20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a 1916 American

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, when ...

directed by

Stuart Paton Stuart Paton (23 July 1883 – 16 December 1944) was a British film director, director, screenwriter and actor of the silent film, silent era. Paton mostly worked with Universal Pictures, Universal, and is accredited with directing 67 films ...

. The film's storyline is based on the 1870 novel ''

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea ''Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas'' (french: Vingt mille lieues sous les mers) is a classic science fiction adventure novel by French writer Jules Verne. The novel was originally serialized from March 1869 through June 1870 in Pierre-Ju ...

'' by

Jules Verne Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraor ...

. It also incorporates elements from Verne's 1875 novel ''

The Mysterious Island ''The Mysterious Island'' (french: L'Île mystérieuse) is a novel by Jules Verne, published in 1875. The original edition, published by Hetzel, contains a number of illustrations by Jules Férat. The novel is a crossover sequel to Verne's fam ...

''. On May 4, 2010, a new print of the film was shown accompanied by a live performance of an original score by

Stephin Merritt Stephin Raymond Merritt (born February 9, 1965) is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, best known as the songwriter and principal singer of the bands the Magnetic Fields, the Gothic Archies, and Future Bible Heroes. He is ...

at the

Castro Theatre The Castro Theatre is a historic movie palace in San Francisco that became San Francisco Historic Landmark #100 in September 1976. Located at 429 Castro Street in the Castro District, it was built in 1922 with a California Churrigueresque façad ...

, as part of the

San Francisco International Film Festival The San Francisco International Film Festival (abbreviated as SFIFF), organized by the San Francisco Film Society, is held each spring for two weeks, presenting around 200 films from over 50 countries. The festival highlights current trends in in ...

. In 2016, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

, and selected for its

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception i ...

Plot

A strange "sea monster" has been rampaging the seas. The United States sends the naval vessel ''Abraham Lincoln'' to investigate. During their search, the vessel runs into the "monster,” and it damages their ship. The mysterious monster turns out to be ''

Nautilus The nautilus (, ) is a pelagic marine mollusc of the cephalopod family Nautilidae. The nautilus is the sole extant family of the superfamily Nautilaceae and of its smaller but near equal suborder, Nautilina. It comprises six living species in t ...

'', the technologically advanced submarine of

Captain Nemo Captain Nemo (; later identified as an Indian, Prince Dakkar) is a fictional character created by the French novelist Jules Verne (1828–1905). Nemo appears in two of Verne's science-fiction classics, ''Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas'' ( ...

. After the attack, the ''Abraham Lincoln'' is adrift with no rudder. Then, a "strange rescue" takes place. Captain Nemo guides his submarine directly beneath the four people who had been aboard the ship and fallen into the sea during the attack. ''Nautilus'' surfaces, and Nemo's crew brings the four rescued individuals aboard the submarine. The four include master

harpoon A harpoon is a long spear-like instrument and tool used in fishing, whaling, seal hunting, sealing, and other marine hunting to catch and injure large fish or marine mammals such as seals and whales. It accomplishes this task by impaling the t ...

er Ned Land, a professor Pierre Aronnax, his daughter, and the professor's assistant. Once aboard the submarine, the four must swear they will not attempt to escape. The captain introduces them to his vessel and the wonders of its underwater realm. He later takes them hunting on the seafloor. Meanwhile, union soldiers in a runaway Union Army balloon are marooned on a mysterious island. The soldiers find a wild girl living alone. Soon the yacht of Charles Denver arrives at the island. A woman's ghost (Princess Daaker) has haunted Denver, a former British colonial officer in India, whom he attacked years ago. Rather than submit to him sexually, she had stabbed and killed herself. Denver then fled with her young daughter only to abandon her on the island. Long tormented by his crime, he returned to find the girl or determine what happened to her. One soldier scheme to kidnap the child aboard Denver's yacht. Another hears of the plan and starts swimming to the yacht to rescue her. Simultaneously, Nemo discovers the yacht belongs to Denver, the enemy he has been seeking all these years. The ''Nautilus'' destroys the yacht with a torpedo, but Captain Nemo saves the girl and her rescuer. In elaborate flashback scenes to India, Nemo reveals he is Prince Daaker and created the Nautilus to seek revenge on Charles Denver. It overjoyed him to discover that the abandoned wild girl is his long-lost daughter, but his emotion overcomes him, and he dies. His loyal crew buries him at the ocean bottom. They disband and set the ''Nautilus'' adrift.

Cast

Production

This was the first motion picture filmed underwater. The underwater scenes were photographed by the Williamson Submarine Film Corporation in the Bahamas.Kinnard, Roy (1995). "Horror in Silent Films." McFarland and Company Inc. . Page 87. Actual underwater cameras were not used, but a system of watertight tubes and mirrors allowed the camera to shoot reflected images of underwater scenes staged in shallow sunlit waters. The film was made by The

Universal Film Manufacturing Company Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Americ ...

(now

Universal Pictures Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...

), not then known as a major motion picture studio. Yet in 1916, they financed this film's innovative special effects, location photography, large sets, exotic costumes, sailing ships, and full-size navigable mock-up of the surfaced submarine ''

''. The film took two years to make, at the cost of $500,000. Hal Erickson has said that "the cost of this film was so astronomical that it could not possibly post a profit, putting the kibosh on any subsequent Verne adaptations for the next 12 years".

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:20000 Leagues Under The Sea (1916 Film) 1916 films 1910s English-language films 1910s science fiction films American silent feature films American science fiction films American black-and-white films Films based on Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Films set in the 1860s Films shot in England Films based on The Mysterious Island Films directed by Stuart Paton Articles containing video clips Universal Pictures films Surviving American silent films United States National Film Registry films 1910s American films Silent adventure films Silent science fiction films