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Nautilus - Futuristic submarine on the sci-fi
adventure THE RETURN OF CAPTAIN NEMO/CBS/1978.
Jose Ferrer starred as
Captain Nemo, the scientific genius and creator of the Nautilus, the 19th
century submarine from Jules Verne's classic novel "Twenty Thousand Leagues
Under The Sea."
When the Nautilus got wedged under a coral reef in the year
1878, Captain Nemo placed himself in suspended animation. A century later,
an explosion from a Navy war game depth charge dislodged the Nautilus.
With
the assistance of the US Navy, Captain Nemo was resurrected from his long
sleep and soon agreed to aid the US Navy in exchange for the government's
promise to repair his submarine. Another submarine seen on the short-lived
series was The Raven, commanded by Professor Waldo Cunningham's (Burgess
Meredith).
Portions of the 3 episode series were reedited into a theatrically released
film called The Amazing Captain Nemo.
TRIVIA NOTE: The tale of the Nautilus submarine surfaced in two Walt
Disney enterprises. First in the fantasy-adventure motion picture 2000
Leagues Under The Sea (1954) starring James Mason, Kirk Douglas, Paul
Lukas and Peter Lorre and later as a ride at the Disneyland Theme Park in
Anaheim, CA.
The film Nautilus depicted the famous submarine in the Jules Verne
novel "20,000 leagues Under the Sea." The theme park ride featured the
USS Nautilus - the world's first nuclear-powered submarine that traveled
below the polar ice cap of the artic ocean on August 3, 1958 with its crew
of 116 to become the first ship to cross the geographic North Pole.
A year later in June 1959, Walt Disney opened a Submarine Lagoon ride at
Disneyland with scaled down diesel versions of the USS Nautilus and
seven sister submarines - the Triton, Sea Wolf, Skate, Skipjack, George
Washington, Patrick Henry, and Ethan Allen (built by Todd
Shipyards in San Pedro).
The ride simulated the voyage under the North Pole taken by crew of the
USS Nautilus and its Commander William R. Anderson. A sister attraction
in The Magic Kingdom in Florida featured nine submarines resembling the
Nautilus in the 1954 Disney film. The Florida Submarine ride opened in
1971 and closed in 1994. The West Coast sub ride at Disneyland closed after
forty years in 1998 (the subs were painted yellow in mid-1980s).
For an "in-depth" story on submarines read: "Father of the Submarine" (a
biography of George Garrett) by William Scanlan Murphy.
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The
Nautilus in the Disney film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
(1954) |
The
USS Nautilus in Disneyland's Submarine Lagoon ride in
California |
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The real
nuclear-powered USS Nautilus roaming the oceans. |
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