I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: BERNARD HERMANN-Journey to the Center of the Earth soundtrack (1959).

Hermann is best known for scoring amazing pieces of music for Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles.  And during his prolific period with Hitchcock, he scored the 1959 version of Journey to the Center of the Earth.

I have always admired Hermann’s scores as being very effective, although I’m not sure how enjoyable they would be to simply listen to (the opening to Psycho is pretty great as a piece of music though).

Because this is a ponderous sci-fi film that plumbs the depth of the earth, Hermann’s score is very ponderous as well, with long held very deep notes.  Although I haven’t actually seen it, so I don’t really know what is happening during the various score moments.  The opening sequence is very over the top, but it has some really great sounds in the organs (the bass notes are really ominous).

But it’s not all ponderous–there are trumpet blasts and harps.  The harp is quite a breath of fresh air and I can just imagine its revelation of something mystical.  Although the “march” is rather silly sounding and seems like something out of the Wizard of Oz (again, what could be happening in the film at this point?).  “False Arrow” is very uplifting (in a contemporary film sorta way) although with that title, I’m not too happy for them.

There are some moments like in Lost City/Atlantis where he sort of predicts prog rock.  There’s a  very cool organ sequence with single notes thrown in, that could easily come from mid period Pink Floyd.  While I wouldn’t want to listen to this soundtrack on its own for much of it, this sequence in particular could easily be played on a mix of trippy new age/prog rock music playlist.

Interestingly the soundtrack also has three songs sung by Pat Boone.  I didn’t actually listen to them so i don’t really understand how they fit in.  Especially in the soundtrack where they are interspersed with Hermann’s score.

[READ and WATCHED: mid July 2013]: Journey to the Center of the Earth

Recently re re-watched Journey to the Center of the Earth, the Brendan Frasier vehicle, with the kids.  It was a fun, kid-friendly adventure film—totally inoffensive and with a goodly amount of humor.  Aside from the gratuitous 3-D showoffiness (which just looks dumb in 2-D–can you even watch an old movie in 3-D on DVD?), the movie was enjoyable and, in its own way, faithful to the book.

I think.

For I have never read the book.  Despite the fact that I have a category called “Hollow Earth” and had a plan to read as many hollow earth-based books as I could find and have even read a few of the more obscure ones, I have not read the famous one.  (One of these days).  But as we were watching the movie Clark said that he recognized the giant mushrooms.  I had gotten him this graphic novel a few weeks before and he read it and said it was really good.  Then he said that I should read it, too.  Not one to turn down a recommendation, I did.

Now I have to admit that I found the story a bit jumpy and disjointed.  I felt like there needed to be some transitions between scenes and more than once I turned to see if I had skipped a page.  Of course, since I don’t know the original, I don’t know if this is how the book is written (I  would doubt it), nor do I know how faithful this is to the book.  I realize that it is a major abridgment and is just meant to convey the essence of the story.  And if it makes readers want to delve into the full book, that’s pretty cool.  Of course, the story is such an integral part of historical storytelling, that just having this basis is good.

The story begins by introducing us to Arne Saknussemm (and I applauded already for having a pronunciation guide to the harder names) as well as our adventurers Otto Lindenbrock, Hans Bjelke and Axel Lindenbrock.  Otto has found a 300 year old book which belonged to Arne.  They can’t figure out what the runes mean until Axel looks at the pages from the back and reads them backwards (did Verne really do that?), which makes everything clear.  So the words were not runes but Latin backwards.  Otto (excitedly) and Axel (reluctantly) head for the center of the earth, following Arne’s instructions.

They travel to Iceland (the journey is arduous—unlike in the film in which they just fly) and their guide is Hans Bjelke (unlike the film where the guide is a pretty woman named Hannah).  They head off to Mt Sneffels and descend into the volcano.  The journey is rough—they nearly run out of water and consider abandoning the journey until they create a stream from the other side of the rock wall (this trick is used at the end of the movie for a different reason).

The men get separated and then are reunited to find the great sea with bones of dinosaurs that are not fossilized (unlike the film, no dinosaurs chase them in the comic book).  And everything is gigantic (including the mushrooms).  Then they set sail across the sea.  Dinosaurs do appear in the book—in fact, I rather enjoyed the dinosaur line more here than in the movie since it’s a ichthyosaur versus a plesiosauraus.

From there, the comic gets kind of jumpy—at least compared to the movie (I know, the book is probably closer to the original, but still).  Suddenly they have reached a pit of lava.  The movie makes this end more dramatic, although I’m not sure which ending is more likely.  The end of the movie is a bit more exciting (and funnier) than the book, although the comic has a funny joke for us too.

I don’t know that the comic would make me want to read the real novel—there are moments that are kind of flat in the story, but I still think it will be on my short to do list.

And just for fun, here’s a (probably very incomplete) list of the books/stories that I have uncovered which are Hollow Earth based (at least up through the 1920s).