50 Years Ago: At The Earth's Core (1976)

In the early 1900s, David Innes (McClure) and inventor Abner Perry (Peter Cushing) test the doctor’s experimental “high-calibration drilling machine,” the Iron Mole, which can burrow deep into “the bowels of the Earth.”  

Something goes wrong on the initial journey, however, and Iron Mole emerges not on the far side of a hill, but deep within the Earth’s core, in a heretofore unknown world called Pellucidar. In this savage jungle world, humans are the slaves of giant, telepathic pterodactyl creatures, the Mahars, and brutalized by their enforcers, the Sagoth.  

Even as David falls in love with the beautiful princess Dia (Caroline Munro), he attempts to unify the t human tribes of Pellucidar to confront and destroy the Mahars.  

At the Earth’s Core is the second Amicus film in its Edgar Rice Burroughs cycle, and the film re-teams star Doug McClure with director Kevin Connor.  This fantasy, set in the interior world of Pellucidar, is not quite as grounded or believable as the previous entry, The Land That Time Forgot (1975), which utilized World War as its background context, but its antagonists -- the green-eyed, squawking, strafing Mahars -- are certainly memorable in design and execution.  They make effective villains in a film whose pace drags all the way through, and seem like an early version of The Dark Crystal’s(1982) Skeksis vultures.

 At The Earth’s Core possesses a strong thematic through-line, and this fact helps to pass the time between monster fights. Early in the film, Professor Perry (Cushing) notes with irony that the Sagoth, creatures of limited intelligence, lord it over the far more intelligent humans, and that this is often the case on Earth as well; that aggression overcomes intellect. 

Later, David recognizes that that the human tribes must rise up against the Sagoths (and Mahars) under the auspices of cooperation, rather than aggression.  Or at the very least, he suggests cooperative aggression: that unity can combine to beat brute strength.  The Sagoth, for all their brutality, are not divided: they are singular in their ruthlessness and barbarity, and this single-mindedness gives them power.  

Much of the film involves David unifying the tribes and bringing the fight successfully to the Mahar City. In the end, one of the humans notes “For as long as we can recall, our tribes have been divided.  Now, with our newfound friends, we are united.”  

The idea, relevant to Burroughs’ time (pre-World War I) and also to the 1970s and Cold War Era, is that nations -- as well as people -- can overcome tyranny through cooperation and alliance.  The same ethos is seen in such World War II era entertainment as Flash Gordon (1936), which involves another fantasy figure uniting disparate human groups on the distant world of Mongo in order to unseat Ming.  

When At the Earth’s Core follows through on this idea, the film works, but even so the pace is often very slow.  The film takes a long time and two different giant monster attacks before David and Abner even reach the Mahar City, and are introduced to their opponents. The film could use a bit more of the wicked sense of humor revealed by the brilliantly composed final shot, of the Iron Mole coming up through the Earth…onto the grounds of the White House, another realm where David’s brand of cooperation and unity would certainly prove helpful

 

Despite pacing deficits, At the Earth’s Core creates a vivid and colorful fantasy world on its sound-stages. The “alien” foliage of Pellucidar is bizarre and wild, and the monsters (mostly of the kaiju, monster-in-suit variety) are inventive, if weird.  One scene that involves McClure battling a Mahar pet in a pit clearly forecasts Return of the Jedi’s (1983) rancor battle in both the specifics of the man vs. monster fight and the orchestration of the fight. And it's commendable that the screenplay doesn’t take the easy route and resolve the David/Dia romance happily.  Instead (and unlike the Burroughs novel…), Dia willingly remains behind in Pellucidar while David realizes, expressing the idea that they each belong in their separate worlds.  

I had the opportunity to speak to director Kevin Connor about the film at a Space:1999 convention 25 years ago, and talk about the film:

KEVIN CONNOR: Milton (Subotsky) wrote the script of At The Earth’s Core and I had become part of the Amicus stable. They seemed pleased with what I was doing so they hired me again. The script wasn’t the greatest but it had some fun sequences in it. Cushing and McClure were a delight as usual and enjoyed working with each other. 

MUIR: Pellucidar is a different world from Caprona. Did you have discussions about making sure this was so, both visually and thematically? 

KEVIN CONNOR: With the D.P. Alan Hume, we devised a colour scheme for Pellucidar which was a mauve-orange backdrop. Most of the film was on one huge stage at Pinewood, and therefore the colour was very controllable. I think the budgets had risen to $1.2 million. 

MUIR: The creatures featured in this film are more fanciful, less realistic, you might say, than in Land. Was there a concerted attempt to get away from featuring the dinosaurs that you had just included in the last film? 

KEVIN CONNOR: With the production designer, Maurice Carter, we decided to try and put humans into our monster suits. This worked well for some of them, and not so well for others. 

MUIR: I understand that the bird-like God creatures, the Mahars were quite difficult to wrangle. 

KEVIN CONNOR: The Mahars were stuntmen in suits, suspended by wires, and we were limited as to their trajectory. I think these were the most successful creatures in the picture, especially with the soundtrack that was created by the brilliant Jim Atkinson.

MUIR: Any thoughts on working with Caroline Munro?

KEVIN CONNOR: Again, I get on very well with all my actors and Caroline was no exception. She rarely left the set, and sat knitting next to the camera, distracting all the boys in her revealing costume. 

MUIR: This movie was another big attraction at the box office, wasn’t it? 

KEVIN CONNOR: It did well in the UK, but not so well in the States, but it does play on cable TV quite a bit. I don’t think the making of the third film was predicated on the success of this one. It was a good franchise and these stories have a good long shelf life.