Review At the Earth's Core (1976)

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
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Your thoughts on this movie......

A Victorian era scientist and his assistant take a test run in their Iron Mole drilling machine and end up in a strange underground labyrinth ruled by a species of giant telepathic bird and full of prehistoric monsters and cavemen.



 
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Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
I loved seeing this at the cinema as a kid.

And then, one year later, a giant bloody Death Star came along - and Hollywood forgot about these kind of films for a good while - and went all cutely robotic.

But I didn't forget...
 

ant-mac

Member: Rank 9
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At the Earth's Core is a 1976 British-American fantasy-science fiction film produced by Britain's Amicus Productions.[3]

It was directed by Kevin Connor and starred Doug McClure, Peter Cushing and Caroline Munro.[4] It was filmed in Technicolor, and based on the fantasy novel At the Earth's Core, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the first book of his Pellucidar series, in token of which the film is also known as Edgar Rice Burroughs' At the Earth's Core. The original music score was composed by Mike Vickers.


Plot

Dr. Abner Perry (Peter Cushing), a British Victorian scientist, and his US financier David Innes (Doug McClure) make a test run of their Iron Mole drilling machine in a Welsh mountain, but end up in a strange underground labyrinth ruled by a species of giant telepathic flying reptiles, the Mahars, and full of prehistoric monsters and cavemen.

They are captured by the Mahars, who keep primitive humans as their slaves through mind control. David falls for the beautiful slave girl Princess Dia (Caroline Munro) but when she is chosen as a sacrificial victim in the Mahar city, David and Perry must rally the surviving human slaves to rebel and not only save her but also win their freedom.

Cast
Production

The film was made following the success of The Land That Time Forgot.[5]

Reception

The movie was popular, becoming the 18th most profitable British film of 1976.

The film was featured in the season finale of the revived Mystery Science Theater 3000, the show's eleventh season overall, released on April 14, 2017 through Netflix.



This was one of the early VHS videotape rentals I watched, soon after mum bought our first VCR in the early 80s.

I enjoyed it at the time, but I'm not sure how I feel after a re-watch.

Perhaps if it was 20 years older and in black and white I'd feel better disposed towards it.
 

johnnybear

Member: Rank 6
Amicus finished their Doug McClure films off with Warlords of Atlantis the following year (1978) and although they did do Arabian Adventure (one that I've still not seen yet) I don't think it's in the same series!
JB
 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
Arabian Adventure (one that I've still not seen yet)

That's one that I have never got around to seeing either. I think it had zero monsters in it, which would have been a dealbreaker for me as a kid, as far as wanting to see it goes. :emoji_alien:

Couldn't find a trailer for it, but here is 3 minutes of Christopher Lee dubbed! Pretty much all I could find, oddly! :emoji_nerd:

Makes me want to see the rest now.

In English, of course! :emoji_robot:



 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
I also always associate films such as AT THE EARTH'S CORE with RED DWARF now too!

KRYTEN: (To Lister reassuringly) And absolutely no Doug McClure!
 

johnnybear

Member: Rank 6
I've never understood the fans need to mock McClure! He wasn't a Shakesperian actor, far from it but his acting wasn't that bad surely and he was good in the Amicus films! Apparently his daughter, Tane, was an exotic dancer and later an actress in porn films! Wonder what Doug thought about that?
JB
 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
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Tané McClure

Born June 8, 1958 (age 59)
Los Angeles County, California, U.S.
Occupation Actress, singer
Years active 1982-present
Parent(s) Doug McClure & Faye Brash
Relatives Valerie McClure (sister)
Tané M. McClure[1] (born June 8, 1958) is an American singer and actress.


Biography

McClure was born in Los Angeles County, California.[1] She is the daughter of actor Doug McClure and Faye Brash, the first of his five wives.[2] She has a half-sister, Valerie, from her father's marriage to his fourth wife, Diane Soldani, in the 1970s.[3]

McClure made a cameo appearance on her father's Western television series The Virginian at age five.[3] Raised in Hawaii, McClure moved to Northern California and, at age 17, began singing in a Latin jazz band called Sweet Honesty.[3][4] She recorded her first single, "Redwood City", in the late 1970s, and soon thereafter met The Babys and Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain, whom she married.[3][4]

Moving with him to Los Angeles, she landed a record deal in 1982 and released a self-titled (using her married name Tané Cain) album on RCA Records.[4] A Billboard review of the album described her as "an artist to watch" and remarked that she "looks incredibly beautiful on the LP cover. Then you put it on and find out that she can sing just as well."[5] Allmusic's Alex Henderson wrote that "the material - most of it sleek, commercial pop/rock that was co-produced and co-written by Jonathan Cain and has a Pat Benatar-ish quality - is generally excellent."[6]

McClure disliked comparisons to Benatar, preferring to identify herself with her idol Grace Slick.[4] The album's first single, "Danger Zone", failed to chart, but the follow-up, "Holdin' On", peaked at number 37 on the Billboard Hot 100.[7] The album did not sell as well as the label had hoped (peaking at number 121 on the Billboard album chart),[7] and she was dropped, never to release another album.[4] She did, however, contribute three songs to soundtrack for The Terminator in 1984. She also recorded demos for a second album in 1985, which were eventually leaked several years later to multiple AOR blogspots.[8]

During the latter half of the 1980s and through the 1990s, McClure starred in more than two dozen sexploitation films.[9] She also played the mother of Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) in Legally Blonde (2001) and its sequel, Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2003)



 
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