Five Weeks in a Balloon

Five Weeks in a Balloon [via Project Gutenberg] (1863; English translation, 1869)
Jules Verne
([LibraryThing])

Originally released in French in 1863; first published in English in 1890 (English translation by William Lackland). First in Verne's Extraordinary Voyages series. Full title: Five Weeks in a Balloon, or, Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Gentlemen. In this first of Verne's adventure novels, you can start to see the mix of ingredients which would later make him so popular: adventure, exotic locations, entertaining dialogue between the principal characters, and a pinch of science (or pseudoscience) tossed in. In Five Weeks in a Balloon, there are just three principal characters: Dr. Samuel Ferguson, his man servant Joe, and his friend, sportsman, Richard "Dick" Kennedy. Dr. Ferguson and his companions launch upon an unprecedented journey across the continent of Africa in a hot-air balloon filled with hydrogen of Ferguson's design. The three characters face many trials and dangers on their journey, from threats of starvation, less than cooperative weather and wind currents, capture by dangerous African tribes, and even condors threatening to rip their balloon apart. Verne's writing style overall is a nice and easy one to follow, although at times he tosses in historical details which some might find themselves skipping over. Interest in Africa was still high at the time Five Weeks came out as the continent had not yet fully been explored and Verne's novel fully demonstrates this. Most disconcerting (and at times outright uncomfortable) is the very negative stereotypes of the African natives, which would be completely unacceptable by today's standards. For a work written in the early 1860s, while the Civil War was raging over in the U.S., it probably should not be all that surprising, but that realization does not make it any the more pleasant. Outside of this aspect, however, I found Five Weeks to be an enjoyable read. While certainly not his best, I imagine (this is the first Verne novel I've read, I believe), it was worthwhile to go back and start reading his works from the beginning in order to see how they developed as he went along. (Read as part of my "1860s to 1920s" project.) (Finished reading 8/31/09)

Five Weeks in a Balloon (1962) (Movie)
(Internet Movie Database entry)
While this brightly colored film directed by Irwin Allen (who had just Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961), and would later go on to create television series such as Lost in Space and Time Tunnel) and starring Red Buttons, Fabian, Barbara Eden, Cedric Hardwicke, Peter Lorre, Richard Haydn, and Barbara Luna is an enjoyable enough--if at times silly--movie for it's time period, it certainly makes little to no effort to anything more than very loosely based upon Verne's novel.

Right from the start, let's look at the cast of characters. In the novel there were just three, all male, feature characters (Ferguson, Kennedy, and Joe). Well, of the three, only Ferguson survives for the most part intact in the film adaptation. Joe has been transformed into "Jacques" (Fergusson's Canadian servant, played by Fabian). Kennedy's character is absent, although Richard Haydn's character of Sir Henry Vining (a bumbling military commander who initially scoffs at Ferguson's helium balloon) does share at least a few of Kennedy's traits, if lampoonishly so.

The rest of the cast is created specially for the movie. There were no women characters in Verne's novel, so Barbara Luna's slave girl character, Makia, and Barbara Eden's captured school marm, Susan Gale, both rescued from slave peddlers, are written in. As is Red Button's character, Donald O'Shay, the son of a prominent American newspaper publisher sent along on the expedition (by his father, largely so to keep O'Shay out of trouble and out of the limelight for awhile).

There is also Peter Lorre's character of Ahmed--the slave peddler who turns up along with Barbara Eden's character--who has the tables turned and is captured by Ferguson and his companions in order to stand trial once they return to England.

There is also a chimpanzee. The less said about that, the better...

The basic motivation for the trip itself is changed in the film. Instead of seeking to be the first cross Africa in the balloon, Ferguson and company find themselves in a map to beat a party of slavers to a distant part of Africa in order to plant the British flag there ahead of the slavers.

There are one or two scenes that can be seen to have been derived from Verne's version (in particular the sequence where the balloon and its passengers are believed by a native tribe to be the "moon god"; they must make a hasty retreat when the real moon rises and the natives realize that they have been tricked; this is also in Verne's novel).

But by far most of the movie is geared around the characters who are not in Verne's novel. That, plus the comedic-adventure-romance style of the movie makes it pretty much an entirely different story.

Taken by itself, it's an enjoyable enough movie (although there will inevitably be part of it which will elicit groans and rolled eyes, especially the stuff with the chimpanzee). It has that wonderful bright Technicolor look to it and at times one can see that this was a big movie production for the day. Barbara Eden (here three years before I Dream of Jeannie) is gorgeous, as one would expect, as is Barbara Luna. Suprisingly enough, I wasn't as annoyed by the presence of Fabian as I thought I might be (although by the third or so time he was sitting around singing the movie's theme song, I wanted to yell, "Doesn't he know any other songs??!!!") Red Buttons does a decent job portraying the American, O'Shay, although it's pretty obvious from the start that the path that his character would take.

(Viewed 9/1/09 on DVD)