program Abstracts" Reel Thing, July 8, 2011. Retrieved: April 4, 2018. either way, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was the most expensive and ambitious feature film production mounted by Disney up to that time.
Differences between novel and film The film was praised as faithfully adapting the novel. James W. Maertens writes that while this is true, "Close comparison of the novel and film reveals many changes, omissions, even reversals, which affect the story's fundamental concern (besides scientific education), a representation of class and gender, specifically masculinity, in the industrial age." Originally battery-powered in the novel, Captain Nemo (James Mason)'s submarine the Nautilus, is powered by atomic energy in the film. The novel's submarine is also a "streamlined, cigar shaped sub" while the film's is "a more ornate vessel".
The film's director and screenwriter extracted "the most memorable scenes from the novel and freely reordered them under the assumption that viewers would not remember the novel's order of events." Goff and Disney based the Nautilus's design in the film on the interior of the Forth Bridge. In the novel, Nemo orders parts from various industries, secretly shipping them to an island for assembly, whom Maertens labeled "a logistical genius at manipulating Industrial Age manufacturing".
Music Rather than an authentic soundtrack recording of the film's score or dialogue, two vinyl studio cast record albums were released to coincide with the film's first two releases in 1954 and 1963. Both albums contained condensed and heavily altered versions of the film's script, without the usage of any of the film's cast for character voices. Both albums were narrated by Ned Land as opposed to Pierre Aronnax, who narrated the film and the original novel. Neither album mentioned Nemo as actually being "cracked" (i.e. insane), as the film does, and considerably sanitized the character by omitting any mention of him killing anyone. The albums had Nemo surviving at the end and releasing Ned, Arronax, and Conseil out of gratitude for their saving his life. In this version, Ned, Aronnax and Conseil were not shipwrecked because the Nautilus rammed the ship they were on, but because a hurricane came up."More Golden Age Classics: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." Kidde Records, July 15, 2011. Retrieved: May 31, 2013.
The first album was issued in 1954 in conjunction with the film's original release, and starred William Redfield as the voice of Ned. This album, a book-and-record set, was issued as part of RCA Victor's Little Nipper series on two 45-RPM records."Walt Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Little Nipper Story Book Album)." Amazon. Retrieved: January 9, 2015. The second album, released by Disneyland Records in 1963 in conjunction with the film's first re-release,"Label: Disneyland Records." Rate Your Music. Retrieved: January 9, 2015. was issued on one 33 RPM 12-inch LP with no accompanying booklet and no liner notes – the usual practice with most Disneyland label albums. It contained much more of the film's plot, but with many of the same alterations as the first album, so this recording was technically a remake of the earlier one. The cast for the 1963 album was uncredited. Neither album listed the film's credits or made any mention of the film's cast.
A single for the film's most memorable song "A Whale of a Tale", written by Norman Gimbel and Al Hoffman and sung by Kirk Douglas, was released in 1954 under the Decca Children's Series label. According to Douglas, the recording was "very popular at the time". The song "And the Moon Grew Brighter and Brighter", which Douglas had sung in the movie Man Without a Star, written by Lou Singer and Jimmy Kennedy, was the B-side. Both songs can be found on the 2008 digital release of the film's soundtrack."Soundtrack Details: '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea'." Soundtrack Collector. Retrieved: January 9, 2015. Douglas also performed the song on The Ed Sullivan Show on December 5, 1954.
In the film, Johann Sebastian Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor is played by Nemo on the Nautilus's organ, but James Mason's playing is actually dubbed by an anonymous organist.
Official soundtrack