20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916 film) 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916 film) 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a 1916 American silent film directed by Stuart Paton. The film's storyline is based on the novel "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" by Jules Verne. It also incorporates elements from Verne's "The Mysterious Island". This was the first motion picture filmed underwater. Actual underwater cameras were not used, but a system of watertight tubes and mirrors allowed the camera to shoot reflected images of underwater scenes staged in shallow sunlit waters. The film was made by The Universal Film Manufacturing Company (now Universal Pictures), not then
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea the book are greatly exaggerated. No less significant, though more rarely commented on, is the very bold political vision, which was revolutionary for its time, represented by the character of Captain Nemo. As revealed in the later Verne book "The Mysterious Island", Captain Nemo is a descendant of Tipu Sultan, a Muslim ruler of Mysore who resisted the expansionism of the British East India Company. Nemo took to the underwater life after the suppression of the Indian Mutiny of 1857, in which his close family members were killed by the British. This change was made at the request of Verne's