Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

The Worst Film Ever

Pretty Good

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

This prequel to 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea takes place during the American Civil War and before Jules Verne's Captain Nemo embarked on a policy of aggression against warmaking sea power nations. The Nautilus is just doing scouting expeditions and comes across some survivors of a sea wreck and takes them to Nemo's undersea domain of Temple Meer.Robert Ryan plays a dedicated and fanatical Nemo who has built an underwater Shangri-La which is surviving a whole lot of water pressure from the ocean. Among the survivors are a US Senator played by Chuck Connors, and British people Allan Cuthberson who has claustrophobia and doesn't deal well with the atmosphere, two brothers who are petty crooks, Bill Fraser and Kenneth Connor from the Carry On series and Nannette Newman and her young son Christopher Hartshorne.As the High Lama of Shangri-La was, Ryan is looking for good people to help with his underwater paradise. He marks Connors as talent, but Connor who is on a mission from Abe Lincoln to European powers does not want to be the Robert Conway of Temple Meer. He's resolved to escape and all the men want out, each for their own reasons.Among other things Temple Meer has is electric lights before Edison and alchemy. For water and electricity they have a machine which produces gold as a waste product. That really interests Fraser and Connor. In fact gold has no monetary value in Temple Meer. It's used for various drinking cups etc. because it is the most malleable of metals and doesn't corrode. Of course it's a got of value where Connor and Fraser hail from.There are some nice underwater action sequences when the Nautilus tangles with a giant stingray all in the Jules Verne tradition. Captain Nemo And The Underwater City combines the best of both Verne and Hilton, two of the most popular authors around.

Casual viewers could be forgiven for believing that this is an Irwin Allen production even though he had nothing to do with it. It bears a lot of his 1960's hallmarks such as a simplistic approach to story-line, showy-yet-tacky production design, name brand stars and unfunny comic relief. Connors plays a US Senator during The Civil War who is shipwrecked and picked up (along with five others) by Ryan, a gifted, but rather despotic inventor who has created an incredible underwater metropolis. Newman and her young son Hartstone, claustrophobe Cuthbertson and gold-obsessed brothers Fraser and Connor round out the "guests" of Ryan, who soon find that they aren't permitted to leave the underwater city. Ever. Most of the castaways greet this news with despair, but Newman and Hartstone actually discover they like the place. Where else could one enjoy an endless supply of gourmet seafood, live in rooms that are accented with pure gold and swim in the plant and rock accented community pool run by curvy Italian bombshell Paluzzi? Of course there is that pesky giant manta ray that occasionally swipes by for a bite of human flesh! Connors is his usual square-jawed self and, though not particularly well-cast, he does an adequate job. Ryan plays his role with an overdose of dourness, robbing the part of any irony, flair, camp or flavor. Newman is appealing (and even attempts a small bid at women's lib!), but isn't given much to do. Paluzzi (who is given one really ugly ball gown and an even worse hairdo to go with it in one scene) has a crazed musical number in which she opens a box and "plays" a golden stick with leaves on it as the camera attempts to focus on her through the cheesecloth. She and Newman go scuba diving and inexplicably have their hair fully exposed and unrestrained so that it floats everywhere including over their face masks! Fraser and Connor are presented as bumbling idiots and they only cease to be annoying when they finally begin to forgo their pointless buffoonery. Turner appears as Ryan's faithful first officer and has one of the few roles with more than one dimension. The film is packed with bright, colorful, eye-popping imagery along with many goofy costumes and props. Check out those scuba suits with the gold-plated tank holders and the clear "wings" on the shoulders! The alarms in the city have lobster claws on them! Some of the underwater photography is far too murky and under lit to enjoy fully. It isn't a bad time killer and fantasy fans will enjoy some of the model work, gadgetry and hilarious "science". Irwin Allen would actually tackle this material for television a few years later with Jose Ferrar as Nemo. Also, some of the elements seem to have inspired Ross Hunter's dreadful 1973 remake of "Lost Horizon".

I saw this in the theater as a kid and loved it. The story about people living a Utopian existence in a domed city underwater sticks with me today. I'm not sure how I'd feel seeing it again, when the so-called 'good guys' in the movie are so anxious to get back to their own world that they endanger the underwater city and steal a submarine. But it's a fun movie with good sets, great miniature work on the subs, the cities, and the giant sea monster. I wish this was released on DVD as the sets and sub were quite neat looking.A neat aspect of this movie is that they tried for a bit of science "fact". For example, the most common material in the undersea city was gold, because they used a process to pull gold out of sea water.I wonder if those people are still living down there to this day? :)

A very enjoyable movie for young and old; a bit sci-fi, a bit fantasy, a bit action and a joke here and there. This movie isn't a groundbreaking masterpiece, but who cares? If you want to have yourself a very nice evening with a feel-good movie ... this might be the movie for you!