A small expedition led by Professor James Mason works its way down to the center of the earth, encountering many amazing wonders and noisome tribulations along the way. Members of the expedition include the red-haired Arlene Dahl who never loses her make up kit; Hans, a monolingual Icelander; Pat Boone, Mason's geology student from Edinburgh; and Gertrude the duck. The usual template is shattered and the story turns tragic when Gertrude is abducted by a mean-tempered, vilipendible interloper and eaten. There's no excuse for that.
Pat Boone is as clean cut as his singing voice, a great palladium of red-white-and-blue American virtue. He and Hans must strip down to cut offs as they near the center and both sport symmetrical frames with Malibu tans. Arlene Dahl never has to strip down to anything, although we're told she takes off her stays. I didn't believe it because I didn't see it. James Mason is -- well, one wonders what he's doing here at the center of the earth. He's an extremely talented actor but restrained and subtle. He was a marvelous Brutus in MGM's "Julius Caesar." This part calls for a taller, more commanding expedition leader.
A lot depends on the production design and special visual effects and they're of the period. See the forest of giant mushrooms! See the "monsters" -- amplified iguanas with fans glued where their dorsal spines used to be. They're more than one hundred kilometers below the surface, so do they ever get out? Not to worry. They're all sitting in a sacred marble bowl they found in the ruins of Atlantis and a volcanic explosion provides them with a speedy elevator that blows them up a shaft to the surface and out into the air over the Bay of Naples. They all survive except the evil miscreant who ate Gertrude the duck. That miscreant, by the way, is Thayer David, who is good at villainy. He was the "bloodless freak" who blackmails Clint Eastwood in "The Eiger Sanction." The notion of a hollow earth is common enough in mythology that it must have universal appeal. There are myths about subterranean kingdoms found in places as culturally independent as Tibet, Ireland, and South America. And the Greeks located Hades underground, while the rest of us put hell or sheol in the underground. But for all that appeal, I found the movie kind of boring in a routine 1950s way. Maybe kids or science-fiction devotees would find it more exciting. Anyway, it suffers from two principal weaknesses. Dahl changes behind a rock and Gertrude becomes Peking duck.
Pat Boone is as clean cut as his singing voice, a great palladium of red-white-and-blue American virtue. He and Hans must strip down to cut offs as they near the center and both sport symmetrical frames with Malibu tans. Arlene Dahl never has to strip down to anything, although we're told she takes off her stays. I didn't believe it because I didn't see it. James Mason is -- well, one wonders what he's doing here at the center of the earth. He's an extremely talented actor but restrained and subtle. He was a marvelous Brutus in MGM's "Julius Caesar." This part calls for a taller, more commanding expedition leader.
A lot depends on the production design and special visual effects and they're of the period. See the forest of giant mushrooms! See the "monsters" -- amplified iguanas with fans glued where their dorsal spines used to be. They're more than one hundred kilometers below the surface, so do they ever get out? Not to worry. They're all sitting in a sacred marble bowl they found in the ruins of Atlantis and a volcanic explosion provides them with a speedy elevator that blows them up a shaft to the surface and out into the air over the Bay of Naples. They all survive except the evil miscreant who ate Gertrude the duck. That miscreant, by the way, is Thayer David, who is good at villainy. He was the "bloodless freak" who blackmails Clint Eastwood in "The Eiger Sanction." The notion of a hollow earth is common enough in mythology that it must have universal appeal. There are myths about subterranean kingdoms found in places as culturally independent as Tibet, Ireland, and South America. And the Greeks located Hades underground, while the rest of us put hell or sheol in the underground. But for all that appeal, I found the movie kind of boring in a routine 1950s way. Maybe kids or science-fiction devotees would find it more exciting. Anyway, it suffers from two principal weaknesses. Dahl changes behind a rock and Gertrude becomes Peking duck.