Sorry about the delay in getting this last part of the silent film fest posted, folks. Its been a tumultuous couple of weeks here, but all that's now passed and we should be getting back to regular postings.
Way back in the day, when yours truly was but a young perfessor, one of my favorite movies was the 1954 Disney-produced version of Jules Verne's classic tale
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Sure, from today's historical and literary perspective it was horribly miscast, and much of the subtleties of Verne's original characterizations is missing, but for a young lad there was nothing that could spark the imagination like the undersea adventures of the Nautilus and her crew. James Mason cast an imposing regality as the imperious Captain Nemo, and when Kirk Douglas risked his life battling that giant octopus, well, to my young mind there was no match for his cleft-chinned heroics.
Imagine my delight, then, in discovering while researching the silent films to include in this mini-festival that there was a much earlier silent version of the tale that I could include here. Of course, almost as soon as I saw the opportunity, the questions also began to arise. Was there any way that such an early version could pull off the effects necessary to tell the story? At this point, filmmakers were only just exploring land based photography, how would they possibly pull off the underwater effects? And was there any way that it could bring the excitement and joy that the Disney version had to my young boy's heart? And would it, being an adaptation much closer in time to the source material also be closer in details?
