Rating: C-
Dir: Andrew Marton.
Star: Dana Andrews, Janette Scott, Kieron Moore, Alexander Knox.
There was a point in these films where it appears the solution to any issue was, “Chuck a nuke at it.” We already saw this with Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and this offers another, arguably still more ludicrous, example. Not least because this one was made after films like Fail Safe, which depicted the potential negative consequences of nuclear weapons. That gives this a naivete which is more annoying than charming. This unfolds in West Africa where Dr. Stephen Sorenson (Andrews) and wife Maggie (Scott) is trying to drill through the Earth’s crust, in order to tap magma for use in generating electricity. Only, the final barrier is proving impermeable. Any guesses how mankind might get through?
Despite the qualms of colleague Dr. Ted Rampion (Moore), a 10-megaton missile is fired at the problem. To the surprise of everyone bar Rampion, this goes pear-shaped, a hidden cache of hydrogen force-multiplying the explosion in a way only sixties scientists can hope to understand. The result starts a chain-reaction running around a fault-line in the planet’s crust which, if not stopped, will tear Earth apart. It’s to Rampion’s credit that the words “Told”, “you” and “so” do not escape his lips at any point. Further nuke-chucking only diverts the crack’s progress, sending it back towards the project’s base in East Africa. It’s 50/50 whether this or Stephen’s terminal cancer will prove to be the solution to the love triangle between him, Maggie and Ted.
This demonstrates that all the disaster porn in the world, will have no emotional impact at all, if you aren’t able to care about the characters. Here, there are basically no everyday citizens. We are trapped in a circle of hell, populated entirely by boffins, bigwigs and military men with impressive mustaches. About the only time we see normal people, is on a train which plummets into the crack. But they’re all darkies, so clearly don’t matter. [I’d like to point out that Spain is not a very convincing stand-in for Tanzania] It also has lines like, “Kutamauan has been hit by a violent tremor and a tidal wave. Wiped out! Loss of life: seven thousand.” Oh, come on… Show, don’t tell!
There are some moments of decent spectacle, mostly around the descent into a volcano with nuke #2. But when it is detonated, observed from a boat well off-shore (top), all I could think was, “Why are we seeing and hearing the explosions simultaneously?”, followed swiftly by, “My, that grainy stock footage of nuclear tests isn’t very well integrated.” Although some of the model work is good, the film also leans heavily on purchased footage of volcanic eruptions and galloping African wildlife, none of which is remotely convincing. While co-stars Andrews and Scott would subsequently get mentioned in Rocky Horror‘s song “Science Fiction,” both references are for their roles in other movies. This was apparently too dumb even for Richard O’Brien, and that’s saying something.