20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Short description
In the mid-nineteenth century, reports of a huge sea creature destroying ships spread alarm among sailors and governments. The United States sends a warship to hunt the mystery, with a harpooner, a professor from a Paris marine museum and the professor's assistant aboard. The vessel is struck and sunk, and the three survivors are taken aboard what turns out to be a submarine, the Nautilus, under the command of the brilliant and vengeful Captain Nemo. The film adapts Jules Verne's novel, staging the encounter between Nemo's extraordinary vessel and the men who become his unwilling guests.
Richard Fleischer directed, working from a screenplay by Earl Felton, with Walt Disney producing. It was the third of the twenty-three features Fleischer directed, coming after The Narrow Margin and before Between Heaven and Ashes. Kirk Douglas plays Ned Land, James Mason is Captain Nemo, Paul Lukas is Professor Pierre Arronax and Peter Lorre is Conseil, with Robert J. Wilke and Ted de Corsia among the twenty-three credited cast members. Made for about 5 million dollars, it returned roughly 28 million worldwide.
Reception splits along audience lines on IMDb, where a relatively small number of voters give it 5.8 out of 10, while on TMDB it holds 7.1 from over a thousand votes. A critics' rating of 7.8 from thirty-two reviews places it above the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- Richard Fleischer was very surprised to learn of his candidacy for the director's chair, as he was the son of Max Fleischer, the main competitor of the Disney studio's animator. He asked Walt Disney himself for clarification, but he replied that he knew perfectly well who he was and considered him the most suitable choice for the job.
- “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” was the first Disney project released by the studio’s internal distributor, Buena Vista.
- Walt Disney's initial idea was to create a full-length animated film, but detailed preliminary sketches by production designer Harper Goff and his persistent urging to opt for a live-action film prompted a change of decision.
- The boat in which the heroes land on the island of cannibals was made of wood, specially painted to resemble metal. To make it sit lower in the water, specially stockpiled sandbags were used.
- Average shot length: 9 seconds.
- One of the Nautilus models used in the filming is on display at Disney World's EPCOT Center.
- The bulk of the underwater filming was done in the Bahamas in the same area where filming of the silent film from 1916 took place.
- Gregory Peck auditioned for the role of Captain Nemo. The candidacy of British actor Ralph Richardson was also discussed.
- Roland Hill designed the complex interiors of the 'Nautilus', and later became the creator of Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland.
- The overturned lifeboat in which Kirk Douglas's character reached the 'Nautilus' was supported from below by a hidden scuba diver for greater stability.
- Until the end of the 1960s, many sets representing the interior of the 'Nautilus' were fully preserved and used as an attraction at the Disney studio. These included the navigation room, saloon, the legendary organ, and one of the large portholes, above which a giant squid was attached. The squid's beak could extend, click several times, and retract.
- The role of Professor Aronnax could have gone to Charles Boyer, who had to decline due to commitments to other projects.
- The scale of the filming process was so large that Disney Studios had to seek assistance from other Hollywood studios to utilize their resources. Thus, the initial scenes were filmed on one of the Universal Pictures soundstages, and 20th Century Fox provided one of the largest water tanks at the time for work with large-scale models.
- Production designer Harper Goff, among other things, taught Kirk Douglas to play the guitar for his number, “Whale of a Tale.” His cameo can also be spotted at the very beginning of the film in the office of a shipping company in San Francisco.
Similar movies
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
