| Battle Beneath the Earth | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Montgomery Tully |
| Written by | Charles F. Vetter |
| Produced by |
|
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Kenneth Talbot |
| Edited by | Sidney Stone |
| Music by | Ken Jones |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 91 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | £156,307 [1] |
Battle Beneath the Earth is a 1967 British sci-fi thriller film directed by Montgomery Tully and starring Kerwin Mathews. It was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Scientist Arnold Kramer believes that rogue elements of the communist Chinese Army headed by fanatic General Chan Lu are using advanced burrowing machines in an effort to conquer the U.S. by placing atomic bombs under major cities. In the opening, Las Vegas police are called for a report that Dr. Kramer is prone on a sidewalk telling people he hears movement underneath.
The bombs are in tunnels dug from China through the Hawaiian islands to the United States. In the expected war 100 million people are forecast to die. Kramer is committed to an asylum, but when he is visited by U.S. Navy Commander Jonathan Shaw, what he tells him lines up with observations Shaw has made himself. Shaw gets Kramer released and produces enough evidence to convince his superiors that the story is truel, and he is ordered to lead troops underground to defeat the red army and defuse the bombs.
The U.S. Army detonates nuclear bombs in the tunnel in Hawaii. The detonations are reported to have stopped all activity in the tunnels.
The film features a fast-paced "crime-jazz" / jazz-noir musical score by Ken Jones.
The film released to DVD by Warner Home Video on 29 July 2008. [2]
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Schoolboy comic-strip capers, involving subterranean constructions, hydroponic farms ("enforced growth under solaric light" the Chinese scientist explains), laser beams, nuclear bombs and sinister Oriental villains. Nothing is quite so fanciful, though, as the finale, in which hero and heroine, with only ten minutes to run to safety after setting off an atom bomb, emerge in a volcano and stand looking at the glare of the nuclear explosion with not even a blink of their unshielded eyes. Delightfully nonsensical, the film is at least a variation on the usual SF themes, and very properly everyone acts with deadpan solemnity." [3]
Kine Weekly wrote: "Schoolboy adventure material, this will pass with all but stuffy audiences. Reliable half of a double programme." [4]
The film has been described as "deliriously paranoid". [5]
Keye Luke was a Chinese-American film and television actor, technical advisor, artist, and a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild. He portrayed Lee Chan, the "Number One Son" in the Charlie Chan films, the original Kato in the 1939–1941 Green Hornet film serials, Brak in the 1960s Space Ghost cartoons, Master Po in the television series Kung Fu, and Mr. Wing in the Gremlins films. He was the first Chinese-American contract player signed by RKO, Universal Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and was one of the most prominent Asian actors of American cinema in the mid-20th century.
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Kerwin Mathews was an American actor best known for playing the titular heroes in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), The Three Worlds of Gulliver (1960), and Jack the Giant Killer (1962).
Richard Loo was an American film actor who was one of the most familiar Asian character actors in American films of the 1930s and 1940s. He appeared in more than 120 films between 1931 and 1982.
On the Beach is a 1959 American post-apocalyptic science fiction drama film from United Artists starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, and Anthony Perkins. Produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, it is based on Nevil Shute's 1957 novel On the Beach depicting the aftermath of a nuclear war. Unlike the novel, no one is assigned blame for starting the war, which attributes global annihilation with fear, compounded by accident or misjudgment.
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The Terrornauts is a 1967 British science fiction film directed by Montgomery Tully and starring Simon Oates and Zena Marshall. It was produced by Amicus Productions and based on the 1960 novel The Wailing Asteroid by Murray Leinster, adapted for screen by John Brunner. Space scientists foil an alien invasion of Earth.
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In the late hours of April 26, 2017, United States and Afghan special operations forces conducted an operation targeting an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant - Khorasan Province (ISIL-KP) compound in Achin District, Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. The operation lasted into the early morning hours of the 27th and resulted in the deaths of two US Army Rangers from C and D Companies of the 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, and the death of Abdul Haseeb Logari, the leader of ISIL-KP, alongside several leaders, and up to 35 other militants according to The Pentagon.
… most notably the deliriously paranoid science-fiction film Battle Beneath the Earth (1967) in which the Chinese attempt to invade America by burrowing under the ocean.
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