| 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Richard Fleischer |
| Produced by | Walt Disney |
| Written by | Earl Felton |
| Starring | Kirk Douglas James Mason Paul Lukas Peter Lorre |
| Music by | Paul J. Smith |
| Editing by | Elmo Williams |
| Distributed by | Buena Vistas Pictures Distribution |
| Release date(s) | December 23, 1954 |
| Running time | 127 min. |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $5 million |
| Gross revenue | $28.2 million |
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was a live-action Disney film based on Jules Verne’s 1870 novel of the same name. It was at the time, the biggest Disney movie ever, costing a lot of money to build new film sets to handle live-action filmmaking, which was still in its infancy at the studio. The film was well received by audiences and critics, and was nominated for three Academy Awards, being “Best Art Direction - Color,” “Best Special Effects,” and “Best Film Editing,” winning the former two.
Plot
They’re rumors of a large sea monster causing ships to sink, which causes Professor Pierre Aronnax and his assistant Conseil or be unable to go to Saigon from San Francisco. However, the U.S. Navy hires the two to go on an expedition to hunt for the rumored sea monster, and the ship (U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln) will stop at Saigon, and the two agree. Right as they’re about to dock, the rumored sea monster attacks, it appears to not be interested in fighting, but after the crew at the Lincoln open fire, it charges toward them, and a harpooner named Ned Land throws a harpoon at it, but to no avail, and it crashes into the ship, knocking Ned, the Professor, and Conseil off, and the Lincoln doesn’t return for them. Aronnax and Conseil float on smashed ship parts, and the next morning, the two find what appears to be the sea monster, but find out it is actually a submarine. The two go inside, and Aronnax is very curious about it, while Conseil is more concerned, and goes outside to find Ned. The three explore, and open the blinds at the window to see people holding an underwater funeral for someone, but they see the intruders, and catch them despite their attempts to flee.
The Captain knows who Aronnax is, and says he can stay, while he’ll let Conseil and Ned drown. Aronnax objects to it, saying he can’t let his friends die. The Captain is about to give Aronnax the same fate, but later changes his mind, and spares the three men. The Captain introduces himself as Nemo, and treats the three to a meal, but tells them they’re on the strictest probation, and they will be killed if they try to escape the submarine which is called the Nautilus. Ned hates the food once he finds out what they are, but lucky for him, Nemo tells Ned and the others that he would be diving underwater to find their own food. The men get in diver’s suits, and explore the ocean floor. Ned and Conseil get off track, and find a chest of treasure, but a shark attacks them, but Nemo kills it, saving them, but his men take Ned and Conseil, leaving the treasure there. Nemo scolds them about it, and despite having some treasure himself, he values food much more than gold.
Aronnax grows more and more interested in Nemo’s technology, which distances himself from Conseil and Ned, as he took Nemo’s side in the treasure chest incident. Since Nemo trusts him, he shows him some of what makes the Nautilus run, which Aronnax writes in his journal. Eventually, Nemo takes Aronnax to the surface, and he sees a ship taking in slaves, which enrages the Captain. When they’re back in the Nautilus, Nemo goes full speed ahead, and destroys the ship. Ned scolds Aronnax for trying to befriend Nemo, and he and Conseil leave. Aronnax slams Nemo as a hypocrite, due to being against man’s cruelty to man, but kills a bunch of presumably innocent people. However, Nemo then tells Aronnax his past, where after he and his men escaped being slaves, he built the Nautilus, but since people (which Nemo describes only as “That hated Nation”) wanted his secrets, but didn’t get them, they tortured, and killed his wife and son. After that, Aronnax understands Nemo, which severs the relationship he had with Ned and Conseil.
The two then hatch a plan to discover where Nemo’s island is, and leak its location to the Navy. Once they do so, they put the coordinates into bottles, and throw them into the sea. After that, the Nautilus docks at a pacific island, and gets stuck. Nemo requests that Aronnax go to the surface to get samples, but he refuses to go due to what happened last time. Ned and Conseil volunteer, and Nemo allows it. Ned tries to make his escape, but realizes the people there are cannibals. Ned makes a run for it, and he and Conseil head back to the Nautilus, and after the cannibals are shocked by the Nautilus’ defense system, Nemo scolds Ned, and locks him up. Eventually, the Nautilus is freed, but it takes in a lot of water, which is eventually repaired, but they’re now around a mile underwater, which is the deepest man has ever been. Then, the Nautilus is attacked by a giant squid, and the shock that got the cannibals to flee didn’t work. The Nautilus goes to the surface, and Nemo and his men go outside to fight the squid. Meanwhile, Ned breaks free, and tries to get to the main hall, to see the fight. Ned goes outside, and gets a harpoon, and throws it between the squid’s eyes, killing it. Ned also jumps into the sea to save Nemo’s life, which both are confused by.
Afterwards, Aronnax and Nemo talk about those events, and despite Ned doing a good deed, Nemo still isn’t convinced of man’s good nature, and seeks to return to his base which is the island of Vulcania. However, Ned’s messages from earlier are picked up by the Navy, and they surround the island. Nemo still docks there, and plans to blow up the island so no one will know his secrets. He sets it up, but in his way back to the Nautilus, he gets fatally shot. As he is dying, he says the Nautilus and all its occupants will go down with him. He has his men lock up Ned and Conseil, but before he does it with Aronnax, he tells him "There is hope for the future. And when the world is ready for a new and better life, all this will someday come to pass... in God's good time." On the way back, Ned fights off the guards, and frees Conseil and Aronnax. Ned also fights the Nautilus’ First Mate to get the submarine back to the surface so he and the others can escape. Aronnax tries to go back to his quarters to get his journal, but is knocked out by Ned. On the way out, Esmeralda who is Nemo’s pet seal, escapes as well, and joins the three men. They escape just in time, as Vulcania completely explodes. Nemo’s last action is taking down the blinds on the large window to see the sea one last time before he dies. As the Nautilus sinks, Nemo’s last words to Aronnax play, as the film ends.
Cast
Kirk Douglas as Ned Land
James Mason as Captain Nemo
Paul Lukas as Professor Pierre Aronnax
Peter Lorre as Conseil
Production
Initially conceived as an animated film, highly detailed storyboard art, and a lot of pushing by Harper Goff (who is credited as a Production Developer) convinced Walt Disney to make this a live-action film. Walt also reportedly believed that a large scale live-action film would have his studio be taken seriously by other people in Hollywood. Some of it was filmed underwater near the Caribbean Sea, which is the same area where the 1916 adaptation by Stuart Paton was filmed.
Walt Disney himself tagged Richard Fleischer to be the director, and Fleischer, who was the son of Max Fleischer, and nephew of Dave Fleischer, who were major rivals of Disney in the 1930s, was worried what his family might think, but his father told him to tell Walt that “He has a good taste in directors.”
This is also the first Disney to film to hire big-name actors, as Paul Lukas won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1944 for his portrayal of Kurt Muller in the 1943 film Watch on the Rhine, and James Mason went on to be nominated for that award in 1955 for portraying Norman Maine in the 1954 version of A Star is Born.
The budget of $5 million ($58.4 million in 2024) was the highest for Disney yet, and a lot of that went into constructing new sets, renting out sets from rival studios, and building models of the Nautilus which was designed by Harper Goff himself. Due to the immense budget, it was a major gamble for Disney, which could have almost killed the studio.
Initially, the giant squid battle would take place during the day, but due to the squid looking fake, the whole sequence was cut, and replaced with a new one where it’s dark and storming, which increased the budget.
Unfortunately, despite Harper Goff playing a big role in the production of this movie, he was not nominated for any of the three Academy Awards it was nominated for.[1]
Legacy
Often regarded as one of the best Disney movies of all-time, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was the 3rd Disney movie to be released to home video in 1980.[2]
Its major success also pushed Disney to make more live-action original films, which had animated movies which shot the studio into prominence take backstage for a lot of the 1950s and 1960s.