Battle Beneath The Earth (1967) We're not kidding with the subtitle for this post.......
If we showed this movie to Trump's QAnon morons, they'd think it was a live stream coming from Marjorie Taylor Greene......
How could they not love it? It's a conspiracy theory loony's wet dream.......the dastardly Chinese have dug a tunnel underneath the entire width of the Pacific Ocean to sneak in and wipe us out!
And it isn't COVID-19 or fresh hot eggrolls they're bringing along.......they're chuggin' a trackless train full of atomic bombs!
Who's leading this insidious invasion? Dr. No? Fu Manchu? Wo Fat from the original "Hawaii Five-O? Hunter Biden?
Oh no....it's the evil, inscrutable General Chan Lu, played by British actor Martin Benson (the gangster stuck in the crushed car from "Goldfinger"). In true 1960's un-woke style, he's been Oriental-ized to resemble Joseph Wiseman's Dr. No and he's just as badass.
General Lu enjoys executing his own minions during the Long March through the tunnel to deliver nuclear winter to the U.S. of A. Even worse, he's brought along a hot babe hypnotist to turn our upstanding American boys into China zombies!
Holy wontons, is there anyone who can save us?
Breathe a sigh of relief, folks.......cause here comes Commander Jonathon Shaw and he's played by that Harryhausen monster killer Kerwin Mathews.
The Ker-meister and his hardy band of G.I.'s are more than up for wandering around the paper mache tunnels and hunting down those crafty Chinese faster than the neighborhood termite exterminators.
Much machine gun fire and disarming of A-bombs ensue.......cause obviously the Ker-inator knows that pure firepower will work much better than cancelling trade agreements.
Not one for short measures, Ker-Boy leaves one of the Chinese bombs activated.......and he and his sultry tag along gal pal manage to find a quick convenient exit out of caves supposedly deep underneath the Pacific coast.....
They make it out just in time to share a romantic clutch in front of a beautiful, scenic view of that China bomb blossoming in all its mushroom-y goodness.......that Kerwin, what a guy.
We'll stop now, since we're running the risk of making this movie sound a lot more wildly action packed than it actually is. Keep in mind, "Battle Beneath The Earth" was a low, low budgeted thing designed for the bottom half of double features......so don't approach this thinking it's equivalent to one of those frenzied Marvel CGI-fests.
For nostalgic movie buffs like us, it still retains a wonderfully colorful, pulpy comic book vibe........and trust us, nobody, but nobody else thought to put out a movie that turned the phrase "digging your way to China' upside down......literally.
3 stars (***). For any QAnon Quazies and Trumpists who might be reading this.....Yes! The movie's real! Check under your lawn! Check your basement! They're here! With bombs loaded with the ChinaVirus and babies freshly cooked by Hilary!
No comments:
Post a Comment