MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (1961) *** As kids we would sit in the audience watching these movies and when a giant Dodo bird or something would jump out we'd point and yell "fake! fake!", apparently in celebration of our own impressive grasp of reality. If we'd been one/tenth as smart as we thought we were we would have thrown our popcorn into the air and chanted "hair-ree-hausen! hair-ree-hausen!" as I do now. This movie probably looks exactly like Jules Verne imagined it, an obviously British guy trying to pull off a southern accent (!!, cheers), an electric underwater gun, and Ray Harryhausen's glorious and gigantic monsters. I like the slug-seashell hybrid best. Anyway these guys escape the civil war in a hot air balloon, right into "the biggest storm in the history of North America" which deposits them on an island 1732 miles from New Zealand. Fortunately some women wash up (Joan Greenwood is a nice British desert island babe, and dressing a few years ahead of Carnaby Street) along with what appears to be a keg of beer. Unfortunately it isn't beer, but they find some alcohol in a cave so the party's on! There are bad guys and a bitch of a volcano but Captain Nemo appears, taking respite from his violent terrorist battle against war, capitalism, and world hunger. Nemo, it turns out, has never got much satisfaction from communications with his own species, but he gives them all cool backpacks and so they're converted.
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