Monday, October 22, 2012

Movie review - "The Crack in the World" (1965) **

After the Samuel Bronston empire collapsed, Phil Yordan stayed on in Spain to crank out the blockbusters. This is a disaster movie with the novelty being that humans are responsible for the disaster - they set of a nuclear bomb in the earth's crust to tap into the world's geothermal energy setting off a chain reaction. Serves them right.

Lots of scientific mumbo jumbo and some very impressive special effects - not nearly enough of them, or enough action, too much time sitting around talking and devoted to a boring love triangle between Dana Andrews who is distant from his wife, but luckily for her there's her bulky ex, Keiron Moore, standing in the wings.

Best performance comes from Andrews, who suited disaster films with his silver haired, craggy faced authority. But it's hard to care too much when it's the human's fault. (NB Because it happens in Africa, most of the people who die are Africans, who almost all perish off screen and are barely mentioned as an after thought.)

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