Posted: Sun., Dec. 31, 1967, 11:00pm PT

Battle Beneath the Earth

By Variety Staff

M-G-M. Director Montgomery Tully; Producer Charles Reynolds; Screenplay L.Z. Hargreaves; Camera Kenneth Talbot; Editor Sidney Stone; Music Ken Jones; Art Director Jim Morahan

Kerwin Mathews Viviane Ventura Robert Ayres Peter Arne Martin Benson Al Mulock

Atomic destruction is given a new twist in this production made at M-G-M British Studios. It's a well-made film, once the premise is established after a slow opening.

Premise deals with the Chinese burrowing beneath the US from Hawaii in a vast complex of tunnels which extend under all major installations and population centers. Once this system is completed and atomic warheads planted the US will be virtually wiped out and a new civilization built by the Chinese. Before the plan can be put into force, but after most of the tunnels have been bored, the US Navy learns the fantastic undertaking and American ingenuity blasts the project sky-high.

Montgomery Tully's direction maintains an appropriately fast pace. Kerwin Mathews as an American commander detailed to counter the danger does a good job in a straight part and Martin Benson is properly menacing as the Chinese general planning the giant scheme independent of Peking.

(Color) Available on VHS. Extract of a review from 1968. Running time: 91 MIN.