CAPTAIN NEMO REMEMBERS DISNEY…And Indirectly, Walt Too

Mason did not have much direct contact with Walt during the production of the film, but he did get a rare glimpse of how the “boss” ran things. And he was impressed. Consider that Mason’s career spanned fifty years through Hollywood’s golden age, and encompassed over 120 films. Consider that he was one of the more well-traveled actors in tinsel town, who was all too familiar with how the studios operated. With this in mind, his memory of working for Disney is a powerful example of Walt’s vision and how that vision translated into running a studio. In an interview, James Mason was asked about his association with Walt Disney and the film, to which he commented:

“It was a splendid film, because it incorporated everything the Disney people do best. The model work and the special effects were outstanding as well as the creative imagination brought to the whole project. As a production it could not have been bettered. In fact, it was a producer’s film rather than an actor’s or director’s film. I recently saw it dubbed into German, and the character I played, Captain Nemo, seemed to me to have improved immeasurably with a thick German accent. Kirk Douglas sounds pretty good in German as well. I was a bit reluctant to accept the part at first because Nemo is basically a serious, dramatic part in a film primarily aimed at children–and I wasn’t sure whether I could find the right key. But I’m glad I did it, if only for the happy experience of working in the Disney Studio which, I discovered, was the only studio in Hollywood that didn’t have a hierarchy of executives who passed the buck and shifted papers on their desks. It was a happy, outgoing studio, more like a university campus, really, than a motion picture factory. The Disney people seemed more alive than their other Hollywood counterparts–more stimulating, and in general nicer!”