More important than these superficialities, however, is the central conceit of the entire film: the deliberate decision not to update the period setting. George Pal, for example, had just scored a major hit with his own version of a Victorian science fiction book, 1953’s The War of the Worlds, but Pal had made the more obvious choice by bringing the story up to the present day. So when Walt Disney okayed his own film as a quirky excursion into a 19th century that never was, we can only imagine that he was being influenced by that failed SF masterpiece out of the twilight days of silent film. It’s no reflection on Walt’s creativity to say that he often went for inspiration back to films he’d seen and been impressed by as a youth. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, for example, one of the most original movies any film magician ever pulled out of his hat, was largely inspired by the old silent version Walt saw as a teenager in Kansas City, and his later Peter Pan has many scenes taken pretty much intact from the Betty Bronson film of 1924. And like both of these other Disney pictures, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a tremendous advance on its silent (or mostly silent) predecessor. In addition to its Academy Award-winning special effects and production design 20,000 Leagues is one of the most thematically resonant films of its era.

In 1954, the double-edged sword of high technology was hanging over the head of the entire culture. An almost religious faith in Progress, of course, is one of the distinctive notes of the decade, with Walt himself (producer of television films like Our Friend the Atom) one of its chief proselytizers. Yet the know-how that won the war was showing its dark side by now; the Soviet Union had exploded its own H-Bomb just a year or so earlier, igniting a worldwide nuclear arms race. The launch then, of the real-life Nautilus was an event full of desperate internal contradictions—like Captain Nemo himself. The sheer genius of the thing was astonishing, yet for all its godlike ingenuity the USS Nautilus was, first and foremost, a horrific engine of destruction. Most Americans, no doubt, felt that such weapons were necessary, if only to counterbalance the similar armaments the Soviets were undoubtedly developing for their own use. Similarly, Nemo would, in a better world, employ his own Nautilus solely for peaceful purposes, for exploration and scientific discovery. What he actually finds himself using it for however, is nothing less than mass murder. True, the Captain considers his violence different—a war being waged to end all wars. Yet when Aronnax accuses him of being “not only a murderer, but a hypocrite” the indictment does not miss its mark. We’ve seen it in his eyes as he pilots the sub, as he watches dozens of “poor sailor men” (as Ned calls them) thrashing, drowning, sinking into the deep, put to death by the action of his own bloodstained hands. In short, Captain Nemo has become the very thing he hates—and his scientific genius has only made him better at it.

This profound ambivalence towards technology informs every foot of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. On the one hand, the Victorian setting allows us to contemplate our own vast progress by imagining how impressed someone like Professor Aronnax would be by encountering it. Like Walt himself giving personal tours of Disneyland, we jaded moderns get to rekindle our own sense of wonder by conducting guided tours of our now-workaday “World of Tomorrow” for a truly appreciative audience. Yet just as we start to really enjoy ourselves in this, 20,000 Leagues feels compelled to remind us that Nemo is doomed, that not even Nemo knows how to control the terrible spirits now pouring out of science’s Pandora’s Box. Ned Land is clearly a dunderhead, clearly the lesser man of the two; just as the stalwart but slightly thick Captain Hendry was Dr. Carrington’s pale shadow in Howard Hawks’ The Thing a few years earlier. Yet Land lives to tell the tale, and Hendry brings Carrington home on a stretcher—not without a sad tribute on his lips to the Doctor’s admirable but impractical idealism. In much the same way, Fifties filmgoers (a stupidly maligned species, in my view) were perfectly willing to admire Captain Nemo’s dreamy pacifism; even willing, for 127 minutes or so, to wring their hands with him over all the moral ambiguities of the human condition. But this was, after all, the same intensely practical generation that had watched gentle, scholarly Neville Chamberlain wring his hands right into a second world war for humanity. So at the end of the day, with the lives and happiness of their children and grandchildren on the line, the Americans that first enjoyed 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea deliberately chose to hand their destinies over to Ned Land and Captain Hendry—to the hard-boiled, square headed Trumans and Eisenhowers of the world. Yet not entirely without regrets, I think…as the very existence of these films testifies.

Of course, none of these ruminations would have had the impact they did if the rest of the film hadn’t been so entertaining. Screenwriter Earl Felton deserves much of the credit, I believe, for skillfully blending the kind of thought-provoking drama we’ve been discussing with such a delightful mix of action, spectacle, and comedy. Director Richard Fleischer, who went on to create other interesting genre films in The Vikings, Fantastic Voyage, and Conan the Destroyer, keeps things moving briskly and draws spot-on performances from the veteran cast. It’s the look of the film however, that lingers longest in our memories. In addition to the design scheme and art direction already cited, several of the individual technicians ought to be mentioned. Sculptor Chris Mueller had just come off 1954’s other classic underwater adventure, Creature from the Black Lagoon, then went directly from here into another of the all-time greats, Universal’s This Island Earth. James C. Havens, also a veteran of Creature, directed the fabulous squid scene. Fans of the original King Kong will recognize the names of Marcel Delgado (who built some miniatures) and Ralph Hammeras (who photographed the special effects). And the peerless Peter Ellenshaw did the distinctive matte paintings that bring Vulcania to life; superb work that he echoed, some 25 years later, in Disney’s “Fireside-flavored” space adventure The Black Hole.

Without 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to jump-start the concept, Fireside Science-Fiction might have remained just the failed experiment of Lucien Hubbard and his Mysterious Island. As it is, Walt Disney’s live-action masterpiece served as the starting point for a popular cinematic fad that dominated sci-fi movie making for the next decade.