Starring Lubor Tokos, Arnost Navratil, Miroslav Holub, Frantisek Slegr, Vaclav Kyzlink
Directed by Karel Zeman
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)
An inventor and his assistant are kidnapped and taken to a volcanic island where a nefarious lord hopes to coerce the inventor into creating a weapon of mass destruction.
This is a brilliant picture by Czech filmmaker Karel Zeman, based on the novels of Jules Verne, not specifically adapting any one adventure but recreating elements from many of them within the context of a serviceable story. Visually it is extremely dynamic, placing live actors in between well-drawn backgrounds and foreground objects to create a three-dimensional like effect. Animation is added to not only bring Verne's creations to life, but to enhance each scene with realistic movement, and is done so well, it is hard to tell what is real and what is artifice. Highlights include an underwater chase by one submarine after another, and an encounter between a gigantic squid and deep sea divers, among many other memorable sequences. It's an exceptional production which was my first exposure to Zeman, on a library videocassette of the English-dubbed version of the film, under the title The Fabulous Adventures Of Jules Verne.
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