Cinco Semanas num Balão

No doubt we'll probably cringe a little at the portrayals of non-white people in "Five Weeks in a Balloon": the Arabs are slave traders and the Africans dance around in loin cloths and carry spears. Of course, Jules Verne wrote the novel, so we can't totally blame the movie for the portrayals. So if we can get past these depictions, it's a perfectly entertaining experience. The movie portrays English scientist Cedric Hardwicke inventing a balloon-powered dirigible and having to fly to West Africa to stop slave traders (as if the British weren't doing creepy things in their own colonies?). He brings along military man Richard Haydn, young Canadian guy Fabian, and accident-prone American reporter Red Buttons. Through numerous stops, they pick up freed slave Barbara Luna, slave trader Peter Lorre, American teacher Barbara Eden, and chimpanzee Chester.

The characters come across as a real mixture. Most of the cast members do a good job, but Fabian seems out of place, Red Buttons's role just seems silly, and Barbara Luna has little more than her looks (I've never read the novel, so I can't comment on possible changes). In almost any other movie, this combo would drag the whole thing down significantly, but not here; if anything, it makes the picture more entertaining. Even if there's a lot of continuity errors and such things, it's impossible not to have fun while watching "FWIAB". Also starring Herbert Marshall, Billy Gilbert, Henry Daniell and Mike Mazurki (Gilbert and Daniell previously co-starred in "The Great Dictator").

One more thing. Among the DVD's special features is footage from the movie's debut in Denver. One of the best things about this footage is that we get to see Barbara Eden in a shell dress! Such a sight, in my opinion, means that there is a God! Aside from her Jeannie outfit, a shell dress is the only thing that I can imagine Barbara Eden wearing. If these sorts of thoughts make me a pervert, then I'm proud to be one.

Having seen the horrendous "The Lost World" (1960) a few weeks ago, I was afraid to revisit "Five Weeks in a Balloon." I had seen both films when originally released, and had a good memory of them (including the title song of this one, which everybody seems to like.) "The Lost World" turned out to be static, with terrible performances by people like Jill St. John and Fernando Lamas, surrounded by fake jungles, caverns, dinosaurs and volcanoes. So when it was "Five Weeks in a Balloon" turn, I had my doubts. Surprisingly, it is quite enjoyable once one overlooks its Hollywood version of African cultures, people and savannas, the stock footage, the (American) propaganda, the balloon being pulled by a thread during a rain storm, or Irwin Allen's handling of action scenes. Allen directed them awkwardly, and made the proceedings look slower than what is actually happening, as the rescue scene in the mesquite or the final scene by a river. In any case, it's a colorful and good looking CinemaScope production, with an interesting cast and many outdoors scenes that make it more attractive than Allen's other movies. By his standards, this may be the film he directed best, leaving his productions "The Poseidon Adventure" or "The Towering Inferno" to more capable hands.

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.

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.

This film is right in line with some of the better soft science adventures from the 50s and 60s that hark back to 19th or early 20th centuries; Journey to the Center of the Earth, Around the World in 80 Days; and touches on the humor and silliness at times of Those Daring Young Men in their Jaunty Jalopies and The Daring Young Men in their Flyings Machines or even How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes and The Great Race. Trying to take full advantage of CinemaScope and the new technologies in Deluxe color, the filmmakers concocted a fun and funny adventure that looks big and beautiful. Not for everyone, I suppose, at times dry and at other times over-silly and contrived, but always fun, and with the added bonus or a memorable theme song performed by The Brothers Four.