I'm going through a Jules Verne stage so I thought I'd revisit this Irwin Allen take on Verne's first successful novel. It was made by Twentieth Century Fox who had a hit with Journey to the Centre of the Earth and this film repeats the template: established British star in the lead, pop star in a support role, some pleasant looking females, hunky leading man.
But they miscast it. Cedric Hardwicke is too dull - he doesn't match Claude Rains or James Mason who did similar roles around this time. This part needed someone like Vincent Price or even Ray Milland.
They also made a mistake with Red Buttons. I know he won the Oscar only a few years previously but the role needed someone conventionally handsome and heroic - like Stuart Whitman or even Pat Boone (who should've made more fantasy/sci fi)
The basic structure isn't bad - the film gets off too literally a flying start with the balloon being tested (albeit with some unconvincing effects). There's some potentially interesting passengers on the balloon.
But the script is flawed. It's useful to compare with the superior Journey which was also about a cross section on an expedition. In that one James Mason had his own subplot - sexual tension with Arlene Dahl. Here Cedric Hardwicke has some dull banter with Richard Haydn, as a sort of outlandish comic relief. I get the idea but they needed to have more grounded conflict between Hardwicke and Haydn - or made her a female... someone like say Margaret Rutherford.
In Journey Dahl had more of an agenda - finding her husband. There are two women in this film but both interchangeable - missionary Barbara Eden and slave girl Barbara Luna.
I mean there's potential in Eden's character - uptight teacher girl is a great trope. But there's no interesting dynamic with Buttons, partly because Buttons is so cuddly and daggy but also because there's no inherit character clash apart from some vague misunderstanding where Eden doesn't think Buttons is as anti-slavery as she is to start off with. They really just should've gone something simple - womanizing sexy journalist falls for prim stuck up girl who is actually hot for him. And it would've been nice if she did something more than be rescued.
No one has a personal agenda. In Journey Dahl wanted to find her husband. Mason had a professional rival. Here it's vague "prove a point". The slave traders are just these N/S characters. The head slave trader should've been a character - have him approach Hardwicke at the beginning or something, or a rival of Hardwicke's, or Eden's father, or Luna's owner. Get him on the balloon.
And they needed to have a traitor on board. Maybe Luna - that would've been an interesting twist. But maybe that was too heavy for this film which is jokey - whereas in Journey the stakes were real.
It's all easier to do it from a distance, I know. But they had a template for Journey and didn't follow it enough.
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