The sole Jules Verne film made in America during that long drought was one of those cheap, juvenile serials I mentioned: 1951’s Mysterious Island from Columbia Pictures. Like most Columbia serials, this one is slow, plot-heavy, creaky, and rambling. Nevertheless, it does boast the distinction of being the most faithful adaptation of Verne’s original book on film (and there are at least four other existing versions!). L’Île mystérieuse is basically a straightforward survival story along the lines of Swiss Family Robinson; it has no gill men or giant octopi, no prehistoric birds or nautiloid cephalopods. And to be honest, it doesn’t have any visitors from Mercury, either—a wacky element that even this “faithful” version tosses into the mix at one point. Still, Verne’s actual plot really is enacted here, point by laborious point, so I suppose the filmmakers deserve at least a little credit for authenticity. Fans of Fifties TV will recognize leading man Richard Crane as none other than Rocky Jones—Space Ranger himself; and Captain Nemo is portrayed in this version by Leonard Penn, another Rocky Jones alum. Pirate captain Gene Roth should be another familiar face to genre buffs, having appeared in films like Earth vs. the Spider and George Pal’s Atlantis: The Lost Continent. Other than these nostalgic pleasures, the Mysterious Island serial has little to offer. Those who do make the attempt are likely to find themselves giving up after a chapter or two and going back instead to Harryhausen’s 1961 classic, despite its many liberties with the text.