At the Earth's Core

As I mentioned in my previous post, I first watched At the Earth's Core (1976) some time in the mid 1980s on a Sunday afternoon airing of "Planet 7 Cinema" on WABC-TV channel 7 out of NYC, and in spite of its pre-Star Wars level low budget special effects, e.g. men in stiff rubber monster costumes; a giant fire breathing toad that explodes like a '75 Ford LTD after being hurled off a cliff; steam train and Iron Mole vehicles that are obviously miniature models; set bound jungle foliage, etc. I, as an ardent fan of Doctor Who was well versed in the ability to overlook such production "quirks" and have loved this juvenile escapist fantasy adventure ever since; to this day I think it's a perfect film to doze off to on a rainy Sunday afternoon.  Maybe it's just me but there's something oddly soothing about a '70s synthesizer score combined with weird electronically modulated staccato voices of subhuman pig men that lulls me into a state of altered consciousness, not fully awake yet still just this side of the border of Slumberland.

I love how the film begins with the sounds of electronic synths typical of some arty 70s prog rock song before mutating into a triumphal orchestral score over scenes of British industrial might.  It then moves along at a nice, brisk pace--it's only about twelve minutes and 4,000 miles later before the steampunk'd out earth boring vehicle, the Iron Mole, piloted by the brawny Doug McClure as David Innes and Peter Cushing as Doctor Abner Perry (who is essentially reprising his role of the absent minded genius from the two 1960s theatrical Dr. Who films) burrows beneath the Earth's crust and they're in the fanciful underground world of Pellucidar.  Like Dorothy stepping out of her sepia toned Kansas world into Technicolor Oz, these two nineteenth century specimens of American virility and English ingenuity are here greeted by a weirdly illumined pink sky, and within five minutes of arriving they're attacked by a bird beaked Anglo kaiju before being captured by a band of pig faced troglodytic Sagoth.  A word about the dinosaurs in this film: as mentioned earlier these are not Harryhausen level stop motion creations, but instead are more akin to the man in suit kaiju from Godzilla films, but they still possess personality and their own special charms, particularly the aforementioned giant fire breathing toad and one stiff moving triceratops-like creature that looks as though it lumbered straight out of a Victorian's conceptual etching of an antediluvian thunder lizard.

Though this is essentially a film for kids, it still has a little something for the dads, namely Caroline Munro as the primitive Dia, whose finely shaped bosom--tanned, oiled and fairly busting out of her animal skin brassiere--could have gotten top billing above even Messrs. Cushing and McClure, for Munro's divine bodily architecture surely must have kick started puberty for many a young red blooded male, including yours truly, and probably for just as many young females at that.  Along with such primeval sex appeal there is also a bit of the old ultra-violence present (I'm exaggerating, it's really just regular violence) that may not be appropriate for the youngest or most sensitive of children: in one scene, Doug McClure battles a prehistoric hippopotamus which he then stabs in the ear hole, leaving the side of its head a bloody red mess.  Soon after, one of the pterodactyl like Mahars is violently garroted with a chain around the neck, Jabba the Hutt style.  Really nothing most of us haven't seen by around the age of five years old though.

The film was obviously shot studio bound but due to the lush foliage and set dressing looks more expansive than it surely was, helped greatly by the colorful cinematography; the pink, purple, yellow, green, red, and orange hues lend an air of fantastique luridness that make some scenes look as though they were conjured up directly from the cover of some tattered, dog eared pulp scifi magazine, and as such the recent Blu-ray release from Kino Lorber comes highly recommended.  One wishes that director Kevin Connor could have teamed up with stop motion giant Ray Harryhausen in the 1970s to create a series of similarly pulpy films based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars books: Doug McClure could have made a fine albeit burly John Carter and Caroline Munro a voluptuous red skinned princess of Mars.

Here's my favorite bit of dialogue:
David Innes (Doug McClure): "Get a tight hold, Doc."
Dr. Abner Perry (Peter Cushing): "I have a firm grip upon your trousers, David."

Enjoy the trailer: