Captain Nemo looks like a kind of grungy blackface Santa Claus in this ambitious mash-up of two Jules Verne novels - the title piece and Mysterious Island - from the fledgling Universal studio. Unfortunately, the plots collide rather than merge, resulting in a structure that is all over the place. The pacing is also erratic, but that's down to the studio's insistence on lengthy interludes during which the camera scans the seabed in order to show off the film's 'groundbreaking' use of underwater cinematography
Review of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
