The Mole People (1956)

I love this movie so much

The Worst Film Ever

Excellent but underrated film

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

While digging somewhere in Asia a team of archaeologists uncover an ancient Sumerian tablet which warns of tragic consequences for those who take possession of it. Not long afterward they are presented with an ancient oil lamp recovered on top of a large mountain nearby with Sumerian engravings which tells the story of the "Great Flood" from the Sumerian point of view. Climbing up the mountain they discover an ancient Sumerian temple but it's at this time that the ground under one of the archaeologists named "Dr. Paul Stuart" (Phil Chambers) gives away which causes him to fall a great distance to his death. The archaeologists then use their mountain climbing gear to descend into the earth to find their fallen comrade. Unfortunately, a rock slide causes the death of another member of their team and subsequently traps them inside what appears to be a large cavern. After further investigation they are taken captive by some strange mole-like creatures and upon awakening meet an ancient Sumerian civilization whose king immediately sentences them to death. But they soon escape only to come face-to-face with some mole people who have been enslaved by these underground Sumerian people. Now, rather than reveal any more I will just say this movie had all the ingredients necessary for a Grade-B movie of this particular time. Although the acting was fairly adequate, the costumes were bad and the plot was just plain ridiculous. In short, unless a person really enjoys movies of this type or from this particular era I would avoid it all together. Below average.

Silly B-movie has a kitchen sink plot and fun mole monster masks and gloves for the performers, with the highlight being fine matte painting work of the lost civilization village deep underground. Archaeologist John Agar (Tarantula) and his team (Hugh Beaumont (Leave it to Beaver), Nestor Paiva (Creature from the Black Lagoon), and Phil Chambers) discover Sumerian albino civilization who worship Ashtar and are tormented by light. They enslave creatures who work labor, offering them mushrooms and the whip in return. The women are also subservient, often whipped for clumsiness or not adhering completely to the men as expected. Cynthia Patrick is a beautiful blonde named Adad, considered particularly notorious for "having the mark" (she doesn't have their pale flesh or pain of light), Agar's love interest. Alan Napier, hardly recognizable, is the high priest who connives behind the people's selected king (Rodd Redwing) and wishes to destroy the intruders. Napier is entertaining as the scheming priest, just looking to seize total power over the people, looking at the intruders as his path to doing so. The mole people look campy in suits with bulging humps on their backs. There's an inexplicable opening from a Southern Cal English Professor positing theories from others of note regarding the earth's core which introduces the film. A flashlight is considered a power (light) of Ishtar which Agar uses to influence the people from attacking them! The ending is rather uncalled-for...why would Adad run around confused when an earthquake emerges, heading towards (!) where she just escaped from??? The reason of the studio for this-- interracial coupling is a no-no--says a lot about that point in time. The mole people being heroic was a nice change in the formula. Hard for the film to be taken too seriously but the earnestness of the participants makes this all the more a treat.

This isn't exactly a horror movie, more like an adventure movie actually, but nevertheless, it's a lot of fun! Sure, the prologue is pretty dumb and the first twenty minutes or so are typical of a 50- 60's-B-movie, but after that, it sure gets good! The king of the people living under the ground is amusingly played by Alan Napier and slightly outshines all the other not-so-good actors! The mole people look cool and it's nice to see a monster movie where you can feel sympathy for the monsters instead of being scared by them, as that was pretty unusual for old monster movies. The dialog is cheesy but kinda funny. The ending brings mixed feelings to me though and the majority of the acting is crummy, but when it's good, it's really good! Thumbs up for the mole people!

The Mole People starts in Asia where a team of archaeologists are busy at work doing archaeological stuff, a young boy brings top archaeologist Dr. Roger Bentley (John Agar) an old lamp with an intriguing inscription carved on it talking about the ancient god Ishtar. The boy claims he found the relic atop a mountain nearby, on a hunch Bentley decides to organize an expedition to the mountain top to see what's there. Bentley along with a few other men climb to the summit of the mountain & are mazed to discover the ancient ruins of a 5000 year old Sumerian city, in an accident one of the team falls down a large hole with the other's making their way down to help him. Once at the bottom a cave in traps three survivors down in the dark caverns & tunnels but help is at hand when they find a small number of albino human beings living there, the remains of the ancient Sumerian civilisation. Also living down there are the mutant Mole People but who should the archaeologists be more afraid of?Directed by Virgil Vogel this black and white Universal Pictures sci-fi monster film was probably better back when it originally came out in the mid 50's, watching The Mole People today (as I literally just did) I can't say I was that impressed with it although having said that it passes the time I suppose. I guess I was expecting a fairly straight forward monster film about Mole People but they are more of a side issue, an afterthought by the makers who maybe decided they needed a monster of some kind & The Mole People is more of an adventure film where some archaeologists discover an ancient civilisation & become political pawns for power as they try to survive & get back home. At only 77 minutes long at least it's short, it moves along at a decent pace & the story is solid enough but I couldn't help but think the film as a whole was dull. It never really grabbed me, it never got my imagination going & I wanted to see more Mole People. The script actually makes the Mole People the victims rather than the aggressors & it's them we are supposed to sympathize with in an unusual twist for the period but because the Mole People are silent creatures who just seem to stumble around it's hard to feel that much for them & why didn't they revolt & fight back against their captors earlier? The often asked moral cinematic sci-fi question of who are the real monsters, them or us is asked but only in passing & without much conviction. There's the obligatory romance between the leading man & woman & one or two nice moments but overall I though The Mole People was pretty average.The shots of the expedition climbing the glacier are taken from the German adventure film Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü (1929) while itself was later edited into The Wild World of Batwoman (1966). The Mole People look alright actually, I'm not sure why they wear suits but who cares. They are among the better monsters from this period although rather underused & aren't the villains. The film looks pretty good with decent sets & costumes, the make-up on some of the albino character's make them look like they are covered in wax but hey, it was 1956. There film goes for adventure rather than horror or suspense, there are a few scenes of Mole People dragging people under the dirt but otherwise there's nothing scary here. A bizarre introduction hosted by someone called Dr. Frank Baxter has him talk about strange theories about the Earth & it's core.Filmed on a supposed budget of about $200,000 this is well made & looks quite good, you can tell it had a major studio behind it even if they didn't spend too much on it. The acting is a bit wooden like a lot of films from this era but the material they have to work with isn't exactly inspiring.The Mole People is a decent enough little film, there's some monsters, a lost city & civilisation & some action too but I found it rather dull & the Mole People don't feature enough. Watchable enough if you can catch it on telly for free but there's no need to spend good money on it.