Mysterious Island

Gasbag Thriller

(Columbia). 'Tis a dark and stormy night. Shouts and shots are heard. Four Yanks jump the wall of a Confederate stockade, grab a Rebel hostage and pile into the basket of an observation balloon. Whack! They cut loose. The balloon soars. "We made it! We made it!" The storm screams derision. Four days and 7,000 miles later, it hurls the fugitives into the sea and onto the beach of an island somewhere in the South Pacific.

Morning. Sunshine. Palm trees. "We're alive!" Unfortunately, so is the giant crab, 18 ft. from claw to claw, that comes scuttling down the beach. After a fearful battle, the monster plops into a boiling hot spring. The castaways breakfast heartily on boiled crab, then sight a small boat drifting ashore. What luck! The boat just happens to contain what every cinema castaway most urgently requires: women.

Domesticity sets in. A cave is found and furnished, and the men go out to hunt. Pretty soon they find something that pretty well fills the pot--a chicken 20 ft. tall. But next day they have trouble with bugs--bees as big as rhinos. And that same afternoon the island is invaded by pirates--just regular-size pirates. At the height of the battle, the pirate ship blows up and sinks. How come? Moments later, a weird figure comes gliding through the surf. It's a fish. It's a sub. It's--Captain Nemo! And just where has Captain Nemo been hiding all this time? In his submarine, the Nautilus. And where is the Nautilus? In a volcano. Any further questions?

If so, the required information is readily available in this competent, medium-budget version of a trilogy published in 1874 by Jules Verne. It should thrill the gee-whillickers out of anybody willing to settle for a gasbag in a rocket age.

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