Unknown World (1951)

Night Without Stars

To the Center of the Earth

Cast:

Bruce Kellogg is Wright Thompson
Otto Waldis is Dr. Max A. Bauer
Jim Bannon is Andy Ostergaard
Marilyn Nash is Dr. Joan Lindsey
Victor Kilian is Dr. Jeremiah Morley

What the box says:

When Dr. Jerimiah Morley becomes convinced that a global nuclear war is imminent, he decides to organize a team of scientists to search for a subterranean environment. When Morley loses funding for the venture, a man named Wright Thompson decides to use his own wealth to support the expedition, under the condition that he travel with them. As they travel deeper into the Earth's crust onboard the atomic-powered, rock-boring vehicle called the cyclo-tram, personalities clash, tempers flare, and lives are put in grave danger. Will their efforts be fruitful, or are they destined to perish within the bouldered belly of the Earth?

Plot:

Stock footage of an A-bomb detonation allows the narrator to ominously inform us about the atomic age.

Leave Ray Palmer alone, he'd never hurt you... Dr. Jeremiah Morley is warning the world that nuclear weapons could destroy the world. He develops a plan to save society by searching underground to find an area that could be used to protect humanity. He presents his plan to various potential benefactors which who refuse to help.

Morley’s group is contacted by Thompson, a newspaper mogul, who agrees to finance the project provided he gets to go with them.

The scientists take the cyclotram, the underground drilling vehicle.

Good thing the depth detector has a televison channel dial. They drive it into a dead volcano. After a few hours, the group leaves the vehicle to go out for a hike.

Thompson learns the scientists and the engineers aren’t impressed with him because he’s not as devoted to the project like they are. In a cavern, they find the best place to blast through to keep going.

They keep hiking with the cyclotram keeping up the rear. Suddenly, they find an area with fresh air? Heading on, we get scientific rant about limestone cavern formation.

Later, the group argues why they’re feeling lonely.

We can't believe the new Knight Rider is truly that awful... Paxton, a scientist, thinks they only need 1 leader and the rest are sheep to follow. Paxton and Coleman head on ahead. The others find a gas leak and find their associates’ corpses.

AT 110 miles down, they keep trucking to 240 miles down. The trouble is they can’t find any water.

Quit trying to milk stalactites.. With running low on supplies, they’re able to hear running water behind a wall. Breaking into it lets a steam vent loose. The condensed steam solves the water problem. Debating what to do, they vote to go on: 3 to 2.

Thompson tries to romance Dr. Joan. Adam, the engineer, tries picking a fight with Thompson. Things calm down.

Heading on, the cyclotram goes into a lake and discover some eyeless fish. Morley thinks this is the best place. Exploring around the area, more Thompson and Adam fussing ensues. Adam falls down a cliff, Thompson reaches but isn’t able to rescue him.

Thompson is now sure to go on. They find a lit area with a waterfall, sea, and sunless light from reflected phosphorous, 1600 miles below.

I knew I should have taken that right turn at Albuquerque... Morley is sure that everything is good.

The scientists want to see how rabbits will react to the area to demonstrate how humans will. Joan discovers the rabbit’s babies are born sterile. At best, they could stay in the area for 1 generation. Morley wants to stay.

Suddenly, a volcano erupts and the natural disasters ensue. Thompson, Joan, the other guy reach the cyclotram, but Morley wanders away. The cyclotram is pulled down. The crew realizes they’re lost when suddenly they start to pull up? They reach the ocean’s surface and spot a nearby island.

What I say:

The 1950s loved to use the threat of nuclear destruction in low budget movies. Had it been done a couple of decades later, we'd have the nukesploitation. Unfortunately, we just had other mvoies like This is Not a Test. All of these movies had the stock footage hanging over everyone's heads like the proverbial sword of Damocles. The threat of nuclear war is so terrifying, lets drill into the Earth as close to the core to find a suitable shelter to prevent the extinction of humanity. Guess underground bomb shelters aren't near as good as 1000 miles underground.

If they can also figure a way to homage from or rip-off a good portion of Journey to the Center of the World in the process, so be it. Changing it to search for a shelter to safeguard humanity keeps it from being too close to the Jules Verne story.

The Underground World is an awfully dry movie. If it were any drier, I'd swear this was an English sci-fi movie. Imagine a bunch of scientist not really doing anything, that's the low budget English sci-fi from the 50s and 60s. The scientists argue with each other like a sitcom family would but without the enthusisiam. Any political show on TV has far more enthusiastic arguements.

Geology may not be a very big concept for me. I'm sure that the center of the Earth is a ball of superheated metals. Don't hear about many underground caverns with drinking water and actual light on level with sunlight.

Normally, I leave the director out unless I discover something interesting. Terry O. Morse was the director of the American Raymond Burr-Steve Martin version of Godzilla, King of the Monsters!. Since the American version was mainly adding the Raymond Burr scenes to interact with the Japanese characters. By interacting, having characters filmed from behind, using replacement actors to be filmed from a distance to, etc...

1950s sci-fi movies have a place that is sacred. A place that is almost as recognizable as some character actors. Bronson Canyon has been in movies such as Eegah, Killers From Space, and probably it's best known 50s sci-fi movie, Robot Monster. This isn't counting the TV series from every Star Trek to including a cave entrance being the exit to the Batcave in the 1960s Batman series. That should show more than just a bit of class.

1950s sci-fi movies aren't known normally for being too kind to scientists unless they're the ones working hand in hand with the military to destroy aliens and giant insects. The average scientist not associated with stopping the rampaging monster typically is normally responsible for creating it. The good old fashioned mad-scientist. The typical scientists are more than just arrogant but also determined to show that humanity must accept their superior will rather than those pathetic non-educated "fools."

At least, Dr. Joan isn't a secretary which has to be a step up in the advance of science. Though decades after Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist may not sore the eyes, the movie woman scientist still has much farther to go like the non-nerdy scientist...Somehow, you can tell the Underground World is a 1950s sci-fi movie when any woman scientist is more frigid than a glacier who just needs a real man to warm her heart to embrace everything she considered worthless because of her career. However, she doesn't get to overtly hysterical enough for someone to slap her to calm her down.

No killer monsters in caverns or under the Earth? This may be a first where a movie has a group travel into the Earth adn not fight any sort of monsters when not travelling to re-ignitie the center of the planet or stop some super earthquake by fusing the plate tectonics. I'll leave out the facts about what lies under the Earth. I'd hate to think I offended Mole People who will conquer the surface dwellers one day.

A low budget movie isn't going to have ground breaking special effects. At least, finding something without lame computer effects is a blessing even if the movie was decades before computer effects ruined so many movies. The cyclotram looks like someone put tank tracks on the bottom of toy rocket and stuck a drill on the front. the best question about the cyclotram is if it's so important why do the scientists get out of most of the time?

Quotable Dialogue
"The world is out of order."
"Mean-well, next you'll be calling us starry-eyed idealists."
"I wonder how long this iron lung will work."
"Doesn't women's suffrage count here?"
"Look!! Look!! Look!! Look!!"
Morals of the Story
Underground submarines are easily built.
Rock drilling vehicles need tail fins.
Speed is commonly measured in RPMs rather then miles per hour.
Food is best eaten in pill form.
Hammers can be light.
Scientists love to smoke pipes.