There have been numerous big-screen adaptations of Jules Verne's famous 1864 sci fi novel Journey to the Centre of the Earth, of which probably the two most famous examples, both of which share the novel's title, are the first one, released in 1959 and starring James Mason, and the most recent one, released in 2008 and starring Brendan Fraser, both of which I've seen, together with a 1967 animated TV series that introduced me to this story as a child.
During the evening of 5 November 2022, however, while fireworks were exploding all around outside on a cold wet Bonfire Night here in the UK, I chose to stay warm and comfortable inside instead, and finally watched a third movie version of this novel – one that I'd long known about but had never previously seen.
Directed as well as co-written by Juan Piquer Simón, and released in 1977 by Jacinto Santos Parrás, the movie in question is an English-language Spanish production entitled somewhat loquaciously in the UK as The Fabulous Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and much more succinctly in the USA as Where Time Began. Oddly, it was never shown in British cinemas, but has been screened on various UK TV channels, including very recently on the retro channel Talking Pictures, and has been made available on video and DVD.
Set in 1898, this movie stars veteran British actor Kenneth More in the role of the geologist Prof. Otto Lidenbrock (or Lindenbrock – its pronunciation changes through the film) who purchases from a very strange stranger (who may have been a subsequently-encountered character named Olsen but in disguise – see later) an obscure book containing a hidden coded map. This cryptic chart reveals a secret route down through an Icelandic dormant volcano into the very bowels of the Earth – a route that had allegedly been taken by mysterious explorer Arne Saknussemm, and which revealed our planet's core to be hollow.
Determined to test whether Saknussemm's route is genuine, and accompanied in this perilous journey by niece Glauben (a dubbed Ivonne Sentis), her soldier fiancé Axel (a dubbed Pep Munné) and strongman Icelandic shepherd Hans (Frank Braña), Lidenbrock does indeed reach the centre of the Earth (albeit more by luck than judgement, the team's members tumbling, stumbling, bumbling, and blundering their way ever downward through crepuscular caverns and treacherous tunnels in a thoroughly inept, imbecilic manner!). Moreover, en route he and his party encounter a lone, highly-secretive fellow explorer/scientist named Olsen (Jack Taylor), who has found his own way there, carrying a strange box whose contents are never revealed but which he uses to conduct unexplained experiments.
Among the multitude of marvels that this expeditionary team confront within the Hollow Earth are some living dinosaurs and sea monsters (but don't expect Harryhausen quality), a huge King Kong lookalike, a congregation of thankfully exceedingly slow-footed carnivorous giant tortoises, a veritable forest of gargantuan mushrooms with deadly spores, all manner of extreme weather conditions, and a truly bizarre scene in which some of the team members including Olsen enter a cave and find inside it a vast luminously-lit futuristic laboratory-cum-city populated by scientists who apparently are all clones of Olsen (but which the team do not investigate or even mention to Lidenbrock, who hasn't accompanied them inside the cave).
Most spectacular of all, however, is a vast subterranean freshwater ocean (whose water has healing properties) ensconced within an inner world lit not by a sun but by an ionising meteorological phenomenon that Lidenbrock compares to the aurora borealis but on an immense scale. Also worth mentioning is the odd occurrence of a huge monster arising out of a vast cloud of vapour that none of the expedition sees or interacts with, which begs the question of why it was included in the movie at all!
In short, there is plenty here to entertain and enjoy, which is why it is such a pity that the movie was for me entirely spoilt by the obnoxious nature of most of the characters. The ostensibly brave soldier Axel soon proves to be a snivelling, whining coward, Hans is taciturn to the point of being virtually mute, Glauben has a troublesome tendency to become simultaneously obstinate and hysterical, and the aloof Olsen is maddeningly mysterious which would be ok if a reason for this was ultimately revealed but none ever is.
As for Lidenbrock – a more pompous, self-opinionated, dogmatic know-it-all would be difficult to find, with the stark fact that several of his glaring errors of judgement cause all manner of ills for his team having not the slightest effect upon his supreme but unwarranted confidence in his own perceived infallibility.
Presented with a gallery of unprepossessing characters like these, it is very difficult even to warm to, let alone root for, any of them. Yet doing so should be a major part of any movie's viewer experience.
Ah well, The Fabulous Journey to the Centre of the Earth was still an intriguing albeit not entirely explicable watch – why the futuristic subterranean laboratory, what was the nature of Olsen's activities, why at the end of the movie (set a few years after the team had arrived safely back above-ground) did he turn up in disguise and much older than previously when none of the other characters had aged? There are hints that Olsen may actually be a time-traveller, but this is never confirmed. All very odd and all remaining unexplained – disappointing.
Nevertheless, as discussed above, this sci fi movie is certainly not without a fair few memorable moments to savour along the way. So if you'd like a tumultuous taster of what to expect from The Fabulous Journey to the Centre of the Earth, be sure to click here to watch a veritably volcanic official trailer for it on YouTube. Or click here to view the entire movie free of charge there.
To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.
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