Journey to the Center of the Earth adaptations

[Kirby101]

The 1959 film is great. Bernard Herrmann gives one of the best scores for a sci-fi film ever.

Only bad bit is the real lizards blown up to play the dinosaurs in the movie. That in of itself doesn't bother me, but one of those lizards appears to get badly injured and I hate to think an animal suffered just for the cause of entertainment. If only they had gotten Ray Harryhausen for just a few moments of stop motion...

Double yes on Harryhausen. But i think they handled the big lizard stuff better than Irwin Allen's Lost World the next year.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Double yes on Harryhausen. But i think they handled the big lizard stuff better than Irwin Allen's Lost World the next year.

A triple yes on Harryhausen. The only version I've seen was the 1959 movie, but on Saturday afternoon TV when I was a kid.

[The Darknight Detective]

The 1959 film is great. Bernard Herrmann gives one of the best scores for a sci-fi film ever.

Only bad bit is the real lizards blown up to play the dinosaurs in the movie. That in of itself doesn't bother me, but one of those lizards appears to get badly injured and I hate to think an animal suffered just for the cause of entertainment. If only they had gotten Ray Harryhausen for just a few moments of stop motion...

I hear you about the lizards, but it still doesn't compare to what happened to the horses at the end of The Charge of the Light Brigade. Man, that's really tough to watch.

Oh, quadruple the Harryhausen love around here (fan since 1971 when I first saw Earth vs the Flying Saucers ).

[williamtheday]

The 1967 Filmation was one of my favorite Saturday morning cartoons then. They were on Youtube a while back, and (for me at least) still hold up fairly well. One episode featured the Fossil Men, who came to life when exposed to fire They were like Marvel's Lava Men...maybe they were relatives!

[Jim Kelly]

I watched the 1959 movie again yesterday and was well entertained. I was shocked and horrified to see Count Petofi in the movie. Actually Thayer David. He played a lot of heavies on TV and he's Count Saknussemm in JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH--but to me he will always be Count Petofi from DARK SHADOWS. He always creeped me out--which means he was doing his job perfectly.

The range of accents goes from great to awful--something I didn't pay any mind to when I was a kid. The producers went to all the trouble of getting an Icelandic to play Hans and Arlene Dahl is Scandinavian. James Mason is naturally British and gives his character a hint of a Scottish accent. And even Pat Boone attempts to give the flavour of a Scottish accent to his character by way of Nashville--incidentally, Pat is the cousin of HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL and HEC RAMSEY star Richard Boone and both are distantly related to Daniel Boone. Hollywood's Diane Baker makes no attempt at a British accent whatsoever.

I question the science, but I guess you're not supposed to. I'd think the giant lizards would be fungivores not carnivores, because about the only food source they seem to have is mushrooms. They wouldn't be adapted to hunting live prey.