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William Stromberg conducts the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. Score restoration by John Morgan, Anna Bonn and William Stromberg. Deluxe 32 page booklet.
Mysterious Island (UK: Jules Verne's Mysterious Island) was released in 1961 by Morningside Productions. Based upon the book The Mysterious Island (L'Île mystérieuse) by Jules Verne, it was produced by Charles Schneer and Ray Harryhausen. Directed by Cy Endfield, the film was released through Columbia Pictures. It was filmed in Shepperton Studios, Shepperton, England using SuperDynamation, which was a showcase for Harryhausen's animation effects. Like several of Harryhausen's classic productions, the soundtrack was provided by Bernard Herrmann.
The film centers around escaping Union soldiers from a Confederate prison camp during the American Civil War in a hot air balloon. They end up crashing in the ocean, only to find themselves washed up on an unknown island where gigantic animals abound. It would later be revealed that the animals were experiments of the presumed-dead Captain Nemo, who is an unknown benefactor to the castaways as they struggle to survive on the island. After a skirmish with pirates, the stranded group manages to escape from the island on the pirate's ship.
The highlights of the film were Ray Harryhausen's animation sequences. The different animated "monsters" that the castaways encountered were: a giant crab, a giant flightless bird (a prehistoric bird called a Phorusrhacos) which most viewers thought was a chicken, giant bees and a giant cephalopod called a Chambered Nautiloid. |