DVD Review: 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1916)

The innovations of cinema's silent era are too often lost to time, with a limited percentage of films from that period having survived. We rejoice in those that are accessible to us, especially when they are restored and released on video. This allows us access to some truly exceptional moments in cinema's early history. Such is the case for the fascinating and important 1916 screen version of Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," which has been released in a 4K remaster on blu ray by Kino Lorber.

Shot on location in the Bahamas, the story deals with Captain Nemo, whose submarine is mistaken as a sea monster, and whose underwater innovations allow him, and those traveling with him, to actually see underwater where "God never intended us to see." This film version also includes story elements from Verne's "Mysterious Island" where shipwrecked soldiers find a wild woman on an abandoned island, who had been left there as a child. With the resilience to survive, she remains a wild creature and the island's only human. The narrative very effectively ties these two disparate story elements together.

This is the first film to use underwater photography, an innovation supervised by its creators, the Williamson Brothers, who directed the undersea visuals. Two submarines were constructed that allowed actors to step onto the sea floor and duplicate the actions of the author's characters. They torpedoed and sunk a ship and photographed it burning and sinking -- the shots of the burning ship are amazing for a film that is over a century old. The actors are all interesting in their own way, most impressive perhaps being Allen Holubar, a young man under 30 years old heavily made up to play the much older Captain Nemo, and Jane Gail, who offers an impressively uninhibited performance as the wild girl on the island.

One can only imagine how grueling of a project it was for all involved, taking two years of film at the astronomical cost of $500,000. While it only runs about 9 reels, it is still a film of epic proportions.

Kino Lorber’s blu ray is a beautiful 4K restoration that includes an optional audio commentary by film historian Anthony Slide, whose knowledge and insight are greatly beneficial to our better understanding of the film. Slide calls the movie "the first American film to make extensive use of special effects," and gives us a history from which we learn a great deal. The score by Orlando Perez Russo enhances the onscreen action perfectly.

This technical achievement contained in this 1916 film is such that it is a remarkably important effort that belongs in any library or research center that hopes to be comprehensive. The blu ray can be ordered here: Verne: 20,000