The Ultimate DVD Geek: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Like the Walt Disney cartoons, Disney's 1954 live action adventure, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, has lost none of its verve and splendor during its subsequent half-century tour. Shot and edited with concentration and care, the film still plays marvelously well, and it doesn't bog down much in multiple viewings, either. Kirk Douglas, Peter Lorre and Paul Lukas are shipwreck victims picked up by a submarine-before-submarines-were-invented, commanded by James Mason. As is explained in the outstanding supplementary materials aboard the Disney DVD two-platter Special Edition release (27327, $30), the screenwriters mastered the episodic narrative of the Jules Verne novel when they conceived the story as a prison film, where Douglas' character, and his more reluctant companions, are constantly angling for a scheme to get off the submarine and away from its apparently psychotic captain. Meanwhile, there are several grand action sequences, a few humorous interludes and the wide-eyed wonderment of what it would be like to tour the world's oceans in a Victorian library with large picture windows.

The picture is presented in letterboxed format only, with an aspect ratio of about 2.35:1 and an accommodation for enhanced 16:9 playback. The color transfer is immaculate, with crisp, vivid hues. The 5.1-channel Dolby Digital sound is a little more disappointing. The audio doesn't come close to the joys provided by the sound mix on the import laser disc. After the opening fanfare, there is virtually no surround activity, and while there are a few scattered left-right separations and an occasionally active subwoofer, the film's sound is mostly centered, even during times where it would be easy to spread the music or the atmospheric effects substantially wider. The 127-minute program has optional English subtitles. Also featured on the first platter is a terrific 1954 Donald Duck cartoon that was, like the film, shot in Cinemascope, Grand Canyonscope. Running 7 minutes and letterboxed, it depicts the inept duck driving a tourist guide batty and eventually destroying the entire national park.

The second platter, which has an annoying designed menu, contains a superbly organized 88-minute retrospective documentary that explores every aspect of the film's creation. Because of the inherent drama involved in the production-Disney, not for the first time, put his whole studio on the line to make the film, which soared way, way over budget when the filmmakers realized the fight with the giant squid wasn't working and had to re-conceptualize it-the documentary has its own entertaining narrative line as it supplies many intriguing revelations about how the film was staged and shares marvelous behind-the-scenes footage. The documentary is so good that the commentary track on the first platter, featuring the director, Richard Fleischer, and film historian Rudy Behlmer, has almost nothing more to add.

There are several other fine documentaries on the second platter, including an excellent 10-minute piece on composer Paul Smith, who had to make the transition from scoring cartoon shorts to supplying more than an hour of music, including the need to cover lengthy passages of otherwise silent underwater footage. There is also a 16-minute piece that explores the affinities between Disney and Verne, a 7-minute segment about giant squids, and a very cute 9-minute segment about two brothers who have collected a treasure vault's worth of 20,000 Leagues memorabilia. Also featured is a terrific 9-minute collection of silent outtakes; good 3-minute segment that restores the initial giant squid sequence more comprehensively than has been done in the past; a 7-minute gathering of the unused animation depicting deep water fish; an orienting 5-minute 'tour' of the submarine; a 7-minute excerpt from the initial Disney TV show promoting the film, including fresh footage of Douglas and Lorre; a 6-minute audio-only presentation of Lorre's re-voicing of some lines; extensive still frame segments featuring conceptual art, storyboards and production photos; a 3-minute montage of conceptual artwork set to the Bach fugue that Mason's character plays in the film; a 7-minute storyboard comparison sequence that shows how meticulously the film's images were plotted in advance; a trailer; a couple radio commercials; and a cast-and-director profile section.

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