Entering theaters in the last weeks of the decade, Journey to the Center of the Earth is a
fifties sci-fi picture with credentials that set it apart from most of its
matinee peers. It is an epic-length movie with gorgeous, jewel-like sets, a
brilliant score by cinema’s top composer, Bernard Herrmann, and A-lister James
Mason leading the cast. It was a massive box-office hit, nominated for three
Oscars, a major influence on filmmakers from Irwin Allen to Steven Spielberg
(who lifted more than one of its scenes for Raiders
of the Lost Ark), and is still critically lauded today.
As much as there is to recommend this adaptation of Jules
Verne’s scientifically off-the-wall trip to the Earth’s core, it has issues
that leave it wanting in comparison to cousins like The Incredible Shrinking Man and The Day the Earth Stood Still. Mason is certainly among the great
actors of his generation, but he’s not exactly an effective action hero, nor is
his assistant, Pat Boone, who breaks from the action every once in a while for
some bland crooning. Like First Men in
the Moon, which I recently reviewed here on Psychobabble, Journey to the Center of the Earth dawdles
way to too long before getting to its otherworldly destination. Unlike that H.G.
Wells adaptation, there’s at least a bit of intrigue to sustain interest during
the film’s first fifty minutes on the Earth’s surface. Also unlike First Men, its effects don’t quite work.
The climactic madness of Verne’s book is that the Earth’s core is populated
with dinosaurs. Instead of cool, stop-motion creatures, we get some very real
iguanas with pasted-on fins and lizards painted red. Monstrous roaring effects
do make them fairly horrible and over-cranked photography make their movements
appear adequately lumbering, but this kind of thing really only works in a
movie like Shrinking Man in which
enlarged animals are not standing in for other creatures. Plus the facts that
the animals are clearly being mistreated and killed make these centerpiece scenes
impossible to enjoy on any level. In his audio commentary, historian Steven C.
Smith says, “We don’t want to know how this was done” before one of the poor
things is riddled with arrows and gnawed on by other iguanas. Easy for him to
say.
Journey to the Center
of the Earth returns to Twilight Time blu-ray looking excellent without a
single scratch, speck, or shoddy element worth mentioning. The grain may be a
tad on the heavy side in a few special effects shots, but the picture is still
sharp and the colors still vivid. Herrmann’s score, which recalls some of the
work he was currently doing for “The Twilight Zone”, gets its own audio track,
while another is reserved for Smith, actress Diane Baker (who actually has very
little screen time as Mason’s niece), and Twilight Time’s resident mediator
Nick Redman. Get it on Screen Archives.com here.
