Adaptation of Jules Verne’s follow-up to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea opens during the siege of Richmond, Virginia, where three Union soldiers break out of a Confederate stockade. An army engineer (Michael Craig), a young recruit (Michael Callan) and an African American soldier (Dan Jackson) use a ferocious storm as cover to escape in a hot air balloon, taking Yankee war correspondent Gideon Splitt (Gary Merrill) and the rebel balloon pilot (Percy Herbert) along for the ride.

After being aloft for days in the storm, the balloon malfunctions, forcing the men to jettison the basket and cling to the balloon’s supports as it crashes into the sea. Taking refuge on a volcanic tropical island in the South Pacific, the castaways encounter strange things: a signal fire none of them started, extraordinarily large vegetation, and a trunk containing goods intended to make their isle vacation more hospitable.

Joined by a shipwrecked Frenchwoman (Joan Greenwood) and her niece (Beth Rogan), the castaways also encounter abnormally large creatures: a giant crab, a prehistoric bird, and a honeybee. Pirates later arrive to raise a ruckus, but the castaways are rescued by Captain Nemo (Herbert Lom), the legendary skipper of the Nautilis, who is using the island to experiment with supersized foods.

With the volcano exploding and the Nautilis out of order, the army engineer devises a plan to raise a sunken ship using the submarine’s pumps and their balloon. A giant cephalopod stands in their way.

Directed by Cy Enfield and featuring stop motion effects by Ray Harryhausen, Mysterious Island was one of my favorite monster movies growing up; along with Harryhausen’s The Valley of Gwangi, it played on local TV in Houston constantly.

This is a terrific war story, castaway adventure and fantasy rolled into one, with the creatures – who are never much danger to anyone – more of an added bonus.

Revisiting Mysterious Island after all these years, I was surprised by how little the monsters have to do with the story. Charles Schneer, who produced all of Harryhausen’s sci-fi and fantasy films, learned that Jules Verne’s shipwreck tale was the most popular book at the library, but in an effort to sex up the box office, took liberties with the source material, making the castaways coed and populating the island with a few Harryhausen creatures.

Beginning with the cool idea of a jail break in a hot air balloon, the movie is hard for any geek to resist. As the castaways set out to explore the island, there’s an overwhelming feeling of wonder and awe, courtesy of an effectively mysterious score by Bernard Herrmann, Alfred Hitchcock’s composer. Even with matte effects that look repainted from King Kong, the movie is exciting and a lot of fun.

The cast isn’t necessarily one for the ages, but Enfield does a terrific job with the film’s pacing and imaginative look. He was an American director who apprenticed in Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater, but was named a Communist by HUAC and blacklisted from the film industry in 1951. Enfield moved to Britain and would later direct another outstanding adventure film, Zulu. I’ll take this flick over the brainless and noisy Pirates of the Caribbean any day.