Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)
Adventure | Family | Sci-Fi

Tagline: A fabulous world below the world

Prof. Lindenbrook leads his intrepid party on an expedition to the centre of the earth, via a volcano in Iceland, encountering all manner of prehistoric monsters and life-threatening hazards on the way.

Storyline: Prof. Lindenbrook leads his intrepid party on an expedition to the centre of the earth, via a volcano in Iceland, encountering all manner of prehistoric monsters and life-threatening hazards on the way. Written by Mark Hockley

User Comment: Jonathon Dabell (barnaby.rudge@hotmail.co.uk) from Todmorden, England, 3 May 2004 • Based fairly faithfully on a classic sci-fi novel by Jules Verne, Journey To The Center Of The Earth is an inventive, splendidly-realised, smartly acted film. It must have been quite an ambitious undertaking in 1959 to try to make a film set predominantly in a mysterious, unexplored underground realm populated by fantastic creatures and filled with a host of weird 'n' wonderful sights. However, the makers have done a great job in tackling this enormously challenging source material.

A Scottish scientist, Prof Oliver Lindenbrook (James Mason) discovers that a fellow scientist recently tried to find a route to the centre of the earth. Determined to venture down the same route, Lindenbrook puts together an ambitious expedition consisting of his nephew Alec (Pat Boone), widow Carla Goetaborg (Arlene Dahl), silent but loyal guide Hans (Peter Ronson), and a duck named Gertrude. The foolhardy team begin their descent among the craggy crevices of an Icelandic glacier, and as they make their way into the bowels of the earth they make many a wondrous discovery, from mammoth-sized mushrooms to fearsome prehistoric monsters.

The film is well-paced and thoroughly entertaining. On the whole, the performances are good (Boone is a little too clean-cut, as usual, but he does all right) and the special effects are excellent for their time. Bernard Herrmann provides a crashing music score, and the set design is absolutely tremendous. This is a classic sci-fi film, and any serious fan of sci-fi movies would be a fool to miss it.

Summary: Science fiction epic, quite ambitious for its day, and terrifically entertaining.

User Comment: Tobias Landes (landes@in.tum.de) Munich, Germany • This movie is one of the best examples I can think of for how one can stun the audience just by making the right use of the essence of cinema: pictures. They vary between being threatening, funny, amazing, beautiful and bizarre but all are highly imaginative. In fact, this movie is one of the most imaginative ever made, imagination being a quality that has disappeared almost completely from Hollywood over the last 40 years. It drags you into the world of its superb settings just the way for example "King Kong" did in 1933. This is just the kind of movie cinema was meant for, up from the days of its beginning (see for example "Le Voyage Dans La Lune" by Georges Méliès, 1902). "Journey To The Center Of The Earth" is pure cinema at its best.

Summary: Stunning from the beginning to the end

--- JOYA ---

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