This is one of those movies that I used to have occasion to bump into more than once completely without intention in theatrical release, & then never again. I think I saw it in 1969 top-billed & then once or twice more 2nd-billed to other films I wanted to see. In my case, repeated viewings did not lead to a deepened appreciation. The annoying kid lead, ultra-mild fantasy element & visual FX, Robert Ryan's sort of weary, uncharismatic Nemo, & the insanely ugly "Victorian" diving costumes are about all that have stayed in my mind since that time. Strange that the very same art director, Bill Andrews, brought what I think was a much more pleasing design sense to the like-themed MYSTERIOUS ISLAND in 1961.

No doubt the xlnt R Wright Campbell wrote the orig treatment or script of the early-60s Corman property known as Captain Nemo & the Floating City, & it would be interesting to read what was, I suspect, an edgier, maybe even slightly more political, treatment of the material than the Saturday matinee film that finally resulted. Robert Ryan would probably have been a lot happier with that. (BTW, MASTER OF THE WORLD -- a film I like a lot more than this one -- is not a Corman production, even though some of the Corman Poe gang, i.e. Matheson, Daniel Haller, Les Baxter, & David Frankham, lend it something of a Cormanesque feeling.)