Silent Talkie

 

 (tcm.com)

THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND-1929-Count Dakkar (Lionel Barrymore) is a brilliant scientist who along with his daughter Sonia (Jacqueline Gadsden) and her fiancé Roget (Lloyd Hughes) invents fantastic submarines to go look for a civilization deep in the sea. But he's betrayed by his friend Baron Falon (Montagu Love) who wants to be dictator of nearby Hetvania. 

This silent film has several scenes with characters speaking and their voyage to a strange undersea kingdom populated by fish men is quite eerie as is a giant octopus attack. Some prints featured tinted color scenes. The SFX are great for the time but some of the scenes with dialogue drag a little. Most likely only used simply because the advent of sound interrupted the production. Snitz Edwards and Gibson Gowland also appear. 

It's loosely based on the 1874 Jules Verne novel of the same name which was a sequel to "200,000 Leagues Under the Sea". A more faithful remake was made in 1961. 

This is only one of three movies directed by Lucien Hubbard who went on to become a producer and writer. A few added scenes were directed by Maurice Tourneur and Benjamin Christensen.

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Moles

 

 (imdb)

THE MOLE PEOPLE-1956-The oddball introduction to this film is done by Frank Baxter, a college English teacher who sometimes appeared on TV as “Mr. Research”. He talks about the hollow Earth theory. Then a group of archaeologists journey to a sacred Asian mountain after finding some unusual Sumerian artifacts. They find the ruins of a city and one guy (Phil Chambers) falls through the floor and is killed. That leaves Dr. Bentley (John Agar in his only horror/sci-fi role in 1956)), Dr. Bellamin (Hugh Beaumont), Prof. LaFarge (Nestor Paiva) and their guide (Rodd Redwing) to descend into the Earth in a rather long scene. An avalanche kills the guide and traps them underground. They discover that the Sumerians created their own “ark” just before the Great Flood. Then they are attacked by the big-eyed reptilians of the title (I know, I know. Moles aren't reptiles...). They are sort of rescued by a pasty-faced tribe who use the mole people as slaves. The trio are condemned to death, to die in “the fires of Ishtar”. They escape but LaFarge is killed. A flashlight saves the surviving duo, and they are revered as gods. Bentley falls for Adad (Cynthia Patrick), the only blond-haired woman. The high priest Elinu (Alan Napier) stirs up trouble and bad influence with the wimpy king. The guys are put in the “fire” but it's just ordinary sunlight. The moles revolt and kill everyone except Bentley and Bellamin who escape with Adad but she's killed in another earthquake when they reach the surface. Robin Hughes (THE THING THAT WOULDN'T DIE) has a small role as a guard. The next year co-star Hugh Beaumont played Mr. Cleaver on the long running TV show “Leave It to Beaver”.

This low budget Sci-Fi fantasy was directed by Virgil Vogel in his debut. He does the best with what he's got. He went on to work on many TV shows. Screenwriter Lazlo Gorog wrote mostly for TV but also did the screenplay for the ultra-cheapy THE LAND UNKNOWN (which Vogel directed) the next year. William Alland was the producer.

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