Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Kino Classics:

Groundbreaking Adaptation of the Jules Verne Classic Novel and "The First Submarine Photoplay Ever Filmed"

Available on Blu-ray and DVD July 28, 2020

Includes audio commentary by film historian Anthony Slide and musical score by Orlando Perez Rosso

"Fans of the Silent Era will appreciate this impressive 4K restoration via the Kino Blu-ray. I loved stepping back and time over 100-years to enjoy this adventure. I hope you get the same pleasure." -- Gary Tooze, DVDBeaver

New York, NY -- July 6, 2020 -- Kino Classics proudly announces the Blu-ray and DVD release of the landmark 1916 silent version of Jules Verne's classic novel, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, in a stunning new 4K restoration conducted by Universal Pictures, with restoration from the 35mm nitrate print provided by UCLA Film & Television Archive and restoration services provided by NBCUniversal StudioPost.

Directed by Stuart Paton and produced by Universal Pictures, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was a groundbreaking production for its time, gaining much acclaim for its pioneering use of the underwater photography process developed by Ernest and George Williamson, making it one of the big-budget special effects epics of its day and a screen classic that has endured over the last century since it was first released.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea will become available on Blu-ray and DVD July 28, with a SRP of $29.95 for the Blu-ray and $19.95 for the DVD. This Kino Classics edition includes a musical score by Orlando Perez Rosso, and features an insightful audio commentary by noted silent film historian Anthony Slide.

Synopsis:

Stuart Paton's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916) is an epic retelling of Jules Verne's classic novel, shot on location in the Bahaman Islands. Allen Holubar stars as the domineering Captain Nemo, who rescues the passengers of an American naval vessel after ramming them with his ironclad, steampunk submarine, The Nautilus. Incorporating material from Verne's The Mysterious Island, the film also follows the adventures of a group of Civil War soldiers whose hot-air balloon crash-lands on an exotic island, where they encounter the untamed "Child of Nature" (Jane Gail).

Calling itself "The First Submarine Photoplay Ever Filmed," the film is highlighted by stunning underwater photography (engineered by Ernest and George Williamson), including an underwater funeral and a diver's battle with a giant cephalopod. In honor of the film's extraordinary technical and artistic achievement, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was added to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916)

Blu-ray and DVD Street Date: July 28, 2020

Starring: Allen Holubar, Matt Moore, Edna Pendleton, Jane Gail, Howard Crampton

Produced by the Universal Film Mfg. Co.

Musical Score by Orlando Perez Rosso

Audio Commentary by Film Historian Anthony Slide

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(In our new column, Author Insights, Cinema Retro periodically invites authors of film-related books to provide our readers with the background story relating to their latest publication.)

BY JIM NEMETH

It Came From … The Stories and Novels Behind Classic Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction Films (Midnight Marquee Press) came about when I and my co-author, Bob Madison, started discussing the many movie classics that find their origins in genre fiction. Both of us grew up loving science fiction, fantasy and horror films. Like many genre movie buffs, we frequently sought out the books and stories that influenced our favorite movies, often surprised (if not amazed) at the differences. Though born in different states and a few, scant years apart, our boyhoods were remarkably similar. Spending our youth on such Saturday night television fare as Creature Features and Thriller Theater, we made imaginative quests into worlds very different from our own. Where I gravitated toward supernatural fiction, Bob dug deeply into literary science fiction. Both of us became devoted readers of genre fiction and then, later on, the history of it. The love for movies, though, never wavered.

Over the years, when considering cinema reference books, particularly those covering films within the horror, science fiction and fantasy genres adapted from other mediums, we found scant attention paid to the literary sources. It’s frustrating to pore through a reference book and find little more concerning the inspiration behind such films than the credit one finds in the film: “Based on the novel XXXXX, by so-and-so.”

And so, It Came From… was born.

The book consists of 21 essays covering everything from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory to Planet of the Apes to, of course, Psycho. In the essays we shine a deserved spotlight on the authors and screenwriters, detail the many challenges found in adaptation, and outline why some films do it better than others. For clarity’s sake, we break the films into three categories—horror, fantasy, science fiction—and then simply list them chronologically. Each chapter is the sole work of one of the authors, with the ringer being special chapters devoted to Dracula and the Frankenstein Monster, where we both delve into not just one, but several of the best, worst, and most popular of their cinematic incarnations.

The initial dream for this volume was a comprehensive history that traced and compared films adapted from other material back to its origins. But such was not to be! The number of science fiction, fantasy and horror films that are adaptations from other media are so varied and repetitive that the challenge was confining ourselves to just a handful of favorite films. And even here, we deliberately excluded—with a handful of exceptions—high-profile obvious choices such as The Shining and 2001: A Space Odyssey, in favor of films that are underserved in genre criticism. But, as should be obvious to any fan of cinema—sequels happen. Perhaps one day in the future we will tackle our remaining favorites.

Meanwhile, we hope readers will sit back, dim the lights a bit and enjoy. And just ignore those pesky moans coming from under your bed and the scratching sounds you hear from inside the walls…

BOO!

— Jim Nemeth (Member, Horror Writers Association)

— Bob Madison (author of American Horror Writers (2000), and Dracula: The First Hundred Years (1997; ed.)

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