THE FABULOUS WORLD OF JULES VERNE (1961)

We are told that Simon Hart lived in a time of "great hope for human progress," which seems to be the late 19th century, with its airships and steamships and submarines. Hart is working as an assistant to Professor Roch who is dabbling in the invention of a new explosive which turns out to be atomic in nature. Roch is doing it purely for the challenge, not at all concerned about "practical applications," but some villainous pirates in the service of Count Artigas arrive at Roch's seaside house, very interested in its applications. Disguised as shipwreck survivors, they kidnap Roch and Hart and take them away on a huge submarine from which the pirates destroy ships at sea to plunder their goods. They take on Jana, a survivor from the latest ship attacked, and head to their hidden city Back Cup, located under a volcanic island. In a boy's adventure pulp plot, only loosely based on Jules Verne, Hart tries to stop Artigas from using Roch's invention to conquer the world. This Czech film directed by Karel Zeman was released in the States three years after its production in an English dub with the Jules Verne title, aimed at children's matinee showings. It probably disappointed many of its viewers back then, but now it is mostly appreciated as a unique and beautiful work of film art.

Often described as animated, the film actually uses a mix of traditional animation, stop-motion animation, patently artificial sets, special photographic effects, and live action. The film's texture looks like Victorian woodcuts or steel engraved illustrations which would have illustrated Verne's works in their original editions. Virtually every frame of the movie has thin, sometimes barely visible, horizontal lines running across the screen in imitation of engraved illustrations. Matte shots are used prolifically for backgrounds, and animation is mixed with live actors to create a magical world. The story which plays out in this world is secondary to the fabulous visuals—trumpeted as being done in Mysti-Motion in the American ads—and kids should not have been the focus audience for the American promotion of this movie. The Verne connection is real—it's based on a little known novel called Facing the Flag—but probably disappointing to viewers expecting a traditional action movie like MASTER OF THE WORLD. There is a reference in the opening narration to the Verne character Robur, featured in MASTER, and the submarine will conjure up memories of 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA. But in some ways, all that is a smokescreen for the experimental film style of Zeman. It seems clear that Terry Gilliam was influenced by Zeman when he created the animated sequences for Monty Python. I could spend another paragraph describing many of the visual marvels to be found here, but you should just see it for yourself. Though a bit misleading, the American title is better than the literal translation of the Czech title, Invention for Destruction. It's also been released as The Deadly Invention. [Criterion Channel]