| The Mole People |
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| I'm sure the Universal execs saw the finished product and went "$#!t!. Not only do we gotta change the ending but we gotta do something about the beginning".So they call in Dr Frank Baxter who appeared in every educational science film in the 50's and 60's that ever ran on a high school projector in America. You remember the middle aged balding guy with glasses who talked about everything from flowers to gas combustion engines to even frogs fornicating in the Amazon jungle.
"Okay Frank. We've got this story about a lost race under the crust of the earth. We've got a nice library set up here for you and some drawings of the earth. Frank we have some wild theories about the earth and the possibilities of underground civilizations. Honestly we don't know what these people were smoking when they came up with this nonsense but we're looking to score some of it. Frank we're counting on you to make sense out of these theories and bull$#!t on them authoritatively." "And Frank we need about 4 and a half minutes worth of screen time. Good luck." In the movie we have Nestor Paiva who had seen better days piloting a tugboat down the Amazon in Creature From The Black Lagoon. We have Hugh Beaumont who will go on to bag June Cleaver and be the Beaver's dad. John Agar looks like he'd rather be in any movie other than this one. While these gents aren't the Three Stooges the movie might have been more fun if they were. I can just see Agar poking Nestor in the eyes as one of the bug eyed monsters comes up and telling him to "Spread out!" As a bonus we have Alan Napier who would later go on to be Batman's butler as a cross between Vincent Van Gopher from Deputy Dawg and Morocco Mole from Atom Ant.He is the evil advisor to the King who likes his cushy job and will sacrifice anybody to keep it. Sort of like today's politicians.Ahh they just don't make 'em like this anymore. Anyway we have some foolishness about our three unlucky archeologists stumbling upon an underground race of albinos. These albinos have slaves (the Mole People)that dig underground for some reason. Mostly they get the $#!t beat out of them with whips and chains. The albinos sacrifice hot looking blonde babes to Ishatar cause they aren't Gothic looking enough (the fools). In fact they sacrifice a lot of babes.One blonde babe becomes the property of Agar (hubba hubba)."Uh you guys go check out those caves down there while da lady and I take care of some bidness!"Our surface dwellers pass themselves off as gods of Ishtar (not the Beatty/Hoffman movie) and generally sow discontent and discord between the King and his royal advisors. They use their flashlight as a blinding weapon (underground dwellers don't see so well). But they should have used a better brand of batteries cause once the juice runs out they are about to be sacrificed to the blinding Eye Of Ishtar.Will the scientists and hot looking blonde babe be cooked by the Eye? If these underground goobers keep sacrificing women to Ishtar what the f___ are they going to do on saturday nights? (No wonder their race is dying out). Legend has it that Universal futzed with the ending.SPOILERS: Fearful that movie goers would think that Agar would have ummm relations with a "sub human" so to speak and have offspring of questionable genetic background execs ordered the ending changed. So we get a downbeat ending and our hero winds up with bupkis for all of his efforts. Boo hoo hoo. Anyway some really nice matte paintings offset endless running through dark tunnels and a few cheesy sets. This is an okay time waster. |