20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)

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Producer Walt Disney brings Jules Verne’s adventure to the big screen in his first live-action feature, one that nearly bankrupted the studio and ended up being the most expensive movie ever made up to that time. James Mason stars as Captain Nemo, who uses his advanced submarine, the Nautilus, to destroy war-faring vessels. After one such attack, he picks up a sailor, a professor, and his assistant — played by Kirk Douglas, Paul Lukas, and Peter Lorre, respectively. The men are prisoners as much as guests aboard the Nautilus. While the professor becomes sympathetic to Nemo’s philosophy, Douglas and Lorre focus on escaping their traveling, underwater prison.

While the film could stand to lose twenty minutes and never fully succeeds in transporting me, there’s certainly plenty to admire in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The first is James Mason’s mysterious, coolly threatening portrayal of Nemo. Douglas is also fun when he’s singing and dancing, or interacting with Nemo’s pet sea lion, Ezmerelda. The Nautilus sets are remarkable in their intricate design and claustrophobic nature, and the underwater scenes were groundbreaking for the time. The most difficult sequence to capture is also the film’s crowning jewel — the crew’s battle with a giant squid. You won’t find better practical tentacle effects in any other movie ever made. The film also gets kudos for being an early technicolor anamorphic feature.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is probably a more ambitious movie than it needed to be, but it proved to be a big hit for Disney. Not all of it holds up more than half a century later, but the parts that do still make it worth a gander.

Academy Awards: Best Art Direction, Special Effects

Oscar Nomination: Best Film Editing