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Five Weeks in a Balloon

  • 1962
  • PG
  • 1h 41m
IMDb RATING
5.7/10
1.5K
YOUR RATING
Peter Lorre, Red Buttons, Barbara Eden, Fabian, Cedric Hardwicke, Richard Haydn, BarBara Luna, and Chester the Chimp in Five Weeks in a Balloon (1962)
AdventureComedyDramaFantasyRomanceSci-Fi

In 1862, the British commission inventor Fergusson to claim uncharted land in West Africa for Britain by flying his giant hot air balloon there.In 1862, the British commission inventor Fergusson to claim uncharted land in West Africa for Britain by flying his giant hot air balloon there.In 1862, the British commission inventor Fergusson to claim uncharted land in West Africa for Britain by flying his giant hot air balloon there.

  • Director
    • Irwin Allen
  • Writers
    • Jules Verne
    • Charles Bennett
    • Irwin Allen
  • Stars
    • Red Buttons
    • Fabian
    • Barbara Eden
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    5.7/10
    1.5K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Irwin Allen
    • Writers
      • Jules Verne
      • Charles Bennett
      • Irwin Allen
    • Stars
      • Red Buttons
      • Fabian
      • Barbara Eden
    • 28User reviews
    • 9Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Photos35

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    Top cast64

    Edit
    Red Buttons
    Red Buttons
    • Donald O'Shay
    Fabian
    Fabian
    • Jacques
    Barbara Eden
    Barbara Eden
    • Susan Gale
    Cedric Hardwicke
    Cedric Hardwicke
    • Fergusson
    Peter Lorre
    Peter Lorre
    • Ahmed
    Richard Haydn
    Richard Haydn
    • Sir Henry Vining
    BarBara Luna
    BarBara Luna
    • Makia
    • (as Barbara Luna)
    Billy Gilbert
    Billy Gilbert
    • Sultan…
    Herbert Marshall
    Herbert Marshall
    • The Prime Minister
    Reginald Owen
    Reginald Owen
    • Consul
    Henry Daniell
    Henry Daniell
    • Sheik Ageiba
    Mike Mazurki
    Mike Mazurki
    • Slave Captain
    Alan Caillou
    Alan Caillou
    • Inspector
    Ben Astar
    Ben Astar
    • Myanga
    Raymond Bailey
    Raymond Bailey
    • Randolph
    Chester the Chimp
    • The Duchess
    Joe Abdullah
    • Slave Trader
    • (uncredited)
    Sheila Allen
    Sheila Allen
    • Courtier
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • Irwin Allen
    • Writers
      • Jules Verne
      • Charles Bennett
      • Irwin Allen
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews28

    5.71.4K
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    Featured reviews

    8tindog

    Classic Tongue-in-Cheek Adventure

    This film is right in line with some of the better soft science adventures from the 50s and 60s that hark back to 19th or early 20th centuries; Journey to the Center of the Earth, Around the World in 80 Days; and touches on the humor and silliness at times of Those Daring Young Men in their Jaunty Jalopies and The Daring Young Men in their Flyings Machines or even How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes and The Great Race. Trying to take full advantage of CinemaScope and the new technologies in Deluxe color, the filmmakers concocted a fun and funny adventure that looks big and beautiful. Not for everyone, I suppose, at times dry and at other times over-silly and contrived, but always fun, and with the added bonus or a memorable theme song performed by The Brothers Four.
    theowinthrop

    Pretty Forgettable for all That

    I remember when this film came out in 1962. It was one of the first motion pictures that used television to advertise it's scenes and cast and excitement (including it's theme song). And the film did moderately well if at all.

    Jules Verne had written several failed plays (boulevard farces) and a few short stories before this novel was written. Taking advantage of current interest in African exploration (the brouhaha regarding Burton and Speke and the source of the Nile - see THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON - as well as the discoveries of the first gorilla by French explorer Paul du Chaillu), Verne joined this to the growing interest in ballooning, and man's conquest of the air. The book was Verne's first published novel, and it turned out to be a success. Ironically, despite it's title mentioning "balloons", most people now think that Verne's ballooning novel is AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS. While that is a better written novel (and a more frequently read one) there is no scene in it of Phileas Fogg and Passepartout flying in a balloon. In fact, the first time the heroes of AROUND THE WORLD met ballooning was in the 1957 film. Mike Todd invented the sequence (with an assist by his script writers) to remind the movie audience of Verne as father of modern science fiction.

    For a first novel FIVE WEEKS IN A BALLOON is okay. Professor Samuel Ferguson and two companions decide to do some explorations of Africa by flying a balloon from Zanzibar (where Burton and Speke took off from) and flying westward. They succeed in crossing the continent, and their observations about Africa (it's peoples, flowers, fauna, etc.) mingle with various adventures by the balloonists. In comparison with later novels by Verne it is fairly tame - it is hard to believe he wrote A JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (1864) only one year later. He was improving by then, but he had to start somewhere.

    The movie, despite many nice performances like Hardwicke as Ferguson, Red Buttons as a newspaper owner's spoiled son, Fabian, Peter Lorre (as a reformed villain), and Richard Haydn is not much better than a cute kid's film that gave employment to many character actors. It is nice to see Herbert Marshall in his last role as England's Prime Minister (Lord Palmerston?). He was not looking well, but he did give a nice brief performance - in fact it was necessary to help the pitiably weak plot of the novel. Fergusson is asked to assist the British Government in preventing a group of slavers from planting their flag on some important African territory - by planting the British flag there first. Fergusson agrees to this, and from time to time we actually see the slavers (led by Mike Mazurki) headed by land to the critical land spot. In the end they are defeated.

    Because of the infantile direction of the script (Lorre has lines like "Kismet, we are doomed!") the film is never above serviceable for entertaining kids. It remains in my memory only because it was the first film I saw advertised on television that I remember. But I have never run back to the television to watch it on any rerun - if it has had any rerun. For all the famed character actors in it one feels that they wasted their talents on a slightly acceptable turkey.
    5bkoganbing

    "Kismet, We Are Doomed"

    I well remember seeing Five Weeks In A Balloon in theaters as a lad and after Fabian made his appearance peeking through the cabin door of the balloon, the squeals from his teenage fans pretty much drowned out the soundtrack the rest of the film. When I got to see it later on television I found it to be an unassuming film, a nice adaption of Jules Verne's story, but one strictly for the kid trade.

    It seems a pity to waste the literate voices of Cedric Hardwicke and Richard Haydn and Herbert Marshall on screaming teenyboppers. Not to mention the comic talents of Red Buttons. Still that's what happened because the audience this film drew was for that pompadoured kid from Philadelphia.

    The United Kingdom has always prided itself on the fact that it was the first of western nations to outlaw the slave trade. So couched in those terms, its imperial ambitions in Africa seem almost noble in Five Weeks In A Balloon. Cedric Hardwicke is a balloonist who's invented an early form of gas propulsion with which his assistant Fabian helps him. He's planning to do some exploring of East Africa in and around Zanzibar. But Her Majesty in the form of Prime Minister Herbert Marshall calls on Hardwicke to undertake a 4000 mile journey across Africa to get to the Upper Volta to beat a gang of slave traders of an unknown nation and plant the flag for good old Britain.

    Making the trip with them are Richard Haydn representing the Crown and Red Buttons as a neutral American observer and reporter. Buttons is a walking train wreck as he gets them in one scrape after another. Red does redeem himself in the end however.

    Along the way this merry bunch picks up two women rescued from the clutches of slavery, Barbaras Luna and Eden and a slave-trader played by Peter Lorre. Lorre has the best lines in the whole film, he actually manages to see 'kismet, we are doomed' a few times without cracking up.

    Richard Haydn is usually a very funny guy, but in this film he's down right annoying. Playing his usual fussbudget character, you kind of wonder is this the type of man who helped put together an Empire upon which the sun never set.

    Five Weeks In A Balloon is a nice film, but sad to say this cinema version of Jules Verne is strictly for the juveniles or for those who have a thing for Fabian.
    SanDiego

    The most enjoyable Jules Verne adaptation.

    Easily the most enjoyable film version of a Jules Verne story "Five Weeks in a Balloon" never slows down it's pace. Awash with color, humor, adventure, exotic sets, and a balloon that looks like it came from the designer of the "Swiss Family Robinson" treehouse, the film keeps up a brisk pace, tells a simple story, and wraps things up in a timely manner. Other reviews mention the rich cast and still manage to miss major performances by Red Buttons and Peter Lorre (that tells you something about the cast). Irwin Allen at his best.
    7unbrokenmetal

    Taller Than An Elephant

    The title song assures us that, if you fly in a balloon, nothing is impossible. "I'm taller than an elephant and twice as powerful, too." From the first minute you know, "5 Weeks in a Balloon" will be fun with a capital F. Sure, it's easy to analyze this movie and come to the conclusion it's childish and full of clichés. But my point is, grown-ups rarely manage to make movies that really show the world as it is in the imagination of a 10 year old - an admirable quality. While the real Africa is struck by war, starvation and disease, this is the fantasy Africa where rogues were colorful costumes for good looks and the heroes will have a break in the middle of the wilderness, not worrying about the lions around, to sing a song before they go on - because they know, in a dream no-one can actually be harmed. "5 Weeks in a Balloon" may not be Irwin Allen's best movie, but I still like it as much as I did when I watched it for the first time, because only movie theater entertainment at its best can take us away from the real world for an hour and a half to forget all our worries. Can't be grateful enough for that sometimes!

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    Mahershala Ali and Alex R. Hibbert in Moonlight (2016)
    Drama
    Elijah Wood in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
    Fantasy
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    Romance
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    Sci-Fi

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Billy Gilbert's final film. He retired from acting after this role.
    • Goofs
      Although the teapot was clearly not in Sir Henry's possession when the Arabs captured them at the oasis, by the time they ended up in the prison it mysteriously appeared wrapped up in his jacket.
    • Quotes

      Sheik Ageiba: [to Fergusson] In Timbuktu it is much safer to be a villain than an infidel.

    • Connections
      Featured in The Great Canadian Supercut (2017)
    • Soundtracks
      Five Weeks In A Balloon
      Written by Urban Thielmann (uncredited) and Jodi Desmond

      Sung by The Brothers Four

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • August 22, 1962 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Fünf Wochen im Ballon
    • Filming locations
      • 20th Century Fox Studios - 10201 Pico Blvd., Century City, Los Angeles, California, USA(Studio)
    • Production companies
      • Irwin Allen Productions
      • Cambridge Productions
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

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    • Budget
      • $2,340,000 (estimated)
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 1h 41m(101 min)
    • Color
      • Color
    • Aspect ratio
      • 2.35 : 1

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