The King of Smug John Agar is his usual unbearable self in another horrible serving from the folks at universal international pictures, makers of some of the worst films of all time. Agar's archaeologist is so pompous and all knowing that you long to slap him in the chops over and over again. He leads a team of talented men(o.k., talented compared to him, anyway) on an archaeological dig 'somewhere in Asia'. They find an old stone tablet that tells of a lost Sumerian dynasty, then it gets destroyed when they leave the five thousand year old artifact on a cheap folding table during an earthquake. A competent bunch, to say the least. Then a shepherd boy brings them an oil lamp he found on a mountainside, telling another version of Noah's Ark featuring the same King and dynasty the tablet talked of(convenient, no?)
Thus begins our hero's long toil up the mountainside. Make that a long series of stock footage shots of men climbing a mountainside somewhere, interspersed with lame shots of Agar and company crawling across a floor dusted with fake snow. They find the hand of a mannequin half buried in the snow(or maybe its Bon Ami?) on the mountain, apparently belonging to an ancient Sumerian clothes boutique. They hurry on to find some extraordinary matte paintings of Sumerian ruins on a plateau(although the ziggurat was out of perspective). One of their members falls through some cardboard flooring into a 'deep hole'. He never even made it to the first plot point.
There follows long shots of our fellows climbing endlessly down a rope. (1. Why is this interesting? and 2. why do they care about finding the guy's mangled body down a dangerous, unstable hole? I mean,he's dead. That was pretty obvious considering how long their downward journey is. Are they going to scrape his remains into an envelope and go on?) At the bottom, they're buried alive in a series of caves by an earthquake. But they press on, inspired by the quiet leadership of Agar.
Thus enter the mole people, deformed creatures who look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame with a bad skin problem and beaks. For some reason, these primitive things are dressed in pants and little jackets. Who gave them these clothes, since the Sumerian folk who live underground are wearing skirted tunics and gowns? Kinda puzzling, really. Maybe the mole people had a sweatshop somewhere where they make garments for the Sumerian equivalent of Kathy Lee Gifford?
Agar and friends eventually meet the Sumerian folks, who look like Keebler elves and are whiter than Micheal Jackson. For some reason, these Sumerian people have Egyptian paintings on their walls, and their King wears a Crown Roast hat. They have the spines of tube worms, as they're sent running by the low level light coming from Agar's flashlight. Or maybe they'd just heard about Agar and were running from him personally, you never know.
Alfred the Butler from the old Batman is the head priest of these folks, and he wears a glittering robe, pointed hat with fringe, and a Fu Manchu mustache. So this is how the ancient Sumerian priests dressed,huh? Interesting. He schemes to get the flashlight away from Agar, because he believes it will make him all powerful. Of course, with this lot, it might actually work. They believed Agar when he told them he was a messenger from the Gods, after all. Frankly, I think that he'd be a messenger from a lower place than Heaven, but that's just my thought.
Agar eventually becomes the John Brown of the Mole People, helping them to rebel against the guys in skirts who like to whip them just a LITTLE too much. Agar, Beaumont, and a truly dumb slave girl named Adele escape the carnage by the attacking Mole people by climbing up a hole that leads to the surface. Another earthquake finishes off Adele by dropping a pillar on her(and good riddance, says I-why couldn't it have taken Agar with it, too?) and closes the hole, leaving the Mole People large and in charge. So ends the grand saga of John Agar, archaeologist and truly extraordinary pain in the butt.
Thus begins our hero's long toil up the mountainside. Make that a long series of stock footage shots of men climbing a mountainside somewhere, interspersed with lame shots of Agar and company crawling across a floor dusted with fake snow. They find the hand of a mannequin half buried in the snow(or maybe its Bon Ami?) on the mountain, apparently belonging to an ancient Sumerian clothes boutique. They hurry on to find some extraordinary matte paintings of Sumerian ruins on a plateau(although the ziggurat was out of perspective). One of their members falls through some cardboard flooring into a 'deep hole'. He never even made it to the first plot point.
There follows long shots of our fellows climbing endlessly down a rope. (1. Why is this interesting? and 2. why do they care about finding the guy's mangled body down a dangerous, unstable hole? I mean,he's dead. That was pretty obvious considering how long their downward journey is. Are they going to scrape his remains into an envelope and go on?) At the bottom, they're buried alive in a series of caves by an earthquake. But they press on, inspired by the quiet leadership of Agar.
Thus enter the mole people, deformed creatures who look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame with a bad skin problem and beaks. For some reason, these primitive things are dressed in pants and little jackets. Who gave them these clothes, since the Sumerian folk who live underground are wearing skirted tunics and gowns? Kinda puzzling, really. Maybe the mole people had a sweatshop somewhere where they make garments for the Sumerian equivalent of Kathy Lee Gifford?
Agar and friends eventually meet the Sumerian folks, who look like Keebler elves and are whiter than Micheal Jackson. For some reason, these Sumerian people have Egyptian paintings on their walls, and their King wears a Crown Roast hat. They have the spines of tube worms, as they're sent running by the low level light coming from Agar's flashlight. Or maybe they'd just heard about Agar and were running from him personally, you never know.
Alfred the Butler from the old Batman is the head priest of these folks, and he wears a glittering robe, pointed hat with fringe, and a Fu Manchu mustache. So this is how the ancient Sumerian priests dressed,huh? Interesting. He schemes to get the flashlight away from Agar, because he believes it will make him all powerful. Of course, with this lot, it might actually work. They believed Agar when he told them he was a messenger from the Gods, after all. Frankly, I think that he'd be a messenger from a lower place than Heaven, but that's just my thought.
Agar eventually becomes the John Brown of the Mole People, helping them to rebel against the guys in skirts who like to whip them just a LITTLE too much. Agar, Beaumont, and a truly dumb slave girl named Adele escape the carnage by the attacking Mole people by climbing up a hole that leads to the surface. Another earthquake finishes off Adele by dropping a pillar on her(and good riddance, says I-why couldn't it have taken Agar with it, too?) and closes the hole, leaving the Mole People large and in charge. So ends the grand saga of John Agar, archaeologist and truly extraordinary pain in the butt.