Five Weeks in a Balloon (1962)

This fantastic movie displays sensational adventures , thrills , intrigue , marvelous scenarios , lots of fun and being pretty enjoyable . This first take on for cinema based on this novel by Jules Verne , was filmed in Cinemascope widescreen with agreeable main cast and good support actors . Fascinating aerial movie blends action, , disaster spectacle , hokey fun , suspense and emotional happenings . This rendition of the Jules Verne novel , set in 1862 , follows Professor Fergusson (Cedric Hardwicke) who schemes to make aviation history . As he plans to claim uncharted territories in West Africa as proof of his inventions worth , taking extraordinary adventures on ceiling in an advanced balloon on the most incredible air safari of modern time. As Fergusson captains a giant wonderous flying machine along with a motley bunch of characters (Fabian , Richard Haydn , Barbara Eden , Barbara Luna , Peter Lorre) and all of them encounter many adventures and dangers on the balloon trek across Africa . As they are traveling throughout great Sahara desert and beyond , jungles and other unexplored territories . As they take off for the Gold Coast shores of the Volta , across 4000 miles of uncharted wilds. But then they are captured and get thoroughly involved with power-hungry Sultan (Barry Gilbert) , but they get escaped . Often hilarious adventure dealing with the exploits of a 19th-century British expedition to claim uncharted land in West Africa for the Empire by making his way across Africa by balloon , including a talented production team and making the most of an enough but not lavish budget . Our heroes incarnated by a little believable cast of first-rate players get stuck in the flying machine before it explodes , undergoing numerous risks and suffering innumerable perils . Funny adaptation based on Jules Verne's fantasy-adventure novel with charming screenplay by Charles Bennett , including admirable cast and gorgeous scenarios . The film talks about the known story from Verne novel and previously never rendered in cinema and it's brought excitingly to screen . Surprise-filled entertainment and plenty of action on grand scale with passable special effects and spectacular adventure by flying a giant hot air balloon , using maquette or scale model and matte-painting . The aerial scenes , explosions , pyrotechnics , flamboyant FX , all of them are spectacular and the film is another exceptional Hollywood product but in medium budget . Memorable and great cast as the British commission inventor Fergusson well played by Sir Cecil Hardwicke who is perfect as intelligent and anti-slavery explorer . The movie's imaginative use of stock shots and its garish line in 19th century hardware is acceptable . And ordinary stock footage showing animals from Savannah , jungles and some desert lands , such as : Lions , Zebras , Giraffa , Elephant and Chimpanzee in Cheeta-¨Tarzan¨ movie style . Atmospheric and vivid score by Paul Sawtell . Colorful cinematography by Winton C. Hoch in Cinemascope and Technicolor reflecting wonderfully aerial scenes .This exciting and thrilling adventure movie was amusingly directed by Irwin Allen , containing some vigorous scenes . Allen was a good craftsman who directed several titles from the 50s . And was a successful TV series producer as ¨The time tunnel¨(1966), ¨Lost in space¨ (1965), ¨Land of the giants¨ . Allen was nicknamed "The Master of Disaster" in the 1970s due to the tremendous hits of his special effects-laden epics, as ¨Poseidon adventure¨ (1972) and ¨Towering Inferno¨ , though he failed in ¨When time ran out¨, The swarm¨ , ¨Fire¨ , ¨Flood¨ and ¨Beyond the Poseidón adventure¨ . And produced/directed various films and series in Jules Verne style , such as : ¨Voyage to the bottom of the sea¨, ¨The return of captain Nemo¨ , ¨City beneath the sea¨ and this ¨Five weeks in balloon¨ .

I well remember seeing Five Weeks In A Balloon in theaters as a lad and after Fabian made his appearance peeking through the cabin door of the balloon, the squeals from his teenage fans pretty much drowned out the soundtrack the rest of the film. When I got to see it later on television I found it to be an unassuming film, a nice adaption of Jules Verne's story, but one strictly for the kid trade.It seems a pity to waste the literate voices of Cedric Hardwicke and Richard Haydn and Herbert Marshall on screaming teenyboppers. Not to mention the comic talents of Red Buttons. Still that's what happened because the audience this film drew was for that pompadoured kid from Philadelphia.The United Kingdom has always prided itself on the fact that it was the first of western nations to outlaw the slave trade. So couched in those terms, its imperial ambitions in Africa seem almost noble in Five Weeks In A Balloon. Cedric Hardwicke is a balloonist who's invented an early form of gas propulsion with which his assistant Fabian helps him. He's planning to do some exploring of East Africa in and around Zanzibar. But Her Majesty in the form of Prime Minister Herbert Marshall calls on Hardwicke to undertake a 4000 mile journey across Africa to get to the Upper Volta to beat a gang of slave traders of an unknown nation and plant the flag for good old Britain.Making the trip with them are Richard Haydn representing the Crown and Red Buttons as a neutral American observer and reporter. Buttons is a walking train wreck as he gets them in one scrape after another. Red does redeem himself in the end however. Along the way this merry bunch picks up two women rescued from the clutches of slavery, Barbaras Luna and Eden and a slave-trader played by Peter Lorre. Lorre has the best lines in the whole film, he actually manages to see 'kismet, we are doomed' a few times without cracking up.Richard Haydn is usually a very funny guy, but in this film he's down right annoying. Playing his usual fussbudget character, you kind of wonder is this the type of man who helped put together an Empire upon which the sun never set.Five Weeks In A Balloon is a nice film, but sad to say this cinema version of Jules Verne is strictly for the juveniles or for those who have a thing for Fabian.

A very slow and predictable movie with very little to offer. Although this movie is touted as a comedy, the funniest part was that I actually sat through the whole thing. This feature could have gotten a lot worse had they made it into a musical. I did ironically enjoy the theme song that was heard a couple of times throughout the movie. A little diddy that was sung by The Brothers Four. But I suppose the only redeeming part was the skimpy outfit that Barbara Luna was dressed in throughout most of the movie.Of course, I am by no means a fan of older movies, which probably accounts for my distaste in this one.

I had not seen this film in over thirty years and caught it just this past week while on holiday. I still remembered the song! And in over thirty years, it was the scenes with Lorre I recalled best (I wonder why?).But Red Buttons as the romantic leading man for Barbara Eden was a bit difficult to get into. Eden of course, was full of her usual magic, really coming across a bit subdued from her other work, such as Dr. Lao and I Dream of Jeannie. She works best with all her emotions and thoughts firmly expressed and never fluctuating. Richard Haydn with the tea kettle was more captivating than Fabian and Barbara Luna's romance (why did both women have to enter as slaves?). In actuality, Fabian, Luna and Hardwicke were very uninteresting, Buttons attempting to go from a charmer to a bungler got tiresome, only Lorre and Haydn stayed in character. Nevertheless, the cast was well-rounded out, the adventure was strong and solid and the finale was a winner (something else I had also remembered from over three decades ago as well. I like when I remember the endings of movies). Good fun movie that I would have loved to have seen become one of Allen's tv shows. Shame it didn't. And the monkey was left-handed.