1962 - FIVE WEEKS IN A BALLOON, Irwin Allen adventure film

From the "Master of Disaster,"  Irwin Allen, comes yet another adaptation of a Jules Verne story.  The British government sends Professor Fergusson on a mission to fly his hot air balloon over Africa to plant the British flag in an unclaimed part of that continent.  This is an attempt to keep evil slave traders out of Africa, as if this plan would ever work.  

The cast assembled for this film is an eclectic bunch.  Red Buttons and Barbara Eden are the romantic leads!  Fabian and one time "what ever happened to her" Barbara Luna are the young lovers.  Peter Lorre is a slave trader and Richard Hayden who played Max Detweiler from The Sound of Music is a snotty British officer.  Throw in Sir Cedric Hardwick, Herbert Marshall, Mike Mazurki, Reginald Owen, Henry Daniell and Billy Gilbert, a comedian who specialized in sneezing.

As with all Irwin Allen productions the concept is usually more interesting than the actual film.  Allen was such a cheapskate as a producer that his films always looked a little shoddy.  As a director Allen was not the greatest at pacing a film and getting good performances out of actors.

Yet with this cast of characters it's amazing how much entertainment you can get out of this film.  Hayden and Lorre were expert scene stealers, Barbara Eden is a cute blonde and Sir Cedric manages to bring some gravitas to the film.  Fabian has nice hair and Barbara Luna runs around in a short skirt with just a touch of sexiness but not too much to offend the family audience.

Forgot about the monkey they travelers pick up during their trip.  For some reason Hollywood always seemed to think sticking monkeys into movies was funny,  Disney was particularly guilty of this.  After about 10 minutes, if you've seen one monkey gag you've seen them all and there are a lot of monkey gags in this film.

Red Buttons always struck me as an actor who was an acquired taste.  He's kind of like the monkey, after a while his comedy stuff gets very old.  Only Irwin Allen would think to cast Buttons as the lead of this film.  Apparently Buttons was a friend of Irwin Allen's which may explain why he shows up in a lot of his films.

101 minutes, screenplay by Irwin Allen and Charles Bennett.