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Nazi propaganda had harnessed the myth of Atlantis for a deadly intent. But across the Atlantic, myth makers of an entirely different thought were also reinventing Atlantis as pure fantasy - Hollywood. Most famous of all Atlantis movies is probably the 1961 Atlantis, the Lost Continent, in which a humble Greek fisherman called Demetrios saves the beautiful princess Antillia from the evil masters of Atlantis. But the Lost Continent was only the most memorable of a whole genre of B movie adventure films and serials that have continued to reinvent Atlantis.
There's something about the Atlantis series that everybody loves. And even now, or in recent times, people have used it in movies, they've used it in novels. There are serials made in the 1930s about Crash Corrigan and the Undersea Kingdom of Atlantis. And they are wonderful kind of idea--Crash on a horse riding through Atlantis which looks very much like the Monument Valley in the American west, because I think they just happened to be there, and they said:"Well, why don't we make an Atlantis movie, ok, you put the saucepan on your head and we'll do that."
From The Man from Atlantis who sought to help the US navy protect the free world, to The Warlords of Atlantis who wanted to enslave it, Atlantis has been portrayed in almost every conceivable way except as a real place. Astonishingly, that would all suddenly change. In the late 1960s, archeological discoveries would bring Atlantis hurtling from the realm of fantasy in Hollywood B movies onto the front pages of newspapers around the world. Hidden in volcanic rock on the Greek island of Santorini, scientists unearthed the lost city of a forgotten people destroyed in an unimaginable catastrophe. All the elements finally seemed to fit and the great city of legend would now make the world of science sit up and take notice.
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propaganda: n. 宣传
harness: v. 利用
enslave: v. 奴役，束缚
conceivable: adj. 可想象的
catastrophe: n. 大灾难
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