Journey to the Center of the Earth on DVD

Despite the fact that this movie may have sent Jules Verne rolling over in his grave, and will never go down in science fiction movie history as a classic it’s entertaining fare.

And 20th Century Fox made the DVD from a restored version of the film and it looks and sounds very good when you compare it with the unrestored version.

James Mason stars as Professor Oliver Lindenbrook, a renowned and newly-knighted scientist whose dream is to follow in the footsteps of a famous Icelandic scientist who claimed to have visited the center of the earth a few hundred years earlier.

Pat Boone is Alec McEwen, Lindenbrook’s protégé, who’s also in love with the good prof’s niece - though this is almost irrelevant to the story other than giving him a chance to sing to her.

The journey becomes a race when a competitor to Lindenbrook steals the good prof’s data and sallies forth to Iceland to head downward before Lindenbrook can get there. Fortunately, good prevails - kind of - and Lindenbrook’s expedition begins the descent accompanied by the scientist/cad’s widow (Arlene Dahl) so the film can have a feminine foil.

The journey loosely follows Verne’s novel, taking the explorers through forests of giant mushrooms and by gigantic prehistoric monsters that were just crying out to have been created by Ray Harryhausen (but which, unfortunately, weren’t). They finally find their way to sunken Atlantis before being belched back out into the Mediterranean courtesy of a volcano.

The effects are okay and the performances are fine - and science fiction fans will probably want the movie in their collection. But on the whole it’s a pretty lightweight outing, especially compared with such other Verne adaptations as Disney’s classic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Still, it's entertaining family fare and that isn't a bad thing.

The DVD is actually pretty good. While the picture’s a tad soft and the colors a bit smeary at times, it’s certainly a far cry from the unrestored version of the film, as a tour of the supplementary materials will show.

The picture is presented in anamorphic widescreen, 16x9 TV compatible, with Dolby Digital surround audio that’s pretty good all things considered - though there appears to be no center channel and the surround is pretty well nonexistent.

Extras include the trailer, trailers for other Fox sci fi films, and the aforementioned restoration comparison that’s quite an eye opener.

Journey to the Center of the Earth, from 20th Century Fox Home Video
129 min. anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1), Dolby Digital surround
Starring Pat Boone, James Mason, Arlene Dahl
Produced by Charles Brackett
Written by Walter Reisch and Charles Brackett, Directed by Henry Levin

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