Mysterious Island - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Mysterious Island or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Mysterious Island

[elmer]

Almost all of Ray Harryhausen's movies had long titles ( The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, SInbad and the Eye of the Tiger). Mysterious Island, at two words, was the shortest.

[jessica]

One of the factors that led to the green-lighting of this project was the huge success of a film with a similar story, Swiss Family Robinson (1960), that was made by Walt Disney.

[bernard]

The original novel does not contain any reference to giant or extinct animals or plants. Film makers decided to include this to make the movie more exciting, appearing ever since as the most recognizable and persistent aspect of every subsequent adaptation of this Jules Verne work. Interestingly, extinct fauna features predominantly in another Verne novel, Journey to the Center of the Earth.

[charlie]

Although produced by different studios, it is obvious that the exterior design of the "Nautilus" submarine as seen in the film was heavily influenced by Harper Goff's "half crocodile/half shark" Nautilus design in Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), especially with respect to the sub's top spar and rounded "eye" windows. In the original Jules Verne novels of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" and "Mysterious Island", the Nautilus is described as being rather plain, basically a cigar-shaped steel tube with very little outside detailing.

[bernard]

The scene with the giant bird was from the original draft of the script, which was to have had prehistoric monsters rather than giant oysters and crabs.

[kenzi]

A real Brown crab was disemboweled, dismembered, cleaned and fitted with an internal armature for Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion animation of the giant crab. Additional live crabs were used for some of the "facial" close-ups, then later cooked for a crew dinner.

[nicholas]

The opening scenes at the Confederate prison camp were shot in England and the exteriors were shot at Shepperton Square.

[albert]

Producer Charles H. Schneer claimed that he chose this story after reading an article stating that Jules Verne's "Mysterious Island" was the most-looked-at book at public libraries.

[edgar]

The stone brook that the men discover on the island is the very same location (in Spain) that the crew in "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" drink from with red wine running through it.

[kim]

Michael Craig greatly enjoyed making the film but not working with director Cy Endfield, whom he described as "useless".

[kylie]

This is the first of three movies in which Herbert Lom is seen playing a pipe organ. The others are "The Phantom of the Opera" and "The Pink Panther Strikes Again."

[miriam]

Early in the film, as the castaways are exploring the island, they cross a log over a ravine. This is an obvious homage to 1933's King Kong, one of Ray Harryhausen's favorite films. It mimics the scene where Kong throws many of the sailors to their doom in the (long lost) Spider ravine scene. Even the camera angle used looks similar.

[chris]

Libby Prison in Richmond was used for Union officers, and not enlisted men. Enlisted men were held at Belle Isle on an island in the James River in Richmond. Neb, as an African-American, would not have been held prisoner, but would have been sent into slavery, if taken prisoner at all. Also, there was no uniform for war correspondents, who were all civilians. The Confederates all had no observation balloons after the summer of 1862. But without all these Jules Verne would have had no story.

[claude]

Percy Herbert's wedding band appears and disappears at various times in the movie.