BATTLE BENEATH THE EARTH (1967)

On the nighttime streets of Las Vegas, Arnold Kramer (Peter Arne) is creating a disturbance by lying on the sidewalk and listening to "them" moving around underground like ants (a callback perhaps to the classic 1954 giant ant movie THEM!). He's assumed by police to be a mental case and is institutionalized. Meanwhile over at the Office of Naval Research, Commander Jonathan Shaw (Kerwin Mathews, pictured at right) has seen the literal collapse of his ocean floor Sealab experiment when what he assumed was an earthquake destroyed the facility. Because a quake had not been reported, Shaw is assumed to be wrong, but a similar disaster in an Oregon mine in the absence of a detected quake (and the strange discovery of a Chinese coin in the rubble) make Shaw certain that something strange is going on. Kramer's sister Susan works at Shaw's office and when she asks Shaw for help, he is able to meet with Kramer and discovers that, with his own sensitive equipment, Kramer has detected traces of man-made activity under the Pacific Ocean. What could it possibly be? Why, it's Chan Lu (Martin Benson), a rebel Chinese general who has, with his small army of followers, managed to use laser-equipped vehicles to tunnel under the ocean and the United States mainland with a plan to set off atomic bombs under various sites. In this very Dr. Strangelove apocalypse, Lu and his men (who are doing this without the knowledge of the Chinese government) plan to live underground for years until aboveground is safe. In the craziest plot point of all 1960s SF, the American government gets all flights grounded and all construction projects and most transportation traffic stopped long enough to be able to detect where Lu's army is, so they can try to stop his progress and disarm the bombs. 

Most critics who enjoy this do so on a comic book/camp level like the Thunderbirds or Batman TV shows of the 1960s. Indeed, this approach does have its appeal. You can almost ignore the ludicrous plot points of tunneling under the ocean and of having an entire county go silent—the first point feels pulled from a 40s serial, and the second point seems very much like an event from a 1960s DC comic book story. But the movie's drab look and low budget don't allow it to have a colorful comic book look, and the special effects, such as they are, aren't very special. I'd like to be a champion of Kerwin Mathews because his 1962 movie JACK THE GIANT KILLER was one of favorites in my youth, but he lacks a certain energy that would make him and his situation believable. Two supporting players out act Mathews easily: Peter Arne as the slightly squirrely Kramer and Benson as the chief villain. Arne comes close to going over the top in his early scenes, but Mathews could have used some of his spark. Benson, a prolific British supporting actor, is in yellowface but he's an effective bad guy, a bit like a low-key Bond villain, even having a sinister-looking pet falcon (Benson played a minor baddie in Goldfinger). Viviane Ventura plays a geologist who becomes part of Mathews' team near the climax in the Hawaiian islands; she's good but doesn't have much to do. It’s a British movie with several British actors set in the U.S. with a handful of Chinese characters so there’s a hodgepodge of accents to go around. OK for a Saturday afternoon spin. [YouTube]