[miketardis]

THE AMAZING CAPTAIN NEMO {1978}
Directed by Alex March. Stars Jose Ferrer, Burgess Meredith, Tom Hallick, Burr DeBenning, Mel Ferrer, Lynda Day George, Horst Bucholz, Warren Stevens, Med Flory, Peter Jason, Anthony Geary. Seven (!) writers are credited with this ridiculous feature that plays like a blatant Irwin Allen ripoff—sets with blinking lights, wooden acting, absurd dialogue, dodgy special effects. It wasn’t until I looked it up at the Internet Movie Database that I realized it is an Allen movie—there is no producing credit on the print I saw. What was probably three one-hour TV pilots is cut down into a 100-minute feature, and if you think that makes NEMO choppy and barely comprehensible, you’d be correct.
Two Naval Intelligence divers, Tom Franklin (future ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT host Hallick) and Jim Porter (DeBenning), discover the legendary submarine Nautilus and its captain, Nemo (Ferrer), resting in suspended animation. Momentarily surprised to learn that Jules Verne’s novel was actually a biography, the men adjust surprisingly quickly and invite Nemo to dry dock in San Francisco and meet their boss Miller (Stevens). In exchange for supplies and a full crew, Nemo agrees to do battle against mad captain Cunningham (Meredith), who has his own futuristic sub and demands one billion dollars in gold bullion or else he’ll destroy Washington, D.C. with a nuclear missile.
A few minutes later, Nemo has foiled Cunningham’s plot and has moved on to the next. NEMO offers three stories altogether, clumsily spliced together in a manner that infers they’re all taking place one after the other. And you thought Jack Bauer had tough days! The one constant in all Nemo’s adventures is Cunningham, who leads his crew of humans, robots and alien sidekick Tor (Flory in a full body suit). He sends sinister Dr. Cook (Mel Ferrer, no relation to Jose) and nuclear physicist Kate (George) to infiltrate the Nautilus from within, and later beats Nemo to the lost city of Atlantis, where he kidnaps most of the city (we never see any of them), leaving King Tibor (Bucholz) to team up with Nemo.
If nothing else, watching competent actors speaking this dialogue and wearing these costumes with straight faces provides some entertainment value. Hardly anything makes sense, including Tor, whose origins are never explained and whose presence is never questioned. No wonder the frogmen aren’t surprised to find a 100-year-old sea captain sleeping underwater if aliens and robots don’t shock them! Laser beam battles, bathtub visual effects (by the usually stalwart L.B. Abbott), crooked science and a sword fight to the death between the Ferrers lend humor, mainly unintentional. Ferrer is a robust Captain Nemo, and Meredith cackles madly like an old pro collecting an easy paycheck. I believe the feature played theatrically in Europe, but aired over three nights on CBS as THE RETURN OF CAPTAIN NEMO.