{"id":2615,"date":"2008-01-15T11:20:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-15T16:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=2615"},"modified":"2018-08-15T14:39:13","modified_gmt":"2018-08-15T18:39:13","slug":"journey-to-the-center-of-the-earth-levin-1959","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=2615","title":{"rendered":"(Levin 1959) Journey to the Center of the Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>

Giant Ice\u00adlander Peter Ron\u00adson, and Gertrude the Eider\u00adduck, the real stars of Jour\u00adney to the Cen\u00adter of the Earth<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019m very fond of this absurd 1950s Hol\u00adly\u00adwood ver\u00adsion of the Jules Verne clas\u00adsic. My broth\u00ader tells me that my child\u00adhood fas\u00adci\u00adna\u00adtion with pale\u00adon\u00adtol\u00adogy can be traced to being ter\u00adri\u00adfied by the \u201cdinosaurs\u201d of the film \u2015 small gar\u00adden lizards with rub\u00adber fins glued to them, mat\u00adted into the film. Believe it or not, this was top-of-the-line spe\u00adcial effects when the film was made, the only oth\u00ader option being clay\u00adma\u00adtion. Oth\u00ader unin\u00adten\u00adtion\u00adal\u00adly humor\u00adous ele\u00adments of the film include the cast\u00ading of Pat Boone (yes, Pat Boone!) as a young geol\u00ado\u00adgy stu\u00addent spout\u00ading the most pathet\u00adic attempt at a Scot\u00adtish accent in his\u00adto\u00adry, and a scene where the adven\u00adtur\u00aders reach \u201ca place with a mag\u00adnet\u00adic field that snatch\u00ades gold away, the junc\u00adtion of the north and south mag\u00adnet\u00adic fields, the CENTER<\/span> OF<\/span> THE<\/span> EARTH<\/span>!<\/em>\u201d, which appears to be a whirlpool in an under\u00adground ocean. The con\u00adcep\u00adtu\u00adal con\u00adfu\u00adsion in the scene tran\u00adscends any\u00adthing you have ever seen in any oth\u00ader movie. Even Ed Wood had a bet\u00adter grasp of physics. Jules Verne\u2019s nov\u00adel is quaint, today, but it fit rea\u00adson\u00adably well into the sci\u00adence of its time. Some\u00adhow, the screen\u00adwrit\u00aders man\u00adaged to push the film\u2019s sci\u00aden\u00adtif\u00adic under\u00adstand\u00ading to about two thou\u00adsand years ear\u00adli\u00ader than Verne.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

James Mason and Arlene Dahl are the lead actors in the film. It had a big bud\u00adget, a lush score com\u00adposed by Bernard Her\u00admann, and was part\u00adly filmed in Carls\u00adbad Cav\u00aderns, though that nat\u00adur\u00adal won\u00adder appears to be filled with cheap junk jew\u00adel\u00adery and papi\u00ader mach\u00e9 <\/em><\/span>boul\u00adders. Mason does a won\u00adder\u00adful job of keep\u00ading a straight face as they encounter dinosaurs, giant mush\u00adrooms, and the lost city of Atlantis. A vil\u00adlain fol\u00adlows them, played by Thay\u00ader David, and he gets to utter one of the most won\u00adder\u00adful bad lines in film his\u00adto\u00adry: \u201cI nev\u00ader sleep\u2026 I hate those lit\u00adtle slices of death.<\/em>\u201d But despite all that high-pow\u00adered hami\u00adness, the film is stolen by Peter Ron\u00adson, an Ice\u00adlandic olympic ath\u00adlete who got the part because he was the only Ice\u00adlandic-speak\u00ading giant, mus\u00adcu\u00adlar man avail\u00adable in Hol\u00adly\u00adwood. His char\u00adac\u00adter, Hans, seems to have an unhealthy pas\u00adsion for a pet eider\u00adduck, and the duck accom\u00adpa\u00adnies them to the cen\u00adter of the earth, meet\u00ading a trag\u00adic end when the vil\u00adlain gets hun\u00adgry. Hans\u2019 remorse\u00adless march of vengeance is the most won\u00adder\u00adful part of the film. Peter Ron\u00adson died, last year. This was his only appear\u00adance in a film.<\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m very fond of this absurd 1950s Hol\u00adly\u00adwood ver\u00adsion of the Jules Verne clas\u00adsic. My broth\u00ader tells me that my child\u00adhood fas\u00adci\u00adna\u00adtion with pale\u00adon\u00adtol\u00adogy can be traced to being ter\u00adri\u00adfied by the \u201cdinosaurs\u201d of the film \u2015 small gar\u00adden lizards with \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[948,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-d-viewing","category-ds-viewing-2008"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2615"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8742,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2615\/revisions\/8742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}