20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (1916) SILENT FILM

20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (1916) – The famous first cinematic adaptation of the Jules Verne classic. Having loved the version of this pioneering 1916 film that was available during the 1990s and earlier I had put off watching the restored and upgraded version released in 2010.

That delay was a mistake on my part. The restored version can leave you floored even when compared to the already impressive print that was previously available. Universal released 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea after two years in production. 

The title is misleading, because this movie combines Verne’s original tale of Captain Nemo with the sequel novel The Mysterious Island in which Nemo’s origin was revealed along with his real name – Prince Dakkar. 

As you would imagine, combining both novels was necessary to provide a longer viewing experience due to how much of the 20,000 Leagues story had to be omitted. Submarine technology was still fairly primitive and God knows the technology for filming underwater was more primitive still. Viewers get short shrift in terms of the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea storyline with the Mysterious Island portion taking up a lot of the runtime. 

Personally, I would have preferred that Universal had just produced a shorter 20,000 Leagues film that was all Leagues and nothing but Leagues, then release The Mysterious Island later as a sequel. In 1916 audience expectations were not yet such that movies had to run the 86 to 105 minutes boasted by surviving copies of 20,000 Leagues. 

At any rate, we all know the story – a supposed “sea monster” preying on international shipping turns out to actually be the futuristic submarine called the Nautilus. After the sub attacks the vessel the Abraham Lincoln, Captain Nemo (Allen Holubar) and his crew take aboard survivors.   

In addition to the novel’s Professor Aronnax (Dan Hanlon), Ned Land (Curtis Benton) and the professor’s assistant, the film gives us Aronnax’s daughter (Edna Pendleton) as a love interest for Ned. The Nautilus storyline unfolds simultaneously with the Mysterious Island tale through a LOT of bouncing back and forth between Captain Nemo & company and the Union Army figures whose balloon escape from a Confederate prison camp goes awry and lands them on the title island.   

Those escapees from the prison camp include Cyrus Harding (Howard Crampton) and Nebuchadnezzar aka Neb, played by Leviticus Jones, an actual African American actor, NOT a white guy in dark makeup.   

A female love interest is added to the Mysterious Island castaways in the form of Jane Gail as a feral she-Tarzan called simply “A Child of Nature” in the credits. Some of Gail’s action replaces that of the novel’s orangutan named Jupiter.

For anyone not familiar with both novels, the Mysterious Island is secretly the home port of the Nautilus. The 20,000 Leagues book ends with the Nautilus disappearing in the maelstrom off Norway, NOT with Captain Nemo getting killed like in the Disney movie. 

Professor Aronnax, Ned Land and the others share adventures with Nemo and his crew as they travel the world’s oceans, check out the skeleton of a sunken ship and other sights on the sea bottom. In state-of-the-art diving suits for 1916 the characters even go on expeditions to round up pearls and edible plants.

We also get hunting parties taking on dangerous sharks and barracudas. Their weapons are rifles that use compressed air to shoot projectiles.    

Here in 2025 we’re jaded to underwater film footage but imagine how 1916 viewers felt seeing this at the cinema. Actual living and moving sea creatures and marine plant life like most people had never seen up close.

Back to the story, both plots intersect at the Mysterious Island. Captain Nemo saves Nebuchadnezzar from a huge octopus (which looks fairly lame, unfortunately) and gets revenge on “that hated nation” that was so enigmatically referred to at the end of the Leagues novel.

Captain Nemo ultimately dies and his crew hold a funeral for him on the ocean floor. That’s different from the Island novel, in which all of the Nautilus crew were dead by the ending. Ned Land and Professor Aronnax’s daughter become an item as do Cyrus Harding and the Child of Nature, who turned out to be Nemo’s daughter whom he thought was killed along with his wife.   

Captain Nemo’s uniform makes him look a bit like a slim, nautical Santa Claus and though the filmmakers stay true to Nemo really being a prince from India he’s played by a white guy in dark makeup. Disappointing considering how Nebuchadnezzar was cast.

The female Child of Nature is also white but with dark makeup, I’m afraid. Viewers who aren’t familiar with silent movies will no doubt laugh their asses off at the regulation “weird dance” she does at random.

Universal spent about $500,000 making 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and stood no chance of making any profit from it. I’d still rather have a shorter film that gave us more of the Leagues novel, but I guess I should just be grateful that this movie is not among the countless silent productions that were lost forever. Some elements of this 1916 work stand up against the later Disney version (above right). 

FOR MY REVIEW OF THE SILENT FILM SCI-FI CLASSIC METROPOLIS (1927) CLICK HERE.