Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

This is the classic adaptation (1959) by Henry Levin with great cast such as James Mason as Lindenbrook , Pat Boone , Diane Baker and Arlene Dahl as a wealthy widow . An Edinburgh (in fact , many of the people in the crowd scenes were students of Edinburgh University) professor (James Mason who replaced an ailing Clifton Webb) and assorted colleagues as his pupil (Pat Boone) , a woman looking for her husband who disappeared various years earlier during a voyage follow an explorer's trail down an extinct Icelandic volcano to the earth's center . Meanwhile , they are chased by a mysterious scout , the Count Saknussemm (Alexander Scourby started shooting at Carlsbad Caverns , but the producers were unhappy with him and he was replaced with Thayer David) who has usurped a map for his own greedy purposes . As the expedition to the center of the earth starts in a volcano located in Iceland . The professor and his compatriots descend into deep caverns filled with stalactites and stalagmites and encounter a tunnel system leading to the center . Along the way they find prehistoric beasts , a magnetic storm and the lost city of Atlantis . This superior adaptation is a colorful recounting of the Jules Verne adventure yarn . Lighthearted romp for kids and teenagers based upon the famous book . Dealing with the known story about an anthropologist scientific named Linderbrook , James Mason , and his student , Pat Boone , and a woman , Arlene Dahl , undergo a hazardous voyage to find clues of her husband who disappeared some years earlier . As the peculiar trio along with a Island explorer descend into deep caves and discover a way leading to the planet's center . The highlights of the movie are the numerous risks and dangers they have to deal with , such as endure torrential floods , prehistoric animals , terrifying earthquake , and discover the lost city of Atlantis as happens in the classic novel . Fox gave the green light to this big-budget CinemaScope production partially on the basis of the success of the recent Jules Verne adaptations , Walt Disney's 20.000 leagues under the sea (1954) and Michael Todd's Around the World in Eighty Days ; as with those earlier films , turned out to be big hits . There're rip-roaring action , spirit of adventure , derring-do , sense of wonder , thrills , and results to be quite entertaining . It's a big fun with great special effects , adequate set decoration and impressive art direction . Spotlights of the voyage include a roller-coaster trip , a terrifying odyssey in sailing, with appearance of prehistoric reptiles , and many others events . The "Dimetrodons" in the movie were played by a large type of lizard called a rhinoceros iguana , in real life was a type of Synapsid reptile . Acceptable cinematography full of color by Leo Tover , though there is an excessive use of matte-painting . Thrilling and breathtaking musical score by Bernard Herrmann in his peculiar and Hitchcockian style . The motion picture was well directed by Henry Levin , the heavy cost proved to be a good investment, resulting in a big hit at the box office . It was nominated for four Academy Awards including Art Direction , FX , and set decoration.Other versions about this known story based upon the Jules Verne's 1864 fantasy are the followings : Spanish version (1976) by Juan Piquer with Kenneth Moore , Jack Taylor , Frank Braña , Ivonne Sentis , Pep Munne , José María Caffarel , Emiliano Redondo . 1988 retelling titled Journey to the center by Rutsy Lemorande with Ian Mitchell-Smith , Paul Carafotes . TV version made its way to cable by George Miller with Treat Williams , Jeremy London , Tushka Bergen , and Bryan Brown and another inferior television picture (2008) by David Jones with Greg Evigan and Dedee Pfeiffer . In addition , Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008), (TV) , by T.J. Scott with Ricky Schroder , Peter Fonda , Victoria Pratt , Steven Grayhm . Furthermore , a cartoon movie : Journey to the Center of the Earth (1967) was based on this film version rather than the original novel by Jules Verne and features several characters that were created for the 1959 film . And of course , recent and successful take on filmed in 3D , produced and starred by Brendan Fraser with Anita Briem and Josh Hutcherson being followed by a sequel titled : Mysterious Island , with Josh Hutcherson and Michael Caine . Rating : Above average.

An Edinburgh professor and assorted colleagues follow an explorer's trail down an extinct Icelandic volcano to the earth's center.Bosley Crowther said that the film is "really not very striking make-believe, when all is said and done. The earth's interior is somewhat on the order of an elaborate amusement-park tunnel of love. And the attitudes of the people, toward each other and toward another curious man who happens to be exploring down there at the same time, are conventional and just a bit dull." Crowther is a stick in the mud. Other reviews are generally positive, as they should be. Yes, some of the effects are cheesy. And yes, given what we know about the inside of the earth, this is a lot of nonsense. But isn't it okay to just have fun sometimes?

Oliver Lindenbrook (James Mason) is an Edinburgh based scientist who has recently been knighted after becoming Edinburgh's greatest scientist. One of his students Alec McKuen (Pat Boone)purchases a piece of lava for Mr Lindenbrook. Lindenbrook is intrigued by this piece of lava and accidentally discovers that the piece of lava that he's acquired may have originated from a volcano in Iceland which may be directly linked to the 'centre of the earth'. Determined to find out if this piece of lava did originate at the centre of the earth, Lindenbrook and McKuen head off to Iceland, but they encounter many problems along the way.Whilst I did enjoy this film on the whole I must admit the start of the film was a little bit cheesy, twee & sickly-sweet; the weird bit at the start where all Lindenbrook's students are singing to him, the early scene involving McKuen and Lindenbrook's daughter Jenny (Diane Baker). This scene contained some really cheesy and mushy dialogue (it actually made me cringe). Then just after that he started singing to her - ughh!!. Was all this really necessary? Thankfully, after these few cringeworthy early scenes the film does settle down and the adventure soon begins...One thing I liked about this film is that it was a lot of fun - the interaction between the characters was great, the chemistry was good between the principal cast and they all shared good camaraderie. Mason & Dahl were particularly good and you could see that there was a definite power struggle for leadership between the two of them. The film is also slightly sexist in that Lindenbrook initially won't allow Goetabaug to accompany them merely because she's a woman - I think that people need to remember that this film was made in 1959 where sexism and equal rights weren't as prevalent as they are now. I'm not condoning the sexism, but merely stating that it wasn't an uncommon thing in this era. There is a positive spin on this though because Gotabaug for the most part was portrayed as being bright and fairly resourceful rather than a clichéd bimbo or damsel in distress.The only other minor issue relates to food; about 2/3 of the way into the film it's mentioned that they've been travelling for 256 days (which is roughly 9 months), yet they only have a handful of provisions at the start of the journey which begs the question; did they really have enough supplies for 9 months? Even by rationing your intake, I think you'd need more supplies than you'd be able to carry. These issues didn't affect my overall enjoyment of the film, but I couldn't help but think about them during the running time.This is an excellent adventure film and despite the glaring lack of logic within one aspect of the narrative it was still a lot of fun and it also contained some great dialogue and a few memorable characters. It's only really spoilt slightly by its cheesy/sickly-sweet start, but if you can get past the first 15 minutes it's absolutely first-rate.

Based on the classic novel by Jules Verne, this adaptation stars James Mason as a Scottish professor who organizes an expedition into Iceland in order to locate the entrance to the center of the Earth, where a volcanic piece of rock he came into possession of originated from. Along with him are the widow of a colleague(played by Arlene Dahl) and a student(played by Pat Boone) They further enlist the services of local guide Hans, who brings along his duck Gertrude. They encounter an amazing array of things in the vast caverns including dinosaurs, and end up lost, though they meet up with the treacherous leader of a rival expedition(played by Thayer David). Can this group survive their attempts to return to the surface? Entertaining film is overlong and dated to an extent, but is still elaborate and imaginative, with a good ending(though poor Gertrude is another matter...)