Villain(s)  Giant squids, dragons, sea monsters

Actor(s):  Lionel Barrymore, Jacqueline Gadsden, Lloyd Hughes, Montagu Love

Brief Description  The Mysterious Island (1929) is an American science fiction adventure film loose based on the backstory of Captain Nemo from Jules Verne's 1874 novel L'Île mystérieuse. Released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), the movie is historically significant as a hybrid "part-talkie" that captured Hollywood in its bumpy transition from silent film to sound.

Plot:
The Setting: Count Andre Dakkar (played by Lionel Barrymore) is a benevolent scientist who rules a volcanic island fortress near the kingdom of Hetvia. He has successfully eliminated social class distinctions among his island's citizens.

The Discovery: Volcanic currents wash up a strange, non-human bone. Dakkar theorizes that an advanced, humanoid race has evolved independently on the ocean floor.

The Invention: To prove his theory, Dakkar constructs two technologically advanced submarines designed for deep-sea exploration.

The Betrayal: The villainous Baron Hubert Falon, a despotic ruler from Hetvia, invades the island. He tortures Dakkar and kidnaps Dakkar's daughter/sister Sonia to steal the submarines for military conquest.

The Undersea Descent: Dakkar, Sonia, and her fiancé Nicolai Roget escape into the ocean depths aboard one submarine, while Baron Falon pursues them in the second.

The Abyss: On the ocean floor, an internal explosion damages Dakkar's ship, trapping them in the deep. They are thrust into a spectacular, hidden city populated by a diminutive, eerie humanoid race of "merpeople," giant squids, dragons, and sea monsters. A final undersea showdown determines the fate of the survivors and the secret kingdom.

Early Technicolor: The vast majority of the movie's land-based scenes were filmed using the early two-color Technicolor process. Paradoxically, because of technical limits at the time, the massive, effects-heavy underwater sequences were filmed in standard black-and-white.