7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 4.2 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A small, motley group of soldiers and civilians flee the 1865 siege of Richmond via a hot air balloon, and end up on an isolated island crawling with over-sized crabs, birds, and bees. Even more astonishing, they discover three other humans inhabiting the island: two shipwrecked women and the illustrious, long-lost Captain Nemo. Based on the 1870 novel by Jules Verne.
Starring: Michael Craig (I), Joan Greenwood, Michael Callan, Gary Merrill, Herbert LomSci-Fi | Insignificant |
Family | Insignificant |
Adventure | Insignificant |
Fantasy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.67:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.66:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
Music: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Salt Lake City wasn’t exactly the most progressive place to spend the first ten years or so of my life, but the somewhat backward, change resistant environment there actually was a fantastic benefit for my film going experience. Probably at least fifteen to twenty years after the practice had ceased to be regular in larger, more supposedly forward thinking metropolises, Salt Lake City still had neighborhood theaters that offered Saturday kids’ shows, where hours and hours of entertainment could be had for a dollar or so, including tons of cartoons, old serials like Batman or Flash Gordon from the thirties and forties, and then, to cap it all off, usually a double feature of completely unrelated films. It was at such a theater in a little neighborhood known as Sugar House in Salt Lake City that I first stared in wide eyed wonder at the iconic films of Ray Harryhausen. This was obviously well before the days of CGI, and even before the then revolutionary special effects of films like Star Wars, and even though I and the rest of my little friends were aware that the Harryhausen techniques had a slightly choppy appearance some of the time, we were blown away by the sight of everything from marauding skeletons to mutant animals to flying saucers. It’s amazing what images can be more or less permanently imprinted on a young, probably five or six year old, mind, but watching Mysterious Island on Blu-ray instantly took me back to my very young childhood, and when I was greeted by the opening scenes of the escapees’ long balloon ride and then their incredible battle with the gigantic crab, it was like time traveling back more years than I care to admit to a simpler time, when such special effects wizardry wasn’t the exclusive purview of technicians with a computer mouse and animation software.
Mysterious Island is presented on Blu-ray courtesty of Twilight Time with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.67:1. This second Blu-ray release by Twilight Time, and the first of their Blu-ray titles licensed from Columbia, looks largely spectacular in high definition, certainly heads and shoulders above any previous home video release of this title. The bulk of the film is incredibly colorful, sharp and extremely well detailed. (In one of the odd things I noticed for the first time after having seen this film countless times through the years, the film's credits themselves list the film as having been shot in Technicolor, while quite a bit of the promotional material state it's in Eastmancolor by Pathé, though in those days Technicolor often processed dye transfers from Eastmancolor negatives, so perhaps that's the case here, and I'd be delighted to hear from anyone who knows for sure). Be that as it may, colors are incredibly robust and beautifully saturated throughout the film. As is to be expected, the opticals featuring Harryhausen's special effects work look quite soft by comparison with the rest of the film, with the added grain and occasionally dirt that the optical printing process brings with it, and this film is fairly grainy even in non-effects sequences. There are also a couple of odd, non-effects, anomalies where the image is noticeably softer and grainier than the bulk of the film, almost as if 16mm elements had been interpolated, but these moments are very brief and overall not a major distraction from what is a gorgeous and precise looking transfer.
Mysterious Island has three audio options if you include the supplemental isolated score (one of the hallmarks, and a much appreciated one by fans of great film music, of the Twilight Time releases). The two dialogue options are the original mono track presented in DTS-HD Master Audio, as well as a nicely, if sparsely, immersive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 repurposing. The 5.1 re-do isn't overly gimmicky, though I personally didn't like the added boxiness of Craig's narration. Discrete channelization is used quite effectively in several sequences, including the opening battle and storm segments, as well as some of the special effects set pieces. The mono track sounds surprisingly spry in this DTS-HD Master Audio rendering, and both tracks offer some lustrous low end, courtesy of both Bernard Herrmann's brilliant score and some fantastic sound effects. Fidelity is very strong and dynamic range is exceptional on both of the DTS tracks.
It's a tossup between Mysterious Island and Jason and the Argonauts for my favorite Harryhausen film, and
I'd be hard pressed to really come down firmly for one over the other. Mysterious Island may not have the narrative
flow or mythic stature of Jason, but it's just so much fun most of the time that it hardly matters. It's an
unsually sumptuous looking film, especially for what were typically modestly budgeted Schneer efforts, and it simply looks
magnificent on this new Twilight Time Blu-ray. Though the supplemental material here is rather slim, it at least contains one
of Twilight Time's calling cards, an isolated score, and this time it's one of Bernard Herrmann's most thrilling, made even
more so by being presented in lossless audio. Highly recommended for kids of all ages.
Mysterious Island is available exclusively from Screen Archives.
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1969
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