Reviews


Unknown World

Journey to Very Near the Center of the Earth

Given that this is a low-budget film with a B-movie cast (to be kind), it's actually a very good, imaginative movie and the actors deliver the goods. I liked it an awful lot; it was produced independently by two guys who realized that with all the movies about rockets to space glutting the nation's screens in those days a rocket to the center of the earth would prove different and saleable, and sure enough, Robert Lippert picked it up for distribution. The Society to Save Civilization is a group of crackpots that thinks the nations of the world are going to destroy themselves with their various weapons of mass destruction, and have built a model called a Cyclotram, a submarine with a corkscrew in front for digging to the center of the earth where, they believe, humankind will find it hospitable and life-preserving. After a nine-minute newsreel to open the film, we learn they're broke and nobody wants to sponsor them - except the spoiled son of a rich publisher; dad considers them all nuts, so sonny boy wants to stick it in dad's ear, so long as they'll take him along for the trip. Million-dollar Newsreel Narrator Dialog: Atomic energy means the promise of more abundant life!' And so, our cast, including professors and scientists Victor Kilian, Otto Waldis, Jim Bannon, Dick Cogan, Tom Handley, and Marilyn Nash (described as 'a medical doctor and ardent feminist') are going down, down, down a volcano with spoiled rich jerk Bruce Kellogg. Taking along only one woman, and a gorgeous one at that, turns out to be a problem, as Mr. Kellogg and Dr. Bannon get into a contest to see who can woo her the worst. Million-dollar Worst Wooing: Mr. Kellogg: 'You don't like my kind of guy, do you?' Dr. Marilyn: 'Not very much, but I'll make an exception of you. I don't like you a LOT.' In best 1950s sci-fi movie tradition, the scientists very slowly and carefully explain everything to each other so that we, the audience, can grasp all the stuff that's going on, including a swell lecture on limestone deposits right in the middle of the film. At no extra charge, with price of admission we get a philosophy lecture on man, nature, and sheep. I tell ya, there should've been a quiz after this one. When they reach what they consider a hospitable spot, they erect a sign that points up and reads 'NEW YORK 1,640 MILES'. Miss Nash, by the way, only made two movies in her career, this one and Monsieur Verdoux(!). From Chaplin and his famous endless retakes to a low-budget sci-fi movie where if you muff your line, too bad? Yikes! Still, she's VERY pretty and actually a good actress. The whole cast is good, and the special effects hold up and this is simply a good little low-budget movie we liked it a lot. The Alpha DVD print is... well, an Alpha print.