At the Earth's Core | |
---|---|
Directed by | Kevin Connor |
Screenplay by | Milton Subotsky |
Based on | At the Earth's Core 1914 novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs |
Produced by | John Dark Max Rosenberg Milton Subotsky |
Starring | Doug McClure Peter Cushing Caroline Munro |
Cinematography | Alan Hume |
Edited by | John Ireland Barry Peters |
Music by | Mike Vickers |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | American International Pictures British Lion Films (UK) |
Release date |
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Running time | 89 minutes |
Countries | United Kingdom United States [2] |
Language | English |
Budget | $400,000-$500,000 [3] —$1.5 million [4] |
Box office | $3.2 million [5] |
At the Earth's Core is a 1976 fantasy-science fiction film produced by Britain's Amicus Productions. [6] A British-American co-production, the film was directed by Kevin Connor and stars Doug McClure, Peter Cushing and Caroline Munro. [7] [8] It was filmed in Technicolor, and is based on the 1914 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.
Dr. Abner Perry, a British Victorian scientist, and his US financier David Innes make a test run of their Iron Mole drilling machine in a Welsh mountain. While drilling underground, the extreme heat emanating from the magma around the Mole knocks the duo out and makes them temporarily lose control over where the machine is taking them. After it passes through the magma crust and gets closer to the Earth's core, the temperature inside the Mole starts to lower, and the duo regains consciousness. Perry and Innes eventually reach a surface where they can safely get out. The two notice they are in a strange land filled with the flora and fauna of prehistoric times. They are eventually captured by the Sagoths, ape-like creatures, who aim to enslave every human tribe there. The Sagoths are themselves ruled by a species of telepathic flying reptiles, the Mahars (Pterodactyls with parrot-like beaks).
The Mahars have the power of mind control. David falls for the enslaved Princess Dia. She is eventually chosen as a sacrificial victim in the Mahar city, while David is put to work in the magma mines and Perry visits the library. Worried about Dia, David incites a riot within the mine and is captured with Ra, another rebellious slave. The two are sent to the arena where a crowd of slaves watch. The Mahars send a giant dinosaur to kill the duo, but with the help of Perry (who shouts about the creature's weak point from the crowd), David and Ra survive. They not only kill the dinosaur but an attacking Mahar as well, earning the respect of the slaves. David and Ra must rally the surviving human slaves to rebel and win their freedom. To achieve this, Innes, Ra and Dia organise the oppressed tribes and help them work together while Perry teaches them how to construct and use bows and arrows.
Together, the humans manage to kill the Mahars and subdue their minions. After repairing the Mole, Perry and Innes prepare to go back to the surface with Dia. However, despite how much Dia loves Innes, she believes she will not fit in the surface world, like Innes does not fit in her own world. A hurt Innes accepts her reasoning and decides to return alone with Perry to the United Kingdom.
However, a miscalculation results in the Iron Mole resurfacing outside the White House, much to the shock of two policemen standing guard there.
The film premiered at the Marble Arch Odeon in London on 15 July 1976. [1]
The film was the 18th most profitable British film of 1976. [9] It made a profit. [11]
The New York Times wrote: "All the money used to make 'At the Earth's Core' seems to have been spent on building monsters with parrotlike beaks that open, close, and emit a steady squawling as if someone were vacuuming next door. Close up, the monsters look like sections of rough concrete wall and the decision to film them in closeup is only one example of the total lack of talent or effort with which the picture is made ... the movie is a kind of no-talent competition in which the acting, the script, the direction and the camera-work vie for last place." [12]
BFI Screenonline said, "Extravagant, colourful and thoroughly preposterous, At the Earth's Core is utterly without pretension but has the exuberant charm of the best of its decade." [13]
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.
Pellucidar is the internal surface of a fictional Hollow Earth invented by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs for a series of action adventure stories. In a crossover event, Tarzan, who was also created by Burroughs, visits Pellucidar.
Amicus Productions was a British film production company, based at Shepperton Studios, England, active between 1962 and 1977. It was founded by American producers and screenwriters Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg.
Alan John Clarke was an English television and film director, producer and writer.
Denis John “Jack” HildyardBSC was a British cinematographer who worked on more than 80 films during his career.
Caroline Jane Munro is an English actress, model and singer known for her many appearances in horror, science fiction and action films of the 1970s and 1980s. She gained prominence within Hammer and horror circles, starring in Dracula AD 1972 and Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter (1974), garnering a cult following for the numerous films that she starred in. She also acted in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973), and in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). In 2019, she was inducted into the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards' Monster Kid Hall of Fame.
The Land That Time Forgot is a 1974 adventure fantasy film directed by Kevin Connor and written by Michael Moorcock and James Cawthorn, based upon the 1918 novel The Land That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The film, which is a British-American co-production, stars Doug McClure, John McEnery, Keith Barron, Susan Penhaligon, Anthony Ainley and Declan Mulholland.
Kevin Connor is an English film and television director based in Hollywood.
Warlords of Atlantis is a 1978 British adventure science fiction film directed by Kevin Connor and starring Doug McClure, Peter Gilmore, Shane Rimmer, and Lea Brodie. The plot describes a trip to the lost world of Atlantis. The screenplay was by Brian Hayles. It was filmed in colour with monophonic sound and English language dialogue, and runs for 96 minutes. Warlords of Atlantis received a Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) rating of PG. It was novelised by Paul Victor.
The People That Time Forgot is a 1977 adventure fantasy film based on the novel The People That Time Forgot (1963) and Out of Time's Abyss (1963) by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Filmed in Technicolor, it was produced by Britain's Amicus Productions and directed by Kevin Connor. Like Connor's other two Burroughs-derived films, The Land That Time Forgot and At the Earth's Core, the film was distributed in the United States by American International Pictures. It is the last film made by Amicus before the production company folded.
The Land That Time Forgot is a fantasy novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the first of his Caspak trilogy. His working title for the story was "The Lost U-Boat". The sequence was first published in Blue Book Magazine as a three-part serial in the issues for August, October, and December 1918. The complete trilogy was later combined for publication in book form under the title of the first part by A. C. McClurg in June 1924. Beginning with the Ace Books editions of the 1960s, the three segments have usually been issued as separate short novels.
The People That Time Forgot is a fantasy novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the second of his Caspak trilogy. The sequence was first published in Blue Book Magazine as a three-part serial in the issues for August, October, and December 1918, with The People That Time Forgot forming the second installment. The complete trilogy was later combined for publication in book form under the title of The Land That Time Forgot by A. C. McClurg in June 1924. Beginning with the Ace Books editions of the 1960s, the three segments have usually been issued as separate short novels.
Godfrey James was an English actor.
Stephen Woolley is an English filmmaker and actor. His career has spanned over three and a half decades, for which he was awarded the BAFTA award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema in February 2019. As a producer, he has been Oscar-nominated for The Crying Game (1992), and has produced multi-Academy Award nominated films including Mona Lisa (1986), Little Voice (1998), Michael Collins (1996), The End of the Affair (1999), Interview with the Vampire (1994), and Carol (2016). He runs the production company Number 9 Films with his partner Elizabeth Karlsen.
At the Earth's Core is a 1914 fantasy novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the first in his series about the fictional "hollow earth" land of Pellucidar. It first appeared as a four-part serial in All-Story Weekly from April 4 to 25, 1914. It was first published in book form in hardcover by A. C. McClurg in July, 1922.
David Innes is a fictional character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs as the protagonist of his Pellucidar novels. He first appeared in the novel At the Earth's Core, serialized in four parts in All-Story Weekly from April 4–25, 1914 and issued in book form in hardcover by A. C. McClurg in July, 1922.
Pellucidar is a 1915 fantasy novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the second in his series about the fictional "Hollow Earth" land of Pellucidar. It first appeared as a five-part serial in All-Story Weekly from May 1 to 29, 1915. It was first published in book form in hardcover by A. C. McClurg in September, 1923. A map by Burroughs of the Empire of Pellucidar accompanied both the magazine and book versions.
Milton Subotsky was an American film and television writer and producer. In 1964, he founded Amicus Productions with Max J. Rosenberg. Amicus means "friend" in Latin. The partnership produced low-budget science fiction and horror films in the United Kingdom.
The Halfway House is a 1944 British drama film directed by Basil Dearden and starring Mervyn Johns, his daughter Glynis Johns, Tom Walls and Françoise Rosay. The film tells the story of ten people who are drawn to stay in an old Welsh countryside inn. Location scenes were shot at Barlynch Priory on the Devon/Somerset border.
Arabian Adventure is a 1979 British fantasy adventure film directed by Kevin Connor and starring Christopher Lee and Oliver Tobias.
Thirty-Minute Theatre was a British anthology drama series of short plays shown on BBC Television between 1965 and 1973, which was used in part at least as a training ground for new writers, on account of its short running length, and which therefore attracted many writers who later became well known. It was produced initially by Harry Moore, later by Graeme MacDonald, George Spenton-Foster, Innes Lloyd and others. Thirty-Minute Theatre began on BBC2 in 1965 with an adaptation of the black comedy Parson's Pleasure. Dennis Potter contributed Emergency – Ward 9 (1966), which he partially recycled in the much later The Singing Detective (1986). In 1967 BBC2 launched the UK's first colour service, with the consequence that Thirty-Minute Theatre became the first drama series in the country to be shown in colour.