Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!

Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Stephanie There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

bsmith5552 "The Mole People is another of the budget conscious sci-fi/horror films turned out by Universal in the 1950s. It's the story of an archaeological expedition somewhere in Asia who discovers a lost civilization beneath the earth. Sounds promising but......The expedition headed by Dr. Roger Bentley (John Agar) discover a 5,000 year old tablet that suggests that a civilization may have existed in the mountain above. Together with Dr. Jud Bellamin (Hugh Beaumont), Professor Lafarge (Nestor Paiva who seemed to be in all of these pictures), Dr. Paul Stewart (Phil Chambers) and guide Nazar (Rodd Redwing), they climb the mountain to a plateau that has the ruins of a temple which suggests to them that there may be a lost city below.Dr. Stewart accidentally falls through a hole to his death below. The others try to find him by descending into the depths. Nazar is crushed by a landslide but the others continue on. They find the lost city they sought but are suddenly confronted by a pair of albino like soldiers. They bring them to a another city with an active population. This is where the ludicrousness of the story begins. The tiny city is basically run by High Priest Elinu (Alan Napier). They keep as slaves mole like people whom they are constantly whipping for some unknown reason.When Elinu orders the trio's execution, Dr. Bentley whips out his flashlight and scares them off. It seems these people have an adversity to light. Bentley, Bellamin and Lafarge are then considered as gods by the King. Then out of the blue comes a normal but gorgeous blond Adad (Cynthia Patrick) with whom Bentley becomes infatuated.Bentley and Bellamin gain the support of the mole people when they save three of them from death. So when Elinu does convince the king that the strangers be executed, the mole people intervene and.........................The best part of the movie is when the underground mole people reach from beneath the earth and pull their enemies down into the ground. This only adds to the mystery of why the slaves remain above ground only to be constantly under torture. From the advertising, one would expect the mole people to be the main villains in the story, instead they are portrayed as sympathetic creatures.John Agar to me, was always better in supporting roles. He wasn't a good enough actor to carry a picture on his own. Of course, appearing in films such as this didn't help either. Hugh Beaumont was about to embark on a five year run as Ward Cleaver in TVs "Leave it to Beaver".

Wizard-8 My pre-viewing research on "The Mole People" uncovered that it's not that well regarded by a number of fans of science fiction and monster movies from the 1950s. So I was prepared for the worst when I sat down to watch it. After watching it, I can understand why there are negative feelings towards it... though I didn't find it quite as bad as some people have made it out to be. Some of the sets and special effects don't look too bad, for one thing. But production values aside, the movie is kind of tough to sit through. Although it involves scientists finding an underground kingdom, the movie is surprisingly dull for the most part. Don't let the fairly short running time fool you; the movie moves very slowly, with a lot of blatant padding throughout, like the completely unnecessary opening sequence. And there is no sense of awe, wonder, or excitement. Instead, there is an almost casual attitude. A slight tongue in cheek attitude might have added some goofy charm, but there isn't even any comedy relief here. It goes to show that adding major studio gloss does not always make a movie better than low budget independent efforts.

Scott LeBrun "The Mole People" is not top-tier in terms of the Universal-International product of the 1950s, but it's not terrible as some reviews might have one believe. It has an entertaining story, good atmosphere, and decent creatures, although it also has a rather sedate pace. Of course, it's hard to knock any movie of this kind that starred John Agar. He's likable as always, and the rest of the cast does effective work. Some of them have some pretty priceless dialogue to recite (you could play a drinking game for every time the name "Ishtar" is uttered).As many genre movies of this period did, this one begins with exposition, as a scientist named Frank Baxter educates us on various theories as to what exists below the surface of the Earth. Then we begin the story proper, as archaeologists including Dr. Roger Bentley (Agar) are on an expedition in the Asian mountains. They venture inside a mountain, and eventually climb down so deep as to discover an ancient Sumerian race that thrives in relative darkness. They also discover the "mole men" beasts that these people treat as slave labour.Agar is well supported by actors such as beautiful Cynthia Patrick, playing the "marked one" Adad, Hugh Beaumont as Dr. Jud Bellamin, Alan Napier as the evil priest Elinu, and the always engaging Nestor Paiva as Professor Lafarge. The stock compositions are used to good effect, the special effects are generally decent, and the masks for the mole men are pretty cool. The conclusion is a little rushed, but that could be said of a number of other movies of this kind during this era. The resolution is actually a little surprising.As directed by Virgil W. Vogel ("The Land Unknown"), who mostly worked in TV, "The Mole People" is nothing special but it *is* reasonably diverting.Six out of 10.

Paul Andrews 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.