Mysterious Island

Columbia takes the Jules Verne classic and brings it to the big screen for the second time in a cliffhanging story that now includes aliens thrown into the American Civil War period tale. As 1950's Columbia serials go this is pretty good. The story, which in some ways is the closet to the novel isn't bad, dealing with trying to survive on the island as well as dealing with pirates, a mad man and the aliens, but it breaks down because by the end there are simply too many plot lines running through the story and there are too many characters to keep track of. It is enjoyable but at the same time to begins to circle back on itself about half way into the serial, which makes trying to watch this in a single sitting (or two) difficult. Worth a look, but keep it broken up over several nights.

In the Civil War, POW Capt. Cyrus Harding escapes from his Confederate captors in an observation balloon, with sailor Pencroft, his nephew Bert, writer Gideon, and soldier Neb. A hurricane blows the balloon off course to an uncharted island in the pacific. Our heroes soon encounter the natives (who worship the island's volcano), Rulu (a woman from Mercury trying to extract an element in order to conquer the Earth), Ayrton (a wild man exiled on the island), and Capt. Shard (a mercenary pirate). A mystery man, who possesses great scientific powers, also makes his presence known to the group of people, but whose side is he on? For 15 chapters, our quintet of heroes must battle all the elements and peoples while trying to figure a way off the island and back to civilization. It's not a bad serial, but nothing great either. There is a lot of action (while it does seem corny and repetitive at times) and okay cliffhangers. My biggest complaint with the serial (keep in mind I never read the Verne novel) is that it does not seem that the story is taking place in the 1860's and the ray guns, UFO's, and (then) contemporary situations, seem to be taken for granted as existing. Rating, based on serials, 5.

A few men crash land on an oddball island.

The trick is to forget all that you know about past versions of Mysterious Island and go into this with an open mind. It can be a struggle as I only know the colourful 1961 motion picture, with that mighty Bernard Herrmann music playing over it, so getting that out of my mind was hard. But anyway, the review...

This is not too bad at all, if you have no problem with watching men walk, walk and run, run around an island. We get a lot of that. But famed 60s science fiction TV producer - Irwin Allen - rooted a lot of his work (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Time Tunnel, Land Of The Giants, etc) on serials and you can just picture Allen watching Mysterious Island (1951) and taking notes.

Hidden caves with aliens inside, an erupting volcano, almost zero characterisation, grim faced determination, over-the-top alien costumes, pinching music cues from other studio productions (in this case Columbia's Batman and Robin), etc. It is all here and a lot turned up in Irwin Allen TV as well.

If you have no interest in the Allen connection, I would still tune in anyway, but don't even think about watching the whole four or five hours in one viewing. After one hour I needed a 24 hour rest from it. I would suggest one hour a night.