Ulysses

Ulysses (1954) - Kirk Douglas,Anthony Quinn

A movie adaptation of Homer's second epic, that talks about Ulysses' efforts to return to his home after the end of ten years of war.




According to Homer, Ulysses is king of Ithaca, and father, by his wife, Penelope, of Telemachus...
Homer portrays Ulysses as a man of outstanding wisdom, eloquence, resourcefulness, courage and endurance...
In the Iliad, Ulysses appears as the man best fitted to cope with crises in personal relations among the Greeks and his bravery and skill in fighting were demonstrated repeatedly...
Ulysses wanderings and the recovery of his house and kingdom are the central theme of our film, which also relates how he accomplishes the capture of Troy by means of the wooden horse...
The motion picture, fill in the gaps with flashbacks, describes Ulysses' wanderings between Troy and Ithaca... As a troubled man, Ulysses spends much time at the shore trying to remember his past...
He encounters Polyphemus, the Cyclops, son of Poseidon... He escapes from his cave by getting him drunk and running a ram into his eye...
Shipwrecked, his men gone, his memory lost, he is discovered by a beautiful young princess Nausicca (Rossana Podesta) who immediately falls in love with him... Ulysses defeats the champion wrestler of Phaeacia in a public exhibition, but remains distant trying to recall his past...

 

He then encounters the Sirens whose songs lure sailors to their death... Plugging the ears of his men with wax, he has himself tied to the mast with ropes so that he can hear their call...
Ulysses reaches the island of the enchantress Circe who casts her spell on him... Taking on the appearance of his wife Penelope, she held him captive and turned his crew into swine, but fails to keep him in her company...

After almost l0 years, Ulysses at last arrived in Ithaca, where his wife, Penelope, and son, Telemachus, had been struggling to maintain their authority during his prolonged absence...
Kirk Douglas plays, with sensitivity, Ulysses, "the man of many turns" who had many opportunities of displaying his talent for ruses and deceptions; but at the same time, his courage and loyalty..
The full-figured Silvana Mangano plays a double role: Penelope, the faithful wife and Circe, the sorceress...
Anthony Quinn is the arrogant Antinous, the most persistent of Penelope's suitors, hanging around the palace with a group of vicious noblemen, trying to persuade the lovely queen that Ulysses is dead and that she should choose one of them as her next husband..
With the elements of an Italian epic adventure tale photographed in Technicolor, the film is quite entertaining in its attempts to translate episodes of Homer's Odyssey...

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea

 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea - Disney's Ultimate classic Fantasy Movie of all time. Based on the Novel by Jules Verne
Kirk Douglas, Paul Lukas and Peter Lorre star as shipwrecked survivors taken captive by the mysterious Captain Nemo, brilliantly portrayed by James Mason.
Wavering between genius and madness, Nemo has launched a deadly crusade across the seven seas. But can the captive crew expose his evil plan before he destroys the world?
 This is by far the most literate, the most moving, and the most cinematically sophisticated film Disney has ever made. Those of the reviewers at this (IMDb) site who dismiss it as a kiddie movie, or who sneer at the special effects ("time has not been kind" to this film, one of them says; according to another, "the thrill is gone") seem simply prejudiced, rather like those who automatically deride any film that features Charlton Heston or deals with a biblical theme. It is indeed quite amazing that any special effects filmed in 1954 would continue to stack up so well.
Very simply, Richard Fleischer made a gorgeous adaptation of Jules Verne's famous novel. This is an excellent adventure movie told with quite a lot of humor. Fleischer introduced humor in a few sequences and especially in dialogs. But the movie also includes a sadistic side. This sadistic side is epitomized by the captain Nemo himself. You can describe him as a despotic man who's got a grudge against the earth that made him suffer. Moreover, he regards himself as a sort of governor of the ocean. In this way, Jules Verne's novel introduces a reflection about man and the extension of his power thanks to the machine (the Nautilus).  IMDB Link

Watch the Movie Classic - 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1954)

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a 1954 film starring Kirk Douglas as Ned Land, James Mason as Captain Nemo, Paul Lukas as Professor Pierre Aronnax, and Peter Lorre as Conseil. It is the first science fiction film produced by Walt Disney Pictures, as well as the only Science-fiction film produced by Walt Disney himself. It is also the first feature length Disney film to be distributed by Buena Vista Distribution. The film has become the most well-known adaptation of the book of the same name by Jules Verne.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was filmed at various locations in Bahamas and Jamaica, with the cave scenes filmed beneath what is now the Xtabi hotel on the cliffs of Negril. Some of the location filming sequences were so complex, that they required a technical crew of over 400 people. It presented many challenges and cost-overruns during production. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Unabridged Classics)

Alternative viewing option

In the year 1866, rumors of a sea monster attacking ships in the Pacific Ocean have created apprehension and fear among sailors, disrupting the shipping lanes. Prof. Pierre M. Aronnax and his assistant, Conseil, are on their way to Saigon but get stuck in San Francisco by the halting of ships. The U.S. government invites Aronnax onto an expedition to either prove or disprove the monster's existence. One of their fellow crew is the cocky master harpooner Ned Land.

After months of searching, the monster strikes, ramming the naval frigate. Ned, Aronnax, and Conseil are thrown overboard, and watch in horror as their ship, badly disabled, is unable to rescue them. The three drift into a strange-looking metal vessel, and realize the "monster" is a man-made "submerging boat", that seems to have been deserted. Inside, Aronnax wanders down into the Salon, where he finds a massive viewing window and sees an underwater funeral taking place.

When the submarine crew returns to their ship, they capture the three castaways. The captain introduces himself as Nemo, master of the Nautilus. He returns Ned and Conseil to the deck, while Aronnax, whom he recognizes for his work and research, is allowed to stay. He tempts Aronnax to remain with him, but Aronnax prefers to share his companions' fate. Nemo prepares to submerge Nautilus with the three stowaways on the deck, but at the last moment changes his mind and allows them to stay. After dinner that night, Nemo takes them all on an underwater expedition to gather supplies, but Ned tries to salvage a treasure chest from a sunken wreck, almost getting attacked by a shark.

Later on, Nemo takes Aronnax to the penal colony island of Rura Penthe. Nemo reveals he was once a prisoner there himself, as were many of the crew of the Nautilus. A munitions ship embarks at sunset, whereupon the Nautilus rams it, destroying its munitions cargo and killing the entire crew. When confronted by Aronnax, Nemo claims that his actions have just saved thousands from death in war; he also discloses that this "hated nation" had killed his wife and son in an attempt to force him to reveal his atomic secrets. Meanwhile, Ned discovers the coordinates of Nemo's secret island base, Vulcania, and releases messages in bottles, hoping somebody will find them and free him from captivity.

Off the coast of New Guinea, the Nautilus gets stranded on a reef. Ned is surprised when Nemo freely allows him to go ashore with Conseil, ostensibly to collect specimens. Ned goes off alone inland to explore avenues of escape, until he sees a bunch of human skulls, and a cannibal in a tree. Realizing his danger, Ned runs for his life and rejoins Conseil as they are chased back to the Nautilus. Despite remaining aground, Nemo is unconcerned and the cannibals are repelled from the ship by electrical charges circulated on its hull. Captain Nemo is furious at Ned for not following his orders, and confines him to the submarine's brig as punishment.

A warship approaches, firing and striking the submarine just as it breaks free of the reef. It descends into the depths, where it attracts the attentions of a giant squid. The electric charge fails to repel the monster, so Nemo and his men are forced to surface in order to fight and dislodge the beast. During the battle, Nemo is caught in one of the squid's tentacles; Ned, having escaped from captivity in the struggle, jumps to Nemo's rescue and saves his captor's life. As a result, Nemo has a change of heart; he claims now to want to make peace with the outer world, by sharing his secrets of the sea. However, this is to be short-lived.

As the Nautilus nears Vulcania, Nemo finds the island surrounded by warships, whose marines are converging on his hideout. He goes ashore, setting a time bomb to destroy his discoveries, but when returning to the Nautilus, he is struck in the back by enemy fire and mortally wounded. After navigating the submarine away from Vulcania, Nemo announces he is "taking the Nautilus down for the last time." Loyal to Nemo to the very end, his entire crew declare that they will accompany their captain in death.

Aronnax, Conseil, and Ned are taken forcibly to their cabins. Ned fights back, escapes to the now deserted bridge, and manages to surface the Nautilus, hitting a reef in the process and causing the ship to begin flooding rapidly. In his final moments, Nemo staggers to a viewing window, collapses, and looks at his beloved ocean one last time as he dies.

Aronnax tries to go back and retrieve his journal, which contains an account of the voyage, but the urgency of their escape obliges Ned to knock him unconscious and carry him out. The companions witness Vulcania destroyed in a explosion. The shock from the explosion causes the Nautilus to sink even more quickly, and as it disappears beneath the waves forever, Nemo's last words to Aronnax echo: "There is hope for the future. And when the world is ready for a new and better life, all this will someday come to pass. In God's good time." Aronnax's diary of the voyage is also lost forever, and when Ned apologizes for having hit him, the Professor replies "Perhaps you did mankind a service, Ned".

Kirk Douglas as Ned Land
James Mason as Captain Nemo
Paul Lukas as Professor Pierre Aronnax
Peter Lorre as Conseil
Robert J. Wilke as Nautilus's First Mate
Ted de Corsia as Captain Farragut
Carleton Young as John Howard
J. M. Kerrigan as Billy
Percy Helton as Coach driver
Ted Cooper as Abraham Lincoln's First Mate
Fred Graham as Casey
Wikipedia Link - 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea

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