The session: "Holiday-Premiered Fantasy Films—Get Your Ray Harryhausen On"
All four movies in this session are fantasy films that were released during the holiday season. In addition, the first three featured the stop-motion special effects of Ray Harryhausen.
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.
Week 2: Mysterious Island (1961)
Directed by Cy Endfield
My Impressions Going In:
I had never heard of this
Civil War soldiers escape their POW camp in a hot air balloon, and land on a remote island populated by giant animals.
Reaction and Other Folderol:
Back in the 1970s there was a crappy TV show called Dusty's Trail. DT was a thinly disguised ripoff of Gilligan's Island. My only encounter with the show was years ago when I bought a street DVD by that title. It was packaged to look like a wacky movie about pioneers, and looked like it might be worth the fifty cents or so that the vendor was asking. I got it home and watched it. Or at least some of it. It seemed oddly episodic. A situation would arise, then get resolved. Then another situation. Then another. Instead of a movie, it felt like several episodes of a TV show stitched together. Which is exactly what it was, although I didn't know that at first. I bring that up because Mysterious Island reminded me of that. It felt too much like a series of separate events centered around one small group of people.
Having said that, I need to backtrack. A little. This movie did feel too episodic -- maybe disjointed is a better word -- and did make me think of Dusty's Trail, it wasn't as disjointed as all that. But I did find that the whole shift of focus (from prehistoric creatures to Captain Nemo) made for a bit of an annoying mashup.
The stop-motion effects and models were entertaining to watch and made for a fun time, even if the plot was kind of lacking. It was Ray Harryhausen's effects that saved the whole thing.
Ratings
Me: 6
Bob-O: 9.7
Dave: 9.8
Ethan: 8
Joe: 10
Joe: 10
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