Flat-footed direction by highly-regarded-in-his-day Stuart Paton, plus a cast of unimpressive nonentities, plus a huge amount of boringly repetitive underseas footage (which no doubt seemed far more novel and fascinating back in 1916), this movie is further burdened by poor acting particularly from Captain Nemo's Allen Holubar (an actor/writer/director with an extensive array of credits who died at the young age of 35 in 1923). Mind you, Holubar's make-up is poor and he is obviously receiving very little (if any) guidance from director Paton. Also something of a dead loss is Professor Aronnax as played by Dan Hanlon in his final of three movie roles. (Don't know what profession he moved into, or any other details at all, except that he died in 1951). The movie is reputed to have cost Universal a staggering $200,000, of which the studio recovered less than half on its initial domestic release. Fortunately, the movie was more popular in Europe. Available on a superb, full-length (104 minutes), multi-tinted DVD from Grapevine Video.
Review of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
