Captain Nemo and the Underwater City
                                                                                     
Director: James Hill
Year: 1969
Rating: 5.5
This is more my kind of Captain Nemo. He has gone well beyond a mere submarine and built a city beneath the sea. A gorgeous technologically advanced city and he has stocked it with penguins, pelicans and beautiful women. None of this on a submarine with a bunch of seamen sort of thing. This is a fairyland with a lovely pool, a band, swimming events and one would assume a lot of fooling around since there are bunches of children. It is a form of Utopia. But not one meant for everyone because this is where you will live and die. You are never leaving. As long as I had movies, my Kindle and music that would be fine. Oh, and Luciana Paluzzi, who is one of the women. In the water again; poor Luciana from Thunderball.


 
It begins with a ship going down in a storm and passengers jumping off. Six of them are sinking fast when men in scuba gear rescue them and bring them into the Nautilus. Four men, a woman and a young boy. And his cat. They of course being human begin complaining immediately. One is played by Chuck Conners (The Rifleman), the woman by Nanette Newman, the major whiner by Allan Cuthbertson who is a mealy-mouthed whiner in most movies. The other two men jump for joy when they find that Nemo (which means nobody in Latin) has a machine that makes gold out of candy cane or something. All of them want to leave - Connors because he was on a secret mission for the Yankees in the Civil War. But Nemo says nobody leaves.

 

Well, you know that isn't going to sit right. One of the crew men has a thing for Luciana but as soon as she sees Connors she falls for him. Is it true that they call you the Rifleman. Can you show me why, she purrs. Trouble ahead. Nemo is played by Robert Ryan who is actually nicer than in most of his films and with Nemo he could have gone full-bore psycho but he holds back. Too bad. Ryan was supposed to be one of the nicest people in the world but he could be so villainous on the screen. I think this was mainly for children. Nice designs and sets and miniatures but not much drama really.