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 like D'Urville's ship, the "Astrolabe"; and she passes through an underwater tunnel from the Red Sea into the Mediterranean. The most famous part of the novel, the battle against a school of giant squid, begins when a crewman opens the hatch of the boat and gets caught by one of the monsters. As the tentacle that has grabbed him pulls him away, he yells "Help!" in French. At the beginning of the next chapter, concerning the battle, Aronnax states, "To convey such sights, one would take the pen of our most famous poet, Victor Hugo, author of "The Toilers of