Mysterious Island (1941 film)

Plot summary

During the siege of Richmond, Virginia, in the American Civil War, five northern prisoners of war escape by hijacking a balloon. They crash-land on a cliff-bound, volcanic, unknown island in the South Pacific, which they name Lincoln Island after President Abraham Lincoln. Using the knowledge of their brilliant engineer, they produce fire, pottery, bricks, nitroglycerine, iron, a simple electric telegraph, and a seaworthy ship, and determine their location. Unexplained events occur: Smith survives a fall from the balloon, and a box of equipment appears. Pirates arrive to use the island as a hideout; after fighting, their ship is destroyed by an explosion, and the pirates are found dead without visible wounds. The mystery is resolved when Captain Nemo is revealed to be the island's secret inhabitant, having saved the heroes and torpedoed the pirate ship.