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Released by: Twilight Time Releasing
Released on: December, 2015.
Director: Cy Enfield
Cast: Gary Merrill, Joan Greenwood, Herbert Lom, Beth Rogan, Percy Herbert, Michael Craig
Year: 1961
Purchase From Screen Archives
The Movie:
Very loosely based on the novel of the same name by Jules Verne, Mysterious Island is set in 1865 where a rag tag group of Union soldiers make a daring escape from the Confederate prison camp. They do this in a rather unorthodox way - by using a hot air balloon.
When a storm blows up, the balloon and its passengers are knocked off course and they end up flying across the ocean and landing on a small island in a remote section of the South Pacific. As it would come to pass, two high class English women have also been shipwrecked on this very same island, and soon the two groups pair up and setup a camp of sorts so that they can at least have some basic shelter to live in.
The new citizens of the island soon learn that they are not alone - the island is home to all manner of bizarre mutated creatures most of whom are huge in size. A giant crab, some massive birds, a flurry of giant bumblebees and a few different gigantic reptiles are all calling this place their own and they make life difficult for the humans. To add insult to injury, a group of pirates come ashore to find themselves some fresh water and when they learn of the group's existence, they open fire on them using the cannons aboard their ship.
Proving that not all their luck is bad, Captain Nemo (Herbert Lom in a scene stealing turn) shows up on the scene and sinks the pirate ship and saves our eclectic group of survivors. It turns out he's living inside a cave and has been since his submarine, The Nautilus, conked out on him. Nemo does have some bad news though - it seems that the volcano which makes up a good portion of the mass of the island is going to explode soon, and they're going to have to figure out a way to get out of there before it happens and everyone is whisked away in a flood of lava.
Directed by Cy Endfield (of Zulu fame) and made up of a cast consisting of Michael Craig (The Vault Of Horror), Joan Greenwood (1978's The Hound Of The Baskervilles), and Herbert Lom (The Dead Zone, Ten Little Indians) the movie moves along at a nice quick pace and throws in all manner of challenges for the crew to deal with, whether they make sense or not. Everything happens in an extremely random manner, even by science fiction movie standards, and some of the ideas seem to have been put together quite haphazardly. While this may sound like a slam, it's quite the opposite. The sheer craziness of the film is what makes it work, and once again it provides a very nice showcase for Harryhausen's great giant creature effects work, highlight by the now famous giant crab attack on the island.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Mysterious Island is brought back to Blu-ray in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 1.66.1 widescreen. Detail is nice throughout, as is color reproduction, while black levels remain pretty strong from start to finish. There's good texture here and the picture is consistently clean, showing very little in the way of actual print damage while retaining a nice, natural amount of film grain. There are no problems with any compression artifacts and the image is free of noise reduction. This doesn't appear to be drastically different than the first Blu-ray release of the movie from a few years ago, but as that disc looked quite good that won't be a problem for most.
Audio options are provided in DTS-HD 5.1, DTS-HD 2.0 and DTS-HD Mono, all in English, with optional subtitles provided in English only. The 5.1 mix spreads things around as you'd expect while the 2.0 track gives some more depth primarily to the score when compared with the single channel option also included. Each of the three tracks is clean, nicely balanced and free of any hiss or distortion.
Extras, which are considerably more comprehensive on this reissue than on the first release, start off with an audio commentary from Film Historians Randall William Cook, C. Courtney Joyner and Steven Smith that does quite a solid job of filling in the back story for this particular film. It covers all the bases you'd expect it to - the casting, the director, the studio involvement, the sets and locations and of course, Herrmann's score. There's also a good bit of talk that covers Harryhausen's involvement with the picture and some critical analysis worked into the mix throughout the talk.
Also included are two quick featurettes, the first being the eleven minute Ray Harryhausen On Mysterious Island in which the late, great effects titan talks about his work on this film and the second of which is the five minute Islands Of Mystery. This one is a newsreel style piece that was made to promote the movie when it first played theatrically.
Rounding out the extras are Bernard Herrmann's score available as an isolated DTS-HD track, a couple of vintage TV Spots, a few theatrical trailers, menus and chapter selection. Inside the clear keepcase there is an insert booklet containing some original poster art, a newly created cover piece and an essay from Julie Kirgo that are, as always, insightful and interesting.
The Final Word:
Mysterious Island is a genuinely enjoyable slice of action and adventure with some wholly appropriate elements of sci-fi and fantasy thrown in for good measure. The effects set pieces steal the show but even the calmer moments in the film work, thanks to some slick direction and a good cast. Twilight Time's reissue might not look much different than the first release but it's got an additional audio track and a whole bunch of extras - hardcore fans might want to double dip but those who missed out the first time around should know that this is the version to go for.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
