This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

I've always wanted to ride in a hot air balloon but am afraid of heights. I enjoy watching this exciting, colorful, adventure movie with an all star cast(including the monkey) over and over. It moves along at a nice pace with lots of fun, adventure and a bit of romance. It also had a bit of slapstick comedy which I don't usually care for in the movies I watch but didn't seem to mind in this one. The theme song is a very catchy tune. This movie came out the year I was born and I can't believe I've never heard of it before. As a kid growing up I was an avid watcher of some of Irwin Allen's other productions like the series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Lost in Space, which I now own on DVD. I would definitely recommended it for family entertainment.

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.

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.

Having seen the horrendous "The Lost World" (1960) a few weeks ago, I was afraid to revisit "Five Weeks in a Balloon." I had seen both films when originally released, and had a good memory of them (including the title song of this one, which everybody seems to like.) "The Lost World" turned out to be static, with terrible performances by people like Jill St. John and Fernando Lamas, surrounded by fake jungles, caverns, dinosaurs and volcanoes. So when it was "Five Weeks in a Balloon" turn, I had my doubts. Surprisingly, it is quite enjoyable once one overlooks its Hollywood version of African cultures, people and savannas, the stock footage, the (American) propaganda, the balloon being pulled by a thread during a rain storm, or Irwin Allen's handling of action scenes. Allen directed them awkwardly, and made the proceedings look slower than what is actually happening, as the rescue scene in the mesquite or the final scene by a river. In any case, it's a colorful and good looking CinemaScope production, with an interesting cast and many outdoors scenes that make it more attractive than Allen's other movies. By his standards, this may be the film he directed best, leaving his productions "The Poseidon Adventure" or "The Towering Inferno" to more capable hands.