Posted: Wed., Dec. 31, 1975, 11:00pm PT

At the Earth's Core

(UK)

By Variety Staff

Amicus. Director Kevin Connor; Producer John Dark; Writer Milton Subotsky; Camera Alan Hume Editor John Ireland, Barry Peters; Music Mike Vickers Art Maurice Carter

Doug McClure Peter Cushing Caroline Munro Cy Grant Godfrey James Sean Lynch

At the Earth's Core, from the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel, is an okay fantasy adventure film. Made in England, it's a fast-paced, slightly tongue-in-cheek tale about stalwart hero Doug McClure's battles with underground monsters. There's old-fashioned rooting interest in the outlandish exploits of McClure and his doddering old professor sidekick, Peter Cushing, who goes through the entire ordeal carrying his umbrella.

Pic takes place in the Victorian Era, charmingly evoked at the beginning when The Iron Mole, McClure and Cushing's experimental earth-boring contraption, embarks on a test mission. The machine goes awry, and they wind up in the land of Pellucidar, becoming slaves to a race of bird-like creatures. McClure falls in love with Caroline Munro, another captive.

Director Kevin Connor keeps the right balance of humor and straightforward adventure in the story, never making the fatal mistake of condescending to his plot or his audience.

phical drama set in a provincial Catholic boarding school in the last months of World War II assumes the dimensions of tragedy when the Gestapo disrupts the cloistered routine to arrest the school fathers and three Jewish children they are hiding there under false names.

(Color) Available on VHS. Extract of a review from 1976. Running time: 89 MIN.