Sun 7 Feb 2021
A Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (1959).
Posted by Steve under Action Adventure movies , Reviews[15] Comments
JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH. 20th Century Fox, 1959. Pat Boone, James Mason, Arlene Dahl, Diane Baker, Thayer David. Screenplay by Walter Reisch and Charles Brackett, based on the novel by Jules Verne. Director: Henry Levin.
At the heart of Journey to the Center of the Earth is a sense of childhood wonder. It’s a film that works best for those with a passion for exploration and a ripe imagination. After all, for a movie based on a Jules Verne work to be effective, it must stimulate those parts of the brain responsible for one’s imaginative faculties. One also has to suspend disbelief. Of course, there are no giant lizard creatures lurking about in the center of the planet. But imagine if only there were!
The plot of this 20th Century Fox live action feature is simple enough. Professor Sir Oliver Lindenbrook (James Mason) of Edinburgh is a geologist by training. Ill-mannered and more than a little sexist, Lindenbrook is seemingly more passionate about rocks than his fellow man.
When one of his star pupils, Alec McEwan (Pat Boone) brings him a curious geological specimen, Lindenbrook becomes obsessed as to its origins. As it turns out, the rock seems to point toward something much more profound than McEwan could have imagined; namely, that there is – somewhere in Iceland – a passageway deep into the center of the earth.
Lindenbrook and McEwan, along with the widow of Lindenbrook’s rival, an Icelandic helper, and an adorable duck named Gertrude, set course on exploring the depths of the planet. Of course, such a story could not work unless there was an antagonist who is equally determined to stop the professor.
Here comes the Icelandic nobleman Count Saknussemm (Thayer David). He is the typical Disney villain. Ready to kill when necessary, but not overtly evil – at least not the end of the film. The conflict between these two forces provides the necessary plot tension needed to make the movie work.
That said, what makes Journey to the Center of the Earth such an enjoyable feature is not the plot per se. It’s rather the eclectic combination of myriad factors, each of individual import, that coalesce into a coherent whole. Film scenes involving people climbing through caves can only work if there is enough clever dialogue and witty banter.
And let me assure you, of that there is plenty. Mason, with his distinctive accent and intonation, is pitch perfect. It’s sheer joy to listen to his portrayal of an arrogant professor, one gradually begins to change his tune once he realizes that he may not be as omniscient as he thought he was.
Adding to the mystique of the movie are three other strong factors. First, the movie has an eerie score by Bernard Herrmann which can be heard here:
In addition, the movie has great art direction and set design. Even at the beginning of the movie – the nominally boring part – you can clearly see the attention to detail that pervades this work. Be it in Lindenbrook’s home or laboratory.
Similarly, there are numerous great set pieces throughout the movie, including a giant subterranean mushroom forest (with shades of psychedelia) and the sunken lost city of Atlantis which the exploration party happens upon at the very end.
But don’t mistake my high praises for a lack of clarity as to the film’s weaknesses. There are quite a few, not the least of which was the decision to kill off the duck. Such a moment must have been quite shocking for young children who went to see a fun film.
Equally disappointing – this time for adults – is the film’s refusal to depict any sign of sadness or grief on the part of the characters. They are all a little too staid, a little too bourgeois (it’s a term used in the film for a very specific reason).
A little more passion, a little more anger on the part of the characters would have gone a long way in heightening the proceedings. Perhaps it would have removed some of the movie’s charm. But perhaps it would have given it a little more bite.
February 7th, 2021 at 9:03 pm
Too some extent the film walks a delicate balance between a kids movie and an adult one, managing something for both so it does not disappoint watched all these years later as an adult.
Like Disney’s 20,000 LEAGUES and the Harryhausen MYSTERIOUS ISLAND this works because it takes Verne seriously but still manages a bit of tongue in cheek toward the obvious impossibilities.
As mentioned above the attention to detail here, even working in such Vernian staple of details about the equipment needed for such an exploration all piles on to enrich the experience.
This has been remade numerous time since, including one verbatim remake with Kenneth More replacing Mason, but none of the remakes captures half the joys this one does, or the splendid cast right down to Diane Baker as Mason’s neice.
February 7th, 2021 at 9:17 pm
I would have seen this one in a theater my last year of high school, or the summer following, right between being a kid and an adult. The details of the story didn’t come back until I watched the trailer, but back then I think I enjoyed it on both levels.
February 7th, 2021 at 10:04 pm
Jonathan, you indicate this is a Disney Live action feature — it is not. Fox through and through.
February 7th, 2021 at 10:39 pm
My error, too, Barry. I saw that and failed to fix it. I’ll do that now. Thanks!
February 7th, 2021 at 11:15 pm
It’s grand entertainment. Certainly a vigorous role for James Mason; and who better? Who looks better or sounds better as a retro Victorian or Edwardian gentleman?
Fantasy, SF, and horror are all my least beloved genres except for artful, energetic, magical, gems like this hardy production. This one oozes historical fascination in setting, wardrobe, dialogue, and characters. Surprisingly, even the romance is done well; rather touching in fact.
It’s a barn-burner; a romp; with pacing and suspense constantly on ‘simmer’. Never less than brisk; building one’s curiosity at every sequence; and if it is sometimes juvenile there’s no feeling of being cheated or underestimated as an adult viewer. Instead, there’s a feeling (for me) of, ‘I just want this to keep rolling’.
I’ll go so far as to say that even the jittery, stuttery, giant-lizard-battle is tolerable. I look on it as a bit of history in the development of animation.
Although I must hoot at the behavior of Hollywood characters when confronted with giant lizards. I sure wouldn’t try to kill something that big with a spear. I wouldn’t stay anywhere in the vicinity.
Bernard Herrmann score, the poster reminds me. Well done.
February 7th, 2021 at 11:33 pm
Late thought to tack on:
I think what I like about it best is that the explorers simply ‘hike down’ into the cleft in the rocks. No gleaming, cylindrical, earth-burrowing excavator craft.
The party possess no fancy plastic gadgets or devices. They’re confronted with bizarre challenges yet they face them with nothing except courage, determination, resourcefulness, and the clothes on their backs.
Through the whole adventure, no one cusses or swears.
All in all, it is a story to remind us that the world we inhabit has plenty of wonder all around us and all we ever need do to find thrills is use our hearts and our brains and feel with our five senses.
Sometimes I can’t help but feel that the never-ending outer-space-fiction industry detracts from the kind of thing depicted in this adventure. My god, am I weary of ‘outer space’, whether fact or fiction. Sick of people constantly telling me what is millions of parsecs and light-years away. ‘Journey to the Center’ does something which few other yarns do: re-excites me with genuine wonder about the world which I have right here under my own two feet.
February 8th, 2021 at 12:06 am
Well said, Lazy.
February 8th, 2021 at 7:49 am
Nice review. I totally agree. I was 10 when it came out. I loved it then and can still watch it with enjoyment.
February 8th, 2021 at 9:13 am
I liked the duck.
February 8th, 2021 at 9:31 am
I first saw this about 40 years ago, on late-night TV while quite drunk. I was enchanted by it. 35 sober years later, I find it holds up wonderfully.
February 8th, 2021 at 11:43 am
I turned 70 late last year, so age is much on my mind these days.
I saw Journey … in a theater on its initial release; I was nine (9) at the time, and duly thrilled.
Actually, at that age, my one-year-older brother and I considered ourselves quite the “mature” ones for making it through a two-hour-plus movie (adding in trailers and cartoon) with minimal bathroom time (it was, as they say, A Different Time).
Even as a kid, I was noticing character actors; here, Thayer David caught my eye as the Evil Count, so when he turned up years later as the all-rounder on Dark Shadows, I took pride in recognizing him – every time he tuned up as a new Stokes.
Imagine my chagrin years after that, when I looked up Thayer David in reference books – and learned that when he played the Evil Count, he was only 32 years old (an age I’d already passed when I did the looking).
When he played Nero Wolfe, Thayer David was 50 (twenty years younger than I am now); he died a year after that, which was depressing enough …
I don’t even want to think about Pat Boone these days …
February 8th, 2021 at 11:48 am
I remember seeing this when it was released in ’59, when I was 15, and being very pleasantly surprised due to my extreme dislike of Pat Boone. I don’t recall seeing him again, either in movies or as a “singer”, and I must have assumed he was dead. But a few weeks ago I was shocked to see him in a commercial for some sort of walk-in bathtub.
February 8th, 2021 at 1:16 pm
Regarding Verne: I know some readers complain that ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues’ is laborious to read, because it is packed with so much information on marine species. That may be so –although it never bothered me.
The prolific Verne surely has other less pedantic novels of interest, which I’ve always meant to get around to someday. ‘Robur the Conqueror’, ‘The Survivors of the Chancellor’, ‘The Castle of the Carpathias’.
But I will always acclaim his terrific, ‘The Mysterious Island’ (mentioned above, post #1) as one of the most stimulating reads I’ve ever enjoyed in its genre.
Again, for the same qualities as what makes ‘Center of the Earth’ so satisfying. No hi-tech to rely on; just four Civil War soldiers in a balloon blown off course and forced to survive via their own (Yankee) ingenuity.
One of the most rousing island-survival yarns ever penned. I don’t recall any enormous reptiles in the book but I suppose Disney included them in the flick.
But, gadzooks what a novel. Could you build a kiln and forge lead tools all by yourself? I sure couldn’t.
February 8th, 2021 at 1:39 pm
Saw it when it came out—in a US Army Theatre in Frankfurt Germany, probably the Panzer. I was 8. When Gertrude was eaten by that bloated Count Sacknussen I was horrified & enraged. I still am.
February 8th, 2021 at 6:44 pm
I was nine when I saw this, and it was also the first Jules Verne novel I read that same year, that same year. The CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED comic book edition of the book by Norman Nodell is also a splendid adaptation with much better art than most Gilberton products.
Re Verne being dull, take away the politics and he is in someway the Tom Clancy of his day, not viewed as a children’s author in France and much of Europe, though suffering poor English translations until now. That accumulation of detail that so bothers modern readers was what gave Verne his special place and so inspired his readers many who went on to be scientists.
His Extra Ordinary Voyages is one of the great accomplishment in literature including a good dozen of the most popular and influential novels ever written.
His gift was a mix of audacity, plausibility, and imagination, his literary models Poe, Dumas, Cooper, and Sir Walter Scott.