The pre-credit sequence in "The Amazing Captain Nemo" is a fantastic moment of gonzo 70s television. A rumpled, cardigan clad Burgess Meredith stands on the bridge of his TV movie style sci-fi submarine, a metal demon-masked first mate by his side.
He has the President of the US on the video phone and makes to him the most alliterative of ransom demands: "One billion dollars in gold bullion in a buoyant capsule...", or he destroys DC with a nuke. Then, as proof he's not screwing around, he has a guy in what can best be described as a monkey fetus mask blow up an island. Roll opening credits. It's the kind of delirious high point most movies spend their running time never reaching. I was scared that it would be all downhill from there; 90 minutes of talky boring-ness. My fears were misguided.
While engaged in "war games" (as a screen graphic informs us), Tom Franklin (Tom Hallick) and Jim Porter (Burr DeBenning) discover the Nautilus, with Captain Nemo (Jose Ferrer) in a state of hibernation inside a smoky glass tube. Soon, Nemo awakens and they inform him who they are: "We're with the US Pacific fleet, sir. Special assignment: underwater." Special assignment: underwater? This movie has seven credited screenwriters (including the legendary Robert Bloch). Seven screenwriters and that line is fully indicative of the level of dialogue on display throughout.
Nemo is convinced to delay his planned excursion to search for Atlantis in order that he may help these guys and their boss (Warren Stevens) thwart Prof. Waldo Cunningham's (Burgess Meredith) doomsday plan. It should be noted that the POTUS was given a week to comply with the Professor's demands and they ask Nemo for help sometime during day number seven. What was their plan if they didn't find a preserved nautical character from classic literature? What were they doing for the other six days?
Cunningham once again threatens the President, and once again the President sits there, staring at him, saying nothing. The Commander-In-Chief doesn't utter a single word. He just stares back. It's really odd. Soon, Nemo is aboard the Professor's ship and we go into full post "Star Wars" rip-off mode: there's laser battles, robots, and set design that looks like "Star Wars" if Kenner made the sets. Also, there has to be an ersatz Darth Vader, so we've got Tor (Med Flory...who died earlier this year, and who I just saw on the big screen a couple hours ago at a showing of "The Nutty Professor"...man, I would've loved to have interviewed that guy), who is giant, metal headed, semi psychic and sounds like the love child of James Earl Jones and Solomon Grundy (from "Super Friends"). He says things like: "Aliens must die." and "Nemo is back on Nautilus."
No sooner has Nemo shot Cunningham's rocket out of the sky, than we are sent into another adventure. It seems the US has dumped nuclear waste at the bottom of the sea and now we expect the good Captain to help us seal it off. Coincidentally, The Professor also wants this nuclear junk: "Let's go fishing! Let's catch some radioactive fish we can feed to my nuclear power plant!" On this trip Nemo is joined by Dr. Robert Cook (Mel Ferrer...no relation), a scientist who is hooking up with his granddaughter (not really...she's actually "Kate", played by Lynda Day George, as she puts it, "I'm a nuclear physicist, I'm trained to deal with nuclear problems.") Ol' Robert Cook turns out to be evil and there's a great pseudo sword fight betwixt the Ferrer's that ends when Jose stabs Mel in the crotch which leads to him getting electrocuted.
This is truly an "and then" movie, with no concern for background, character or fancy plotting, only with getting to the next bit of action. The missile is destroyed AND THEN Nemo has to navigate a minefield AND THEN his oxygen is cut AND THEN there's a sword fight AND THEN he has to fool The Professor with a "clone" Nautilus AND THEN he finds Atlantis AND THEN ... . "The Amazing Captain Nemo" is a crappy yellowing pulp paperback that you got for free and can't put down. It plays like an old serial edited together, only this time in the 1970s. This makes more sense when you realize this movie is three episodes of Irwin Allen's would-be follow up to "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" stuck together with scotch tape.
Captain Nemo plumbs the depths of murky 70s optical effects, oftentimes looking like toys being filmed in a dirty aquarium. According to IMDB, Cunningham's ship actually is a toy, a modified version of a "Space:1999" vehicle. As for the Nautilus, it's a reconstituted miniature from "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" (again, credit to IMDB). The live action underwater scenes directed by Paul Stader, though, are excellent. Well shot and engaging, I prefer the underwater shoot outs in this movie to similar scenes in the infinitely more well regarded "Thunderball". I have weird taste (or lack of) sometimes.
Jose Ferrer does the most he can with what he's given here, delivering his lines with a bearded stoicism. Burgess Meredith on the other hand, appears to be having a freakin' blast, wrapping his teeth around the dialogue and relishing it. Whenever he's onscreen there's a sense of mania that's intoxicating. Also, fan's of "Magnificent Seven" and "One, Two Three" take note: The "German James Dean" himself, Horst Bucholz, shows up as King Tibor of Atlantis. I couldn't help but think while watching him, what a perfect "Sub-Mariner" he would have made.
"The Amazing Captain Nemo" arrived one year after "Star Wars", and the scenes aboard Cunningham's ship give reason to suspect they were trying to graft on some George Lucas elements in order to appeal to audiences. Whereas "Star Wars" transcended it's pulp roots to become something monumental, this movie stays closer to the small scale cheap fun of those old serials, and that's just fine by me. It's a joyful, low-budget affair and when it's limitation's show, you don't laugh in derision, instead you smile along with it. This is exactly the kind of movie I want to watch on a rainy weekend afternoon. Based on the pattern established, I'm going to assume that within a minute of the ending Nemo was cast into another quest which somehow ended up involving the nefarious Professor Cunningham and that even now the two are doing gleeful battle in a never ending repetitive cycle.
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