Kirk Douglas Centennial: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Wednesday, December 7, 2016 at 3:45PM Here's Tim to continue our mini Kirk Douglas fest. The actor turns 100 this Friday.
And now, a little change of pace. I don't think the cinephile lives who'd argue that Kirk Douglas's performance in the 1954 sci-fi adventure 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is his best, or anywhere particularly near his best. It is, however, quite possibly his most fun, as is to be expected from a star turn as the meathead sailor hero in a live-action Disney film.
Douglas gets first-billing in the movie, though he's probably not the first thing you'd think about if you looked back over the film in your mind...
James Mason's focus-stealing Captain Nemo or the general splendor of the visual effects (that squid attack!) dominate the popular conception of 20,000 Leagues, far above anything Douglas provides. Which isn't entirely unfair, but it's a bit shabby towards Douglas, who dives into his role with at least as much gusto as Mason does; and if there was ever a Hollywood leading man who had plenty of gusto, it was surely Kirk Douglas.
As is true of many of the films produced by Walt Disney, 20,000 Leagues is in spirit a boyish tale of swashbuckling and adventure. Absent an actual boy, Douglas is responsible for filling that role, and he does this with great vigor. To adult eyes, decades after the film came out, his Ned Land is frankly a bit of a loutish boor: short-tempered, prone to yelling, filled to the brim with braggadocio (and mostly de-sexed, which wastes Douglas's violently coiled-up masculinity; but of course, midcentury Disney isn't where any rational person goes for eroticism). He can be a bit tedious, in fact, other than serving as the focal point for the film's action scenes. But then, I'm not the actual target audience for this character, nor is anyone else other than a 1950s 12-year-old boy.
That is, I think, the key to appreciating what Douglas is up to in this role. He's not trying to create a complex, internally coherent character, which would be of absolutely no value to a fluffy sci-fi fantasy. Instead, he's channeling the energy and mood of Disney's approach to the material, one of high-spirited fun with a pointed lack of any seriousness. He serves as a direct antithesis to Mason's severe, grown-up Nemo, and serves as the entry point to the film's presumptive audience of eager kids, while the characters played by Mason and Peter Lorre are there to keep those kids' parents entertained.
It's obvious, by the way, that Douglas had a blast doing all of this: freed from the requirements of proper drama, the actor gets to play in a big Victorian-designed sandbox, chomping on his dialogue and generally having a great time overselling Ned's thickly-colored sense of bravery and morality. It's not remotely subtle. It is, however, utterly committed and energetic, with Douglas even giving 100% to scenes where he's obliged to act against a sea lion doing slapstick comedy. It's silly as hell, but the kind of silliness that frees up an actor to be fearless in his embrace of cartoon excess.
Plus, this is the film where Kirk gets to show that he can sing!
Or, at least that he "can sing".
More Kirk: Lust for Life and The Bad and the Beautiful
Reader Comments (5)
I saw this as a child...........and it is not your typical Kirk Douglas role and James Mason ( and his voice) made the perfect Nemo.
But that squid lived at the bottom of my bed FOREVER!!!!! I learned to curl up and sleep on my pillow so it couldn't reach me with its tentacles.
I saw this as a kid and man, Kirk Douglas was the best thing in that whole film. He really stole the show and made the film such a joy to watch. I need to see this again.
A fun adventure and certainly not the typical Douglas 50's vehicle. I doubt that it was intentional, this being Disney and all, but Kirk's physique is prominently displayed throughout, I mean he is IN those tight tee and snug pants and watching the number that shimmy certainly showed that off.
I think this film is a good illustration of the difference between father and son. Kirk was nothing if not intense, as is Micheal but what is missing from the younger Douglas is that unbridled joy that Kirk could throw out. Micheal can play comedy well but he's never effusive and alive in the same way.
Kirk's a big draw in this but what a great cast the film is filled out with! Certainly better than most mid-century Disney films.
The story of the making this film is amazing- the squid scene was originally shot in daylight but when Walt and company realized it wasn't working- they re-shot the entire sequence in its current classic nightmare inducing form.
Here’s the thing with this wildly overplayed performance: it just doesn’t belong in this movie. As a kid, I could not figure out why this 40 year old man was pretending to be a bratty 12 year old. I tried to watch it last night and was struck by the same thing. Douglas’s scenes were so painful to watch, I could barely finish the movie.