In Mysterious Island Ray Harryhausen and Charles H. Schneer take us to the adventurous world of Jules Verne. The story revolves around the discovery of an island where the fabled Captain Nemo who by using certain methods is trying to increase the world's food supply. These experiments include the creation of giant versions of regular creatures such as a crab a bee and others. The story begins with three Union soldiers trapped in a Confederate prison in the middle of a storm, Captain Cirus Harding, Herbert Brown and Cpl. Neb Nugent. That night they are visited by Gideon Spilitt, war correspondent for New York Herald who is there to do a story on them. But they escape the prison onboard a giant balloon and with them Gideon Spillit and Sgt. Pencroft a soldier of the Confederate Army whom get a free ride out of the prison. They sail the skies until the storm destroys the balloon and leaves them stranded on a "Mysterious Island". The place shows no sign of human life except for the crew and what appears to be an active volcano that rumbles once in a while as a prelude of the things to come, upon further exploration they encounter a giant crab that almost kills Nugent the first of many of the twisted experiments by Captain Nemo. They defeat the creature and have it for dinner, further exploration reveals that at some point there was human life on the island when they discover a cave. Soon two more castaways arrive on the island Lady Mary Fairchild and Elena Fairchild, Mary's Niece who had their ship sunk by pirates near the cost of the island. Towards the end of the film they are attacked once more by these creatures in the form of a Phororchacos a giant bird thought to have been extinct, it attacks the camp and traps Elena in its claws. Herbert attacks the bird and fights with it to death but the bird dies before Herbert actually kills it. When they decide to cook it for diner they find a bullet inside of the creature. One day Herbert and Elena take a walk and find themselves trapped in a comb inside of a cave by giant honey bees. When they escape they find a underwater cave that leads them to a mysterious ship the Nautilus Captain Nemo's submarine. At the same time the pirates that sunk Lady Mary Fairchild ship arrive on the island but the men fight back and a all out war ensues. Captain Nemo using his talents sinks the pirate ship and helps out the crew before reveling himself to them. After he tells them the reason behind the giant creatures and the bullet on the Phororchacos. They come up with a plan to escape the island because the volcano could erupt at any moment and sink the whole place under the sea. They rise up the sunken pirate ship but in the process they encounter a Cephalopod a giant squid like creature. They escape by using the ray guns that Nemo provided them and the ship rises from the sea but Nemo never makes it out of the Nautilus the volcano erupts destroying the island and killing Nemo along with his research and all of his experiments.

Mysterious Island is a fun film to watch if your a fan of Ray Harryhausen the only reason I give it an 4 out of 5 is because the lack of creatures that appeared on this film. Maybe its not the lack of creatures its just the fact that I would have loved to have seen Dinosaurs on the film, in early scripts of this film they were there but for whatever reason they were taken out. The film had more of a prehistoric feel to it, one creature that almost made it was a man eating plant that was supposed to attack the crew, I think that if this sequence would have been added it would have made the film much more exciting than it already is. Well the film like I say is fun to watch and the sequences  like the one with the Phororchocos are up there with the Cyclops and other memorable creatures of Ray Harryhausen. Check out Mysterious Island on a Sunday afternoon get a good couch and enjoy another Ray Harryhausen classic!=0)

Trivia:

• At one point James Mason was considered to reprise his role as Captain Nemo, but his fee would have been to high for them.

• The Nautilus was about 5 to 6 feet in length, and the miniature rock cave was built to scale.

• The full-size honeycomb set was made from fiberglass in the studio.

• In some of Ray's early sketches he had a giant Venus Fly trap but was dropped for the final filming