A message informs the interested parties that Captain Grant and his crew are shipwrecked; the message is faded, so only the latitude is known. Grant's son and daughter, a Scottish laird and comic relief go a-journeying, a trip that takes them from the wind-swept deserts of Chile to the wind-swept shores of Australia.
The first feature film from the works of Jules Verne offers one of his voyages extraordinaires with a stunning variety of outdoor environments, including glaciers, deserts and rough sea shores, exciting tumbles down mountains, a flash flood, and fleeing from enraged Maori warriors. Those of you who have never read the novel this was based on, or whose memory, like mine, has faded, may recall the 1960s version with Hayley Mills and Maurice Chevalier. With the addition of color and sound, that might have been modeled on this version. I don't find the exciting moments as exciting as they might have been intended -- director Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset's compositions are too formal for that. However, the camera seems always pointed in a direction where some interesting vista can dominate, and that helps make it highly watchable.
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