Monsters and Matinees: Pat Boone shares memories of ‘Journey to the Center of the Earth’

Pat Boone shares memories of “Journey to the Center of the Earth” at TCM Cruise

The importance of horror and sci-fi films from the classic film era tends to be eclipsed compared to today’s big-budget CGI films.

So when you learn that a 1959 sci-fi flick helped save the day when a big-budget epic sucked dry a major film studio, classic film fans want to share the story — especially when the storyteller is Pat Boone.

The entertainment legend spoke about his long career on the TCM cruise 2022 and was spoken to many times Journey to the Center of the Earthone of his earliest films and the one that made him a movie star.

The film was the first of several adaptations of Jules Verne’s imaginative 1864 novel about adventurers in search of the center of the earth, as the title so succinctly sums it up. It was also one of the factors that helped 20^th Century-Fox fend off the bankruptcy of the much-delayed and well-over-budget Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton epic Cleopatra.

The long road to the big screen for Cleopatra began in 1958 when Walter Wagner’s production company partnered with the studio. It was another two years before filming began Cleopatra and another three years before it would be published. Time is money and the extended production led to ongoing problems for the studio, including a budget that skyrocketed from $2 million to $44 million (about $364 million today). While the success of drive to Center of the Earth wasn’t the only thing that helped Fox – the studio sold land and The sound of music was released later – it certainly played a starring role.

That’s a pretty cool fact that Boone was proud to share. “This film saved the studio. We were told they were closing 20^th Century-Fox and then the movie came out.”

The novel was written at a time when the idea that the earth was hollow at its center was a popular theory. And there was still much to be learned about the planet for people to envision anything and everything: lost worlds, unexplored regions, magnificent creatures and inexplicable phenomena.

For the film, the setting was shifted from Germany to 1880 Edinburgh, Scotland. Geologist and professor Oliver Lindenbrook (the esteemed James Mason) is being celebrated for his new title of Sir. Boone plays Alec McEwan, a student who clearly has a special bond with his professor (the two actors also have great on-screen chemistry), and gives Lindenbrook a gift of a volcanic rock he found in a curiosity window.

“It’s an academic choice,” a happy Lindenbrook tells him. But the stone is much heavier than it should be and that requires attention.

When the professor misses dinner, young Alec and Lindenbrook’s niece Jenny (Diane Baker), who are sweet to each other, find him in his lab. A small explosion – the kind we have in these movies to cut through important information – breaks up the rock and reveals an artificial object. It is signed by Arne Saknussemm, who disappeared through Iceland 300 years earlier on his journey to the center of the earth.

Excitement is in the air!

Lindenbrook contacts the world authority on volcanoes, Professor Göteborg. His late reaction raises red flags that send Lindenbrook and Alec to Iceland.

What Lindenbrook feared will happen as Gothenburg prepares for its own expedition. To stop them, Gothenburg has Lindenbrook and Alec kidnapped so they will miss the brief moment when the sun illuminates the mountain opening towards the center of the earth. (Sound familiar? It’s the first time we’re seeing how travel inspired the 1981 blockbuster Hunter of the lost treasure.)

Our kidnapped explorers make a soft landing when thrown into a container full of goose feathers and rescued by non-English speaking Hans (Peter Ronson) and his duck Gertrude (played by herself). This film not only has awe, but also a light humor.

Unfortunately it doesn’t end well for Gothenburg who is murdered. His widow Carla (Arlene Dahl) offers our boys a deal: they can have her husband’s expensive equipment and food, plus she’ll translate for Hans – if she can go on the expedition too. Carla makes a tough deal they can’t refuse.

But the Fab 5 – Lindenbook, Alec, Carla, Hans and Gertrude – won’t be alone. They are pursued by Count Saknussemm, who we know isn’t a good guy because menacing music is heard when he hits the screen, and is played by the naturally creepy Thayer David (dark shadows). Saknussemm feels he is entitled to the discovery and all the money and applause that comes with it.

The adventure begins and each cave and passageway brings with it wonder or danger: winds, a whirlpool, glowing algae, lava, a magnificent ‘ocean of the underworld’ and giant creatures – the stars of so many films from the 1950s.

The explorers will walk on thin ledges where someone will have to slip, escape a huge boulder (again, a duplicated scene in Hunter of the lost treasure) and climb stalactites to avoid floods. There are giant mushrooms – think they’re man-sized and bigger – that our hungry crew will use for food, shoe bottoms, and a raft. And they will find the holy grail: the lost city of Atlantis.

It’s all so much fun, but in his review of the film at the time of its release, dour New York Times critic Bosley Crowther wrote, “There’s something of the magnitude of an elaborate amusement park tunnel of love in the interior of the earth.” like he thought it was a bad thing and forgot that in film, as in life, the journey is for the best part.

Boone recalled how these adventurous scenes, performed with practical – not computer-generated – stunts, gave the actors awkward and even dangerous moments.

His character Alec becomes separated from his traveling companions and stumbles into a salt cave where the extreme heat causes him to cut off his clothes. He falls into a sinkhole of salt, then another, and another.

“I’m trying not to breathe. I knew it would fill my lungs,” he said, which is obvious since Boone’s face and body are covered in thick white stuff.

Then there was the exciting scene when their raft is pulled into a whirlpool.

“It was violent. We’re in a raft, it’s in a whirlpool and it’s gonna suck us down. They poured thousands of gallons of water on us from above,” Boone said. “We had to persevere. We’re 8 feet in the air and we’re spinning.”

And that’s when actress Arlene Dahl started yelling at director Henry Levin to “get me down,” Boone said.

She was so scared that she fainted.

But perhaps the scariest moment of filming for Boone, a deeply religious man, was when he lands “naked” in a tree next to a nunnery.

“All I was wearing in the scene was a pair of tan trunks,” he laughed along with the TCM audience.

* * * *

In addition to introducing the film at TCM Cruise, Boone also conducted a book signing and two lengthy “talks” in which he spoke at length about his career and his co-stars. Here are a few highlights.

Become a movie actor: “I was shocked. I had studied some acting… but I didn’t see myself as an actor.”

On the model: “If I were in a movie, my role model would be Bing Crosby. I just wanted to be a teenage Bing Crosby.”

About James Mason: “He had a surprising sense of humor. He kept to himself but was companionable.” Boone said he also “hummed a lot” and thought it might have been to keep his voice soft.

On the premise of the film: “If you really go to the center of the earth you won’t come back, but in this movie you could,” laughed Boone.

About how he finally agreed Journey to the Center of the Earth. “I didn’t want to do science fiction. I wanted to do musicals. They followed me and finally my manager said they are offering you a part of the film.”

But he wanted something else even more. “I said I wanted to sing,” Boone said. And he did that by performing The faithful heart and My life is like a red, red rose (based on the poem by Robert Burns) to his on-screen love interest, Diane Baker.

“I’d like to be remembered for those two songs,” he said.

– Toni Ruberto for Classic Movie Hub

You can read all of Toni’s Monsters and Matinees articles here.

Toni Ruberto, born and raised in Buffalo, NY, is an editor and writer at The Buffalo News. She shares her love of classic movies on her blog, Watching Forever, and is a member of the Classic Movie Blog Association. Toni was the President of the former Buffalo chapter of TCM Backlot and now runs the Buffalo Classic Movie Buffs spin-off group. She’s proud to have spotlighted Buffalo and its glorious old movie palaces as the inaugural winner of the TCM in Your Hometown competition. You can find Toni on Twitter at @toniruberto.