Stars: Michael Craig, Joan Greenwood, Herbert Lom, Michael Callan, Gary Merrill

Director: Cyril Endfield

Summary: A group of prisoners escape their Union troop captors in an observation balloon. Crash landing on a desert island they discover that their surroundings are larger than life. Based on the Jules Verne novel.

This fantasy adventure is based on the 1870 novel by Jules Verne. A small, motley group of soldiers and civilians flee the 1865 siege of Richmond via a hot air balloon, and end up on an isolated island crawling with over-sized crabs, birds, and bees. Even more astonishing, they discover three other humans inhabiting the island: two shipwrecked women and the illustrious, long-lost Captain Nemo. Ray Harryhausen's special effects, which include a battle with a giant crab and abduction by an enormous bird, still have the power to thrill and amaze.

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Notable neither for its director nor its stars, Mysterious Islandhas been given the widescreen DVD treatment rather because of its special-effects man, the legendary Ray Harryhausen. And though his input here is minimal compared with other movies, his stop-motion contributions add zest to a cracking good yarn. A gang of American Civil War soldiers hijack a hot-air balloon and escape from the frying-pan of a military prison to the fire of a deserted tropical island. When a couple of English girls are washed ashore and a legendary nautical figure resurfaces, the scene is set for a ripping survival adventure, taking in weighty theories of political democracy, equality and cowardice, and still managing to add a healthy dollop of stirring music, dodgy accents, old-fashioned sexism, pirates, giant bees, a giant crab and a fearsome, err, giant chicken.

Harryhausen's eighth feature contains all the elements that make his movies great, and the pacey script, based on the Jules Verne novel, has you gripped from the off. One of his more modern-feeling early films, the colour film stock, the exotic settings and wider stable of stars (black and English actors feature alongside a pre-ClouseauHerbert Lom) move it forward an era from his dated black-and-white schlock-fests. Gripping, erudite and easily on a par with the more well-known Sinbadand Argonautsmovies, this is one to be marooned with.

On the DVD:Mysterious Island's colour picture is bright, clean and crisp in this anamorphic 1.85:1 widescreen transfer, and the Dolby digital mono soundtrack is clear enough. The theatrical trailer will please the kitsch fans, as will the featurette "This Is Dynamation" produced at the same time as the first Sinbadmovie. The real corker here though is the generously lengthy documentary "The Harryhausen Chronicles". Narrated by Leonard Nimoy, it features a stellar cast of devotees (George Lucas among them) waxing lyrical about the influence of Harryhausen's films, and allows the man himself to ramble fascinatingly over clips of his filmic canon. If you're a fan, it's Harryhausen heaven. --Paul Eisinger

Aspect Ratio:	1.85 Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Harryhausen Chronicles, Mysterious Island Featurette, This Is Dynamation Featurette, Photo Gallery, Theatrical Trailer, Trailers
Subtitles:	Arabic, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish
Year:	1961
Release Date:	December 2, 2002
Runtime:	97 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	C D R 10128
Keywords:	Action, Island, General, Wide, Screen, Mysterious, Adventure
Genre:	Action/Adventure