Our review:Amazon.com:High adventure and hooty special effects make
At the Earth's Core a colorful camp treat. Doug McClure plays David Innes, the brawn to Dr. Abner Perry's brains. The two have developed the Iron Mole, a vehicle that bores through solid rock. A test run goes too well and before you know it they're neck-deep in scantily clad cave women and telepathic lizard-birds. Peter Cushing has a good time playing against his usual type as the absentminded Professor Perry, while McClure sticks to cigar-chomping macho swagger. Older kids will enjoy the colorful sets and fire-breathing animals, while adults will get a kick out of the hilariously outdated gender politics.
At the Earth's Core is well worth turning off your brain and taking a look. DVD version includes the original trailer and French and Spanish subtitles.
--Ali Davis
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Buyer Testimonials
Average Buyer's Review:
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At The Earth's Core
Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel AT THE EARTH'S CORE was his first novel in the Pellucidar Series. Pellucidar was the hollow earth where the adventures took place.
The 1976 film adaptation of this novel by Pinewood Studios added to the growing movie vault based on Burroughs' novels.
Perhaps, the most delightful character is Professor Abner Perry, the engineer, geologist, and paleontologist. Peter Cushing's Perry is absolute entertainment. It would be worth one's time just to watch this performance with those famous British one liners tossed in for good measure.
Perhaps, his most quoted line is -"You cannot mesmerized me. I'm British."
Doug McClure is at top form as American David Innes, the heir to a great mining fortune, who is more interested in the ladies than he is about his financial investment in Perry's subterranean prospector aka "the iron mole".
The iron mole is a wonderful machine with a dandy control room. The special effects and property crew had fun with this device.
Caroline Munro's Princess Dia is the love interest for David Innes. He had to travel to inner earth to find his true love. She is definitely a rare treasure.
Of course, the story needs a villain, and this villain is Hooja the Sly One who has designs on Princess Dia. He is definitely a crafty fellow.
The evil empire of the story is located at Phutra City. There, the Mahars, female giant birds, who must have escaped from a Japanese movie set, rule with mind control and fear. The brainless Sagoths are the henchmen of the Mahars. The Sagoths go into the tropical paradise to round up the humans from various unconferated tribes for their vast building projects. Also, the Mahars has this nasty habit of eating human females.
David Innes has to convince the various tribal leaders to work together to defeat the Mahars. Ra, the native hero in this movie, joins his voice in this chorus of unity in order to end human slavery to the evil Mahars and free Pellucidar.
The final battle has some gems as well as heroics. Special effects are not too bad considering the time period.
This film is worth your ninety minutes if you have a definite interest in this genre. Also, you should read the book as well as the whole Pellucidar novel series.
Buyer's review: 
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Burroughs by name, burrows by nature!
Before Luke Skywalker, there was Doug McClure... His John Dark-Kevin Connor fantasy adventures were a mainstay of Summer holiday movies in the days before Star Wars: they weren't masterpieces, they didn't boast state-of-the-art special effects, but they were exactly what an audience of kids wanted from a film back in the mid 70s.
At the Earth's Core is highly enjoyable, catching just the right tone for the appropriately named Burroughs' pulp adventure about Victorian inventor Peter Cushing and the inevitable Doug McClure ending up in the underground world of Pelucidar and battling its evil telepathic fighting dinosaurs. This time the puppets are gone in favor of men in monster suits, which is a lot more fun if you're willing to suspend your disbelief, and if you're not there's always Caroline Munro's cleavage to look at. Aside from what may well be Peter Cushing's worst performance, an irritating but dottier rehash of his movie Dr Who ("You can't mesmerize me, I'm British!"), it's easily the best of the John Dark-Kevin Connor-Doug McClure fantasy adventures, surprisingly well directed and boasting an atmospheric use of color. Never especially good at exterior scenes, Alan Hume's photography gains immensely from the control a studio set gives him (the film was shot entirely on soundstages) to paint a luridly vivid world worthy of a pulp novel cover. Not high art but definitely great Saturday matinee fun.
Buyer's review: -
A fun movie from the '70s with McClure battling more silly monsters
In the late 1970s Doug McClure made a career out of movies like this. Starting with THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT in 1975 he managed to come out with one such movie a year until WARLORDS OF ATLANTIS in 1978 (curiously titled on the Amazon catalog as WARLORDS OF THE DEEP). And this effort is the second in the "series" (the sequel to LAND, THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT was a 1977 release).
Essentially they follow much the same formula, in essence a group of people from a past era discover an unexplored realm, mingle with an undiscovered people and battle some of the cheesiest monsters ever committed to celluloid.
In this effort McClure plays David Innes, an American who agrees to back a Victorian scientist (played wonderfully by horror veteran Peter Cushing) in his experiment to bore into the side of a mountain in Wales. Sounds simple enough, except they misjudge the power of their contraption (the Iron Mole) and end up at the center of the Earth among a group of people enslaved by giant birds.
The mere physics aside this is a pure popcorn B-movie, but it is a lot of fun too. I'm a sucker for center of the earth movies, whether that be the classic James Mason version of JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH to the 2003 thriller THE CORE. So, perhaps it should be no small surprise that I have a fondness for this movie.
Of course there's also the power of nostalgia. I never saw this movie in the theater (though I did catch WARLORDS OF ATLANTIS there), but I saw it when it arrived on television. I must have been about 10 years old. In other words - I was too young to care about the physics that tell us that the center of the earth is pure molten, swirling lava. And too young to care that the giant birds were clearly just people in giant costumes, but not too young to notice that Caroline Munro was incredibly attractive. It's not surprising that the next year she would be appearing as a femme fatale in the James Bond movie THE SPY WHO LOVED ME.
Yes, Munro is a real attraction for this movie, but I also enjoyed the performances of Cushing and McClure in what is 90 minutes of 1970s camp. Overall it's worth a spin and the DVD includes the original theatrical trailer.
Buyer's review: -
It's All About Princess Dia
'At The Earth's Core' is sci-fi silliness from '76. There is absolutely no reason why anyone would want to watch, or own this film. Well, maybe one reason and that reason would be CAROLINE MUNRO! Yes, the beautiful Brit who played the sexy Margiana in 'The Golden Voyage of Sinbad' three years earlier is back as the scantily clad Princess Dia and she looks as incredible as ever.
Watch Princess Dia in her two piece loincloth run from the dumbest looking bunch of blow-up dinosaurs and giant, woman eating, telepathic birds you've ever seen. Make no mistake about it, this DVD is for Caroline Munro fans only, a silly but lovely guilty pleasure to be sure.
Buyer's review: -
Silly Fun
It is impossible to confuse this movie with anything serious. Doug McClure is adventurer David Innes, who accompanies Dr. Abner Perry (Peter Cushing) on a journey into the earth's core. Once they pair reaches the interior of the earth, they discover that everyone speaks English, except for the telepathic Meyhas, who communicate telepathically to the accompaniment of sound effects that clue you in to what is happening.
Suitable to a movie of this type, one of the people that David and Dr. Perry discover is Princess Dia (Caroline Munro, who also appeared in the James Bond movie "The Spy Who Loved Me" the year after this movie was released, both Dr. Phibes movies, and "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad," among others). Princess Dia is suitably undressed for the occasion, providing incentive for David and Dr. Perry to upset a status quo that appears to have existing for thousands of years.
In addition to the Meyhas, which are bird-like lizards, are other critters that appear to have some vague connection to dinosaurs, or perhaps I would be more accurate in saying that many of the creatures have vague connections to dinosaurs. Other creatures appear to be completely fictional. The environment seems to be a jungle, in a movie set sort of way.
This movie is a genuine cheese-fest, and yet it is enjoyable if you disconnect it from Edgar Rice Burrough's original story and watch with your brain mostly disconnected. Or you could make fun of it as you watch it (which is what I tend to do). If you have enjoyed other movies filmed about the same time using a similar style, "The Land That Time Forgot (1975)" and "The People That Time Forgot (1977)," this one will be a must-have for your collection.