Oliver Lindenbrook (James Mason) is an Edinburgh based scientist who has recently been knighted after becoming Edinburgh's greatest scientist. One of his students Alec McKuen (Pat Boone)purchases a piece of lava for Mr Lindenbrook. Lindenbrook is intrigued by this piece of lava and accidentally discovers that the piece of lava that he's acquired may have originated from a volcano in Iceland which may be directly linked to the 'centre of the earth'. Determined to find out if this piece of lava did originate at the centre of the earth, Lindenbrook and McKuen head off to Iceland, but they encounter many problems along the way.
Whilst I did enjoy this film on the whole I must admit the start of the film was a little bit cheesy, twee & sickly-sweet; the weird bit at the start where all Lindenbrook's students are singing to him, the early scene involving McKuen and Lindenbrook's daughter Jenny (Diane Baker). This scene contained some really cheesy and mushy dialogue (it actually made me cringe). Then just after that he started singing to her - ughh!!. Was all this really necessary? Thankfully, after these few cringeworthy early scenes the film does settle down and the adventure soon begins...
One thing I liked about this film is that it was a lot of fun - the interaction between the characters was great, the chemistry was good between the principal cast and they all shared good camaraderie. Mason & Dahl were particularly good and you could see that there was a definite power struggle for leadership between the two of them. The film is also slightly sexist in that Lindenbrook initially won't allow Goetabaug to accompany them merely because she's a woman - I think that people need to remember that this film was made in 1959 where sexism and equal rights weren't as prevalent as they are now. I'm not condoning the sexism, but merely stating that it wasn't an uncommon thing in this era. There is a positive spin on this though because Gotabaug for the most part was portrayed as being bright and fairly resourceful rather than a clichéd bimbo or damsel in distress.
The only other minor issue relates to food; about 2/3 of the way into the film it's mentioned that they've been travelling for 256 days (which is roughly 9 months), yet they only have a handful of provisions at the start of the journey which begs the question; did they really have enough supplies for 9 months? Even by rationing your intake, I think you'd need more supplies than you'd be able to carry. These issues didn't affect my overall enjoyment of the film, but I couldn't help but think about them during the running time.
This is an excellent adventure film and despite the glaring lack of logic within one aspect of the narrative it was still a lot of fun and it also contained some great dialogue and a few memorable characters. It's only really spoilt slightly by its cheesy/sickly-sweet start, but if you can get past the first 15 minutes it's absolutely first-rate.
Whilst I did enjoy this film on the whole I must admit the start of the film was a little bit cheesy, twee & sickly-sweet; the weird bit at the start where all Lindenbrook's students are singing to him, the early scene involving McKuen and Lindenbrook's daughter Jenny (Diane Baker). This scene contained some really cheesy and mushy dialogue (it actually made me cringe). Then just after that he started singing to her - ughh!!. Was all this really necessary? Thankfully, after these few cringeworthy early scenes the film does settle down and the adventure soon begins...
One thing I liked about this film is that it was a lot of fun - the interaction between the characters was great, the chemistry was good between the principal cast and they all shared good camaraderie. Mason & Dahl were particularly good and you could see that there was a definite power struggle for leadership between the two of them. The film is also slightly sexist in that Lindenbrook initially won't allow Goetabaug to accompany them merely because she's a woman - I think that people need to remember that this film was made in 1959 where sexism and equal rights weren't as prevalent as they are now. I'm not condoning the sexism, but merely stating that it wasn't an uncommon thing in this era. There is a positive spin on this though because Gotabaug for the most part was portrayed as being bright and fairly resourceful rather than a clichéd bimbo or damsel in distress.
The only other minor issue relates to food; about 2/3 of the way into the film it's mentioned that they've been travelling for 256 days (which is roughly 9 months), yet they only have a handful of provisions at the start of the journey which begs the question; did they really have enough supplies for 9 months? Even by rationing your intake, I think you'd need more supplies than you'd be able to carry. These issues didn't affect my overall enjoyment of the film, but I couldn't help but think about them during the running time.
This is an excellent adventure film and despite the glaring lack of logic within one aspect of the narrative it was still a lot of fun and it also contained some great dialogue and a few memorable characters. It's only really spoilt slightly by its cheesy/sickly-sweet start, but if you can get past the first 15 minutes it's absolutely first-rate.