Valley of the Dragons (1961 film) to try and get on the earth the next time the comet approaches. The film was produced by Al Zimbalist who says he was given a copy of the Verne novel that his 16 year old son Don had found in a London bookshop. Director Edward Bernds says the novel had not been published in the US due to its anti semitism. Jules Verne adaptations were in vogue at the time ever since the success of "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" and "Around the World in 80 Days". Zimbalist had the rights to footage for "One Million B.C." (1940).
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea the book from the initial concept is a portrait of Tadeusz Kościuszko, a Polish national hero, leader of the uprising against Russia in 1794, with an inscription in Latin: "Finis Poloniae!" ("The end of Poland!"). Margaret Drabble argues that "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" anticipated the ecology movement and shaped the French avant-garde. Theodore L. Thomas in 1961 said that "there is not a single bit of valid speculation" in the novel and that "none of its predictions has come true". He described the depictions of the diving gear, scenes, and the "Nautilus" as "pretty bad, behind the times