20,000 Leagues Director Dies
Posted by: Loren Coleman on March 26th, 2006
Richard Fleischer, who directed the 1954 sci-fi movie 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, has died of natural causes at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, on March 25, 2006. He was 89.
Fleischer’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is best remembered by cryptofiction fans for its famed scene of the giant squid attacking Captain Nemo’s submarine, the Nautilaus, a major motion picture achievement of its day. The movie was based on Jules Vernes science fiction story of the same name, which was based on true reports of cryptid-style encounters with the giant squid or Kraken.
The Internet Movie Database shares this insightful bit of trivia about the movie: The climactic squid battle on the Nautilus was originally shot with a serene sunset and a calm sea. Director Richard Fleischer was troubled by the look of it because the cams and gears that operated the squid could easily be seen, making it look obviously fake. Walt Disney visited the set one day and Fleischer told him about the problem. Disney came up with the idea of having the squid battle take place during a fierce storm (another story is that it was actually screenwriter Earl Felton who came up with the idea). The scene was reshot that way and is considered by many to be the highlight of the film.
**** Famous quotation from the film. Professor Pierre Aronnax, narrator: A strange twilight world opened up before me, and I felt as the first man to set foot on another planet, an intruder in this mystic garden of the deep. ****
Besides Walt Disney Studios’ 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Fleischer is most often remembered for The Boston Strangler, (1968); Fantastic Voyage (1966): and Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970).
A quiet but firm director, Richard Fleischer never achieved the recognition of his more celebrated contemporaries, but his name was on an extensive range of well-known movies, including The Vikings (1958); Barabbas (1962); Doctor Dolittle (1967); Che! (1969); The New Centurions (1972); Soylent Green (1973); Mr. Majestyk (1974); Mandingo (1975); Conan the Destroyer (1984) and Red Sonja (1985).
A complete obituary was published in the Los Angeles Daily News.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
The man is a freakin’ genious!!! I have seen everyone of his movies! One of the great losses of our time! He will be missed!
“Live long and die young and fiery!”
He died on my birthday… =(
draconica, he died on my birthday as well. Yesterday was also the birthday of one John A. Keel.
how’s about we stop talkin about when he died and lets just say he made some damn good movies!
Truly one of the great directors of Sci-Fi/Fantasy movies. Thanks for the great movies we grew up with!