ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Here's the top stories today on the ASF News Network!

~ Chinese soldiers are using a trans-Pacific tunnel to invade America!

~ A mad scientist is kidnapping teenagers and shrinking them so he can hold them captive for his own evil gratification.

~ An uncharted island has been discover, populated by strange creatures.

These breaking stories are coming up, right after we present a seemingly endless barrage of annoying commercials, designed to sell you things you really don't need. (Cut to annoying commercials.)
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Battle Beneath the Earth (1967)




The Red Chinese dig a tunnel under the Pacific Ocean to transport troops and atom bombs to an underground network beneath America.

Science-wise, the concept is doomed from the start, of course. If the Chinese had the technology to tunnel thousands of miles through solid rock . . . and the materials strong enough to support the tunnel . . . and the superconducting material needed to supply power to the what would basically be underground habitats populated by thousands of workers employed to do the work . . . etc. etc. etc. . . .

. . . then China would be the most powerful nation on Earth, and Americans would be working in giant factories for pennies a day, making cheap goods for export to the rest of the world.

But never mind all that, this is an adventure movie with an ambitious story and a good cast. Here's the plot.

Only one scientist knows of the devious Chinese plot, and everybody thinks he's crazy because he stops on crowded street corners and puts his ear against the sidewalk, listening for underground Chinese invaders.


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Okay, everybody must be right about Professor Nutcake, because underground tunnels wouldn't make noises you could hear on a noisy street corner by pressing your ear against the sidewalk. A stethoscope in a nice deep coal mine maybe, but never mind all that either. Here's more of the plot.

The scientist finally convinces the military that he's not crazy. Kerwin Matthews ("The 7th Voyage of Sinbad") spearheads a small attack force in an underground war against the invaders.


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What you imagine this would look like probably looks pretty good, I'm sure — but your imagination has an unlimited budget, and this movie definitely didn't, which means the movie looks and sounds too much like a 1960s TV show (bright colors, brightly lit sets, not-so-bright script).

But Kerwin Matthews is a likeable hero, and young kids will enjoy the action. Martin Benson in oriental makeup is the cold, calculating military leader of the Chinese invaders.


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Semi-oriental Vivian Ventura is the attractive heroine, fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with the men, proving that all Asians aren't bad.


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Co-star Robert Ayres ("First Man Into Space") was born to play generals.


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Directed by Montgomery Tully. The DVD of this movie looks fairly good.
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Attack of the Puppet People (1958)




John Hoyt ("When Worlds Collide", "The Lost Continent") plays a lonely (and crazy) doll manufacturer with a strange hobby; he shrinks people with a gizmo he invented, then he imprisons them in his back room where they hibernate in glass tubes until he revives them periodically to stage miniature rock 'n roll parties and other bizarre social events.





One of the victims is John Agar (beloved star of numerous sci-fi cheapies), who leads the little people in several attempts to escape.





The plot is lunatic and funny, both intentionally and unintentionally. Bert I. Gordon produced, wrote, directed, and did the special effects (the latter of which aren't too bad).





The over-sized props are fairly convincing. Gordon's young daughter, Susan, has a small role as a little girl who wants to play with Hoyt's "dolls". Watch for a subtle plug for another Bert I. Gordon masterpiece, "The Amazing Colossal Man". It's the feature film at a drive in movie where Agar and his girlfriend go to do some heavy necking.


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Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012)



Golly gosh-aroony, I didn't even know about this bad boy 'till I read your post, Larry! Muchas gracias, amigo! I just now put it on my Netflix list.

As for the design of the Nautilus, it looks really good in this scene from the YouTube clip (click on pic to watch flick. )



-- but the overall shape seems too much like an airplane for my tastes.



And there are too many borrowed features from the famed Harper Goff version. I mean, why have a "ship cutter" across the top if you can't ram one without smashing the forward view port?
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)