In company with her younger brother Robert (Keith Hamshere), and her elderly yet young-at-heart friend Professor Jacques Paganel (Maurice Chevalier), teenage Mary Grant (Hayley Mills) journeys to Glasgow to persuade th...展开e comically brave Lord Glenarvan (Wilfrid Hyde-White) to rescue her shipwrecked father, Captain John Grant (Jack Gwillim). The expedition sets sail and ventures halfway around the world, to both South America and New Zealand, respectively. The party suffers many assorted perils including an earthquake, a flood, a fire, an attack by a giant condor and an erupting volcano before finding and rescuing Captain Grant. A subplot involves a gunrunner named Thomas Ayerton (George Sanders), who is a treacherous former crew-member of Captain Grants ship, and responsible for his disappearance. Another subplot involves a budding romance between young Mary Grant and Lord Glenarvan's handsome and loyal son John (Michael Anderson, Jr.).