Journey to the Center of the Earth
by Henry Levin
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Arlene Dahl, Diane Baker, James Mason, Pat Boone, Thayer DavidDirector: Henry Levin
Brand: Fox Home Entertainment
Cinematographer: Leo Tover
Editor: Jack W. Holmes
Editor: Stuart Gilmore
Producer: Charles Brackett
Writer: Charles Brackett
Writer: Jules Verne
Writer: Walter Reisch
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 132 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-03-04
Audience Rating: G (General Audience)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Movie Reviews of Journey to the Center of the Earth
Movie Review: The Still-Entertaining 50s Sci-Fi/Adventure Classic
Summary: 5 Stars
I remember this movie vividly from my childhood and its frequent TV reruns, this one and the 1954 classic--whaddaya know, also starring James Mason, and adapted from Jules Verne--20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Both are classics with giant monsters, super-cool fantasy vistas, and good, red-blooded adventure. This film endures to this day as largely harmless family fare; my 10- and 12-year-olds even enjoyed it.
The story: there's a big hole, and some intrepid European scientists crawl on down inside following a mythical path, and just to see what's down there. It's magnificent, spooky, dangerous, and thrilling, and an evil competitor, monsters and Atlantis are thrown in, too.
Set in the late 1880s, this film now seems to be a late 50s homage to a far more simple and clearly more respectful time, before world wars and before Communism, when the British Empire was king, er, emperor. Mason is fantastic here as the stiff upper everything Sir Oliver Lindenbrook, coming off his turn as the wonderfully smooth yet purely cruel foreign bad guy in the classic North By Northwest.
Our bad guy in this film is just too perfect. Poor Thayer David is the wonderfully pompous Count Saknussem. Physically, he's chubby, with beady eyes, and tight bad guy lips, reminiscent of Telly Savalas' ultra-slimy Blofeld in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. The count has got a bad haircut, pressed flat to his round head. He's got that spoiled man-child look, with the outdated high-waisted pants to emphasize his girth. He's a brat boy all grown up, taking what he wants, with no remorse over how he gets it. One of the best parts of the movie is when he starts in on the typical bad guy monologue, and accuses Mason's Sir Oliver of being so bourgeois, which makes the count a commie, no less. Given its 1950s setting, you can't help but think it was intentional. So, in the battle of capitalism versus communism, who do you think is going to win? I could feel Ike smiling down on us from his white-bread heaven.
Arlene Dahl is massively hot throughout this film, with that long, often piled-up red hair, her strangely, mysteriously unidentifiable accent, not quite Icelandic but so sexily foreign (she was originally from Minne-sohta, don'cha know). Her makeup and wardrobe are impeccable throughout, tiny of waist and big of bosom. She was a magnificent 30 when she made this film. Strangely, she often comes across in the movie as physically bigger than Mason, who was 5'11½", but she was 5'6". Maybe it's the force of her character, or maybe it's all that balled-up hair.
The interplay between Mason and Dahl's characters is fun to watch, if anything as a 1950s interpretation of late 19th century courting rituals. I mean, how hot was it in 1959 to have Mason order her to remove her corset? A man ordering a woman to remove a part of her fundamental underclothing, and then her remain without it for the remainder of the voyage--whoa. We even get the money shot; the sadly doomed Gertrude the duck dragging the still warm unspeakables through the mysterious underground depths (at which the men smile both good naturedly and knowingly).
Watching Dahl throughout the film, just when we're going to get the hot sex object payoff on the beach, to see Dahl spent and dripping wet, so thoroughly moist and exhausted after the sensual and tense struggle with the massive whirlpool at the very center of the earth, her makeup still so masterfully constructed, you can see how her arm has been so carefully placed and how the sand has been mounded up strategically to prevent any view of what I'm sure is magnificent cleavage. Sure, we can have Pat Boone without his shirt and most of his clothes for most of the film, even stark naked at the end, but we can't see what Arlene had to offer the eventually lucky Sir Oliver. Thanks, 1950s prudishness.
And what of Hans, the gold-toothed Icelandic yokel? He's a little bit comic relief, and a lot of pure manual labor. I guess on some level he represents the untamed depths of the planet itself, but he comes across most of the time as a smiling, jabbering dimwit. But man, does he love that duck.
Watching this film today, it's a little disturbing to see how the "giant lizards" are treated. Of course, they're just normal lizards, blue-screened into the shots to become the horrible giant monsters. When our heroes throw harpoons into the beast on the beach, it's painfully obvious that steel darts are being fired into the real studio lizard. And at the end, the red-painted (lead paint, probably) lizard in the Atlantis chamber gets overwashed with lava, which to my mind looks an awful lot like steaming-hot asphalt with red dye in it. Sure, they're just lizards, but it's also very plain to see that these critters are being maimed and/or killed. I'm reminded of the very seldom seen 1970s schlock-horror The Food of the Gods, with the gigantic bunnies and especially the up-sized rats being blasted--and I do mean physically blasted--as they climbed about on the miniaturized cabin; that's why you never see that one on television.
All in all, it's a fun film, fantasy and schmaltz all the way, and often just plain defying the laws of physics, with a score to match from the soaring symphony blast of discovery and adventure to the low-end warbles filling out the menace of the man-eating lizards. It's true family fare, even with the poor lizards being abused, where the happy ending is never in doubt and the bad guy soon enough gets what he deserves.
Summary of Journey to the Center of the Earth
Features include:
?MPAA Rating: G
?Format: DVD
?Runtime: 132 minutes
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