Cinco semanas en globo

I remember when this film came out in 1962. It was one of the first motion pictures that used television to advertise it's scenes and cast and excitement (including it's theme song). And the film did moderately well if at all.

Jules Verne had written several failed plays (boulevard farces) and a few short stories before this novel was written. Taking advantage of current interest in African exploration (the brouhaha regarding Burton and Speke and the source of the Nile - see THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON - as well as the discoveries of the first gorilla by French explorer Paul du Chaillu), Verne joined this to the growing interest in ballooning, and man's conquest of the air. The book was Verne's first published novel, and it turned out to be a success. Ironically, despite it's title mentioning "balloons", most people now think that Verne's ballooning novel is AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS. While that is a better written novel (and a more frequently read one) there is no scene in it of Phileas Fogg and Passepartout flying in a balloon. In fact, the first time the heroes of AROUND THE WORLD met ballooning was in the 1957 film. Mike Todd invented the sequence (with an assist by his script writers) to remind the movie audience of Verne as father of modern science fiction.

For a first novel FIVE WEEKS IN A BALLOON is okay. Professor Samuel Ferguson and two companions decide to do some explorations of Africa by flying a balloon from Zanzibar (where Burton and Speke took off from) and flying westward. They succeed in crossing the continent, and their observations about Africa (it's peoples, flowers, fauna, etc.) mingle with various adventures by the balloonists. In comparison with later novels by Verne it is fairly tame - it is hard to believe he wrote A JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (1864) only one year later. He was improving by then, but he had to start somewhere.

The movie, despite many nice performances like Hardwicke as Ferguson, Red Buttons as a newspaper owner's spoiled son, Fabian, Peter Lorre (as a reformed villain), and Richard Haydn is not much better than a cute kid's film that gave employment to many character actors. It is nice to see Herbert Marshall in his last role as England's Prime Minister (Lord Palmerston?). He was not looking well, but he did give a nice brief performance - in fact it was necessary to help the pitiably weak plot of the novel. Fergusson is asked to assist the British Government in preventing a group of slavers from planting their flag on some important African territory - by planting the British flag there first. Fergusson agrees to this, and from time to time we actually see the slavers (led by Mike Mazurki) headed by land to the critical land spot. In the end they are defeated.

Because of the infantile direction of the script (Lorre has lines like "Kismet, we are doomed!") the film is never above serviceable for entertaining kids. It remains in my memory only because it was the first film I saw advertised on television that I remember. But I have never run back to the television to watch it on any rerun - if it has had any rerun. For all the famed character actors in it one feels that they wasted their talents on a slightly acceptable turkey.

No real arguments here that Five Weeks in a Balloon is infantile, poorly directed and scripted, wasteful of its acting talents, and a general wash in terms of meaningful content. That is all very accurate, yet the film is fun and entertaining. The Jules Verne novel does come to life in stunning color, a cast of notables throughout with the likes of Billy Gilbert, Henry Daniell(both of these men woefully out of place playing Arabs - but still fun to see), beautiful Barbara Eden(not doing much more than looking lovely),Herbert Marshall in one of his last screen roles,the stunning Barbara Luna in a loincloth most of the time, madly overacting Red Buttons, every affable and witty Peter Lorre playing a pseudo-villain, Fabian being Fabian, and the two key and most fun performances to Cedric Harwicke as the leader of the expedition and Richard Hayden as a rival scientist doubting all his finding but eventually coming round. Basically Hayden is playing the same role he played in Lost World, another Irwin Allen picture, when Claude Rains played the scientific renegade out to prove the world wrong. And that is part of the main problem with this film, the script is devoid of any depth, full of flat characterizations, unfunny lines meant to be taken as humour, and animals obviously trained living in the middle of the untamed jungle forest. All are trademarks of Allen's work - just watch Lost in Space sometime. Yet, as I said, it is fun. It's almost camp in a way and never tries taking itself seriously and that helps the sell work for me at least. As soon as you sit down to watch the movie, this incredibly melodic tune sung by the Brothers Four resounds over and over again and I tell you something true - lingers on with you - days later. You know by that thematic tune that you are not about to sit down to Heart of Darkness or The Lion in Winter - you are watching something that is meant to be fun. Five Weeks in a Balloon is just that. - Flawed and Fun.

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.

The title song assures us that, if you fly in a balloon, nothing is impossible. "I'm taller than an elephant and twice as powerful, too." From the first minute you know, "5 Weeks in a Balloon" will be fun with a capital F. Sure, it's easy to analyze this movie and come to the conclusion it's childish and full of clichés. But my point is, grown-ups rarely manage to make movies that really show the world as it is in the imagination of a 10 year old - an admirable quality. While the real Africa is struck by war, starvation and disease, this is the fantasy Africa where rogues were colorful costumes for good looks and the heroes will have a break in the middle of the wilderness, not worrying about the lions around, to sing a song before they go on - because they know, in a dream no-one can actually be harmed. "5 Weeks in a Balloon" may not be Irwin Allen's best movie, but I still like it as much as I did when I watched it for the first time, because only movie theater entertainment at its best can take us away from the real world for an hour and a half to forget all our worries. Can't be grateful enough for that sometimes!

Barbara Eden is as beautiful as ever in this movie that reminded me a bit of Around the World in 80 Days. Mainly because of the group of people riding high over the country in a hot air balloon. They have many adventures as they land in different spots. Some are exciting some are hair raising. The whole movie is fun. Can't miss with this movie.