In Search of the Castaways

(1962, U.S) Technicolor 98 minutes
Walt Disney Productions / Buena Vista Distribution Company
Story: Jules Verne (from his novel, "Les Enfants du capitaine Grant")
Screenplay: Lowell S. Hawley
Music: William Alwyn
Cinematography: Paul Beeson
Editing: Gordon Stone
Produced by Hugh Attwooll
Directed by Robert Stevenson

With: Maurice Chevalier (Jacques Paganel), Hayley Mills (Mary Grant), George Sanders (Thomas Ayerton), Wilfrid Hyde-White (Lord Glenarvan), Michael Anderson Jr. (John Glenarvan), Antonio Cifariello (Indian Chief), Keith Hamshere (Robert Grant), Wilfrid Brambell (Bill Gaye), Jack Gwillim (Captain Grant), Ronald Fraser (Guard), Norman Bird, George Murcell, Inia Te Wiata (Maori Chief)

***

In 1962, Walt Disney released another adventure film to his loyal moviegoers, IN SEARCH OF THE CASTAWAYS. Based upon an obscure Jules Verne tale, “Captain Grant's Children,” the story opens in Glasgow, Scotland in 1858, where a party is being held aboard the yacht of Sir Glenarvan, a well-to-do ship company magnate, and member of the British aristocracy (Wilfrid Hyde White, who two years later, would go on to screen immortality as Colonel Hugh L. Pickering in MY FAIR LADY).

The party is going well until three scruffy trespassers arrive at the front gates of his lordship's private docks. One of the three trespassers a teenage girl (Disney's most famous protégé, Hayley Mills) asks to see Lord Glenarvan. The girl, her brother Robert (Keith Hampshire) have traveled to Scotland with their friend, Professor Jacques Paganel (Maurice Chevalier) to enlist the help of his Lordship to find one of his seamen, a Captain Grant.

News had been brought to his Lordship's attention that Grant had died during one of his voyages in the South Seas. But Paganel had found a bottle with a note in it from the Captain that stated that he was still alive and that he is being held prisoner. The guard at the front gates refuses to accept the wild tales from the trio seeing them as a group of tramps freeloading for a meal he advises them to move on. Nevertheless, the trio does get pass the guards and walk onto the yacht where their presence is soon seen by the guards and after a wild chase all over the deck, Mary, Robert and The Professor soon meet Lord Glenarvan and his son John (Michael Anderson Jr.)

Lord Glenarvan also doesn't believe the kids' story but he decides to take the kids back to Plymouth, and throws Paganel off the ship. Paganel doesn't give up so easily; he sneaks back aboard the yacht when the wine wagon comes by to deliver his Lordship's stock of fine wines. When the boat arrives in Plymouth, Paganel is discovered hiding in one of the lifeboats, and he is almost thrown off the ship. But after he reads most of the message from the bottle, his Lord now believes that Grant may be alive but in great danger from an unseen enemy.

Maintaining his family's credo to always help those in need and never give up the search, the group heads for the Andes Mountains to search for Grant. Unfortunately, they accomplish little more than nearly getting killed in an earthquake and almost drowning in a monsoon. The expedition continues their search until they are introduced to a handsome but mysterious gentleman in Melbourne Australia. Thomas Ayerton (George Sanders) tells his Lordship that following a storm at sea, he had found a man badly hurt and half drowned in the Tasmanian Seas, off the coast of New Zealand. The survivor of The Brittania has said that Grant and his crew had been killed in the recent storm. Ayerton believed this until news of the note in the bottle came to his attention and he brought this news to Lord Glenarvan.

Suspicious of this man's story, he asks him why he didn't relate this news to the authorities. Ayerton didn't believe it at first, but he did accept it and feared that the Maoris, the most dangerous tribe of cannibals, may have Grant and members of his crew prisoners of the tribe. He also states that trying to put together a rescue party with total cooperation from The New Zealand and British authorities may take a year to prepare for such an effort.

Taken in by the dandy's tale, his Lordship prepares his own rescue party to save the Captain. Mary is not taken in by Ayterton's kind gesture and she suspects that he maybe a former member of her father's crew, who may have captured the captain and taken over his ship. His Lordship refuses to listen to the girl, and the group heads for New Zealand, only to find out that Ayerton is a renegade who has indeed captured Grant's ship via a well-planned mutiny, and has also taken over Lord Glenarvan's Yacht. He also sends his lordship, John, Mary, Robert and the Professor adrift in a lifeboat.

When they arrive onshore they are captured by the Maoris and are held prisoner in a hut overlooking a cliff with a crazy old man. The daffy little fellow is a member of Grant's crew, Bill Gaye (Wilfrid Brambell) who has found a means of helping them escape from the tribe. Using a makeshift rope from the hairs and clothes of the other crew members, Gaye has Robert tie the rope around his ankles and pushes the boy through the hut's small window. He swings himself over to the footbridge where he unties himself and opens the door to the hut. The troop runs off but the tribe sees them escaping and they run after them, spears at the ready, until an eruption from the volcano starts and sends the Maoris fleeing in the other direction.

Luckily, the lava flow misses the troop, and it soon flows into the seas. Meanwhile, Ayerton and his group of mutineers are trying to get Grant to load their stocks of guns and other weapons into the ship for the purpose of selling them to the Maoris, and other tribes in the South Seas. The good captain refuses to aide Ayerton in his schemes, and remains steadfast. Seeing that his captive will not cooperate, Ayerton socks Grant in the face and has him returned to the hold.

As the fiend prepares for another sale of his firearms to the natives, Mary and the others overhear this and later that night, sneak back aboard the Perevero II (Lord Glenarvan's Yacht), where they route the pirates and regain control of the ship. Ayerton and his band of pirates are turned over to the authorities, Lord Glenarvan regains his ship, Captain Grant is reunited with his children, Professor Paganel is rewarded for his efforts, and Mary and John find time for a little wooing. Yet one question still remains: Did Captain Grant send the messages for help in the bottles? No, he didn't! Bill Gaye did!

IN SEARCH OF THE CASTAWAYS was not a big success when it was first released in 1962. The special effects and the meandering story were knocked both by critics and audiences. It was not until the film was re-released in the 1980's that the movie finally found it's audience, and became a hit with the Kiddie Matinee crowd. I have seen the movie with my brother and his first wife at the 13th Street Quad Cinema in New York City, back in the early 1980's and we became enchanted by this unappreciated film. The script, despite it's flaws, is exciting and entertaining, the music by William Alywin, arranged and conducted by Muir Matheson, the brilliant music magician who worked on the score for the 1951 movie version of SCROOGE (“A Christmas Carol”) with Alaister Sim is stirring and poetic. The special effects by the Late Peter Ellenshaw are imaginative, if uneven. The script was written by Lowell Hawley and the film also features songs written by the Sherman Brothers and performed by Ms. Mills and Mr. Chevalier. The movie was shot at The Pinewood Studios in England. IN SEARCH OF THE CASTAWAYS should be added to the list of Disney's other adventure films as a true classic.

- Kevin S. Butler