Crack In The World (1965)
Ahead of the curve, this one......
It arrived 5 years before Hollywood fell in love with disaster movies that ran rampant through the twinned theaters of the 1970's.
A modest effort on a limited budget, though.....so don't look for a large all star cast here, except for aging 1940's leading man Dana Andrews, who at the time, was turning up in supporting roles in almost every other movie produced in '65.
Considering its ambitious storyline of geology gone awry, this movie does manage to pack in a whole lot of action, spectacle and pseudo-science into one breathless adventure. You won't find too many Grade B double-feature movies treating you to the sight of Mother Earth belching out another moon to fly up and take its place next to the old moon.
This all starts with driven, obsessed scientist Dr. Sorenson (Andrews) planning a bold move from his vast underground headquarters somewhere in Africa. He wants to bring up, from deep in the earth's crust, that hot, hot, magma to serve as an inexhaustible power supply for the entire planet.
(We're not sure how that would work exactly. Pumping that stuff into your car would probably melt the fuel line in a hurry.....)
Above ground, Doc convinced world leaders to fund a missile gantry to shoot a nuke straight down into the earth's crust to release the magma. Sounds terrific, right? Like something that RFK Jr. would heavily endorse, based on his own scientific know-how.
What could possible go wrong? Heh, Heh, Heh, heh. heh...........
We'll take 'a crack in the earth's crust' for $2000, Ken......
You guess it....the arrogant Dr. S. is stunned to find out the crack he started will eventually circle the Earth and halve it like a walnut....and just like Trump's election, it's an extinction level event that'll leave all of us dead, or in dire need of a first aid kit as we go flying off into outer space, each of us cooked well done on the magma barbie.....
But breathe easier, because Sorenson's stalwart staff geologist Dr. Ted Rampion (Kieron Moore), who thought the nuke plan was nuts to begin with, has figured out a remedy......drop another nuke into an active volcano and who knows.....maybe it'll seal up the crack or whatever.
Oh by the way, in between all the earthquakes and tsunamis that have been killing off thousands of hapless Third Worlders, Ted's still toting a heavy torch for Sorenson's lovely wife (and assistant) Maggie (Janette Scott). Poor Maggie's getting no love from her cold-hearted hubby who in addition to his single minded dedication to cracking and uncracking the earth, is rapidly dying from cancer.
Let's not forget to give a shoutout to director Andrew Marton, who'd already forged a mighty reputation as a second unit director of epics like "Ben Hur", "The Longest Day", "55 Days at Peking", "Cleopatra" and "Fall of the Roman Empire".) This guy knows eye-popping spectacle inside and out and he's greatly aided by the equally unsung special effects master, production designer and sometime film director Eugene Lourie ("Gorgo", "The Giant Behemoth", "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms")
The catastrophe special effects are about as good as you can get for for a 1965 low budgeter, but what's truly impressive here - Sorenson's underground HQ, quite an enormous actual set, a cave buttressed with V shaped girders. It reminded us right away of one of Ken Adam's villain lair sets from the early Bond films.
The wild 'n wacky science on display here seems inspired by 1961's "The Day the Earth Caught Fire" (where simultaneous U.S. and Russian nukes at the North and South Poles knocked the earth off its orbit). And you would think by now, given the amount of radiation spawned giant bugs and dinosaurs, that movie scientists would think twice about flinging nukes around like 4rth of July firecrackers......
But then again, that would spoil all the cheesy fun to be had watching films like this one.
1960's sci-fi completists won't want to miss it, which you can easily catch for free on Plex or Tubi.
3 stars (***).
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