The Incredible Petrified World (1959)

Waste of time

Touches You

As Good As It Gets

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

This is a great movie. It is very scary. It has a great story line. It also has great acting. It is one of the best movies I have seen. It is scarier then A Nightmare on elm street.

Down to the depths of the ocean floor, four members of a deep sea expedition find themselves trapped inside a huge cavern where the only way out is through a volcano. Of course, if by chance they make it out, they also have to think of how to get down that mountain, how to make it back to any sort of civilization, and how the two women on the voyage will keep their hairstyles oh, so perfect. Then, there's the mad survivor of a previous voyage, an old man who looks like he has the strength of a teenaged girl, who begins to lust after one of the two women, offers to kill the others so they can spend "forever" inside these petrified caves, and takes it personally when she thanks him but turns him down flat. Biology teachers might be interested in the first five minutes which explores the lower depths of the ocean floor, and there are some fascinating stock footage of various sea animals fighting, eating their pray, and just simply enjoying life at the bottom of the beautiful briny sea. Add in John Carradine as the inventor of the contraption they use to get way down deep, and you've got the makings of one of the few films that makes Ed Wood's epics look as if they were directed by Orson Welles. The rivalry between the two women is never fully explored other than for one of the women to tell the other that women simply just do not get along, especially where men are concerned. The acting is outrageously amateurish, and the quality of the film print is so grainy and distorted that everything looks like it's been preserved in negatives.

When this film begins, it's obvious that this is a super-low budget film. You are treated to lots of stock cinematography of fish as a narrator talks about things that have nothing to do with what you are seeing! In other words, the film is just cheap padding. You hear about deep, deep water fish living through bio-luminescence, the Coelacanthe and several other things--as a bunch of shallow water fish swim about--and, as i said, they have nothing to do with the narration! Talk about cheap! A bit later, you see John Carradine and you are convinced it's a low-budget fiasco, as that's all Carradine did in the 1950s and 60s! Carradine plays a scientist who is intent on studying the extreme depths of the ocean. However, during the use of an underwater diving apparatus, there is an accident and the four assistants (including Robert Clarke and Phyllis Coates) are presumed lost in the ocean depths. Well, it just so happens that there is a pocket of lower water pressure AND a cave that just happens to be illuminated AND it can sustain life--as there is a crazy old bearded man who has been loving there for years. This crazy bearded guy looks an awful lot like Michael Palin from the bearded man introduction to "Monty Python's Flying Circus", actually. And you assume he must be a "Superman" fan, as he really, really has the hots for Coates (who played the original Lois on TV). Regardless of what happens next, none of the plot makes much sense and the one amazing coincidence on top of another makes this all pretty silly viewing. Overall, the film was bad but not bad enough to be good for kitsch value--especially since there are several stretches where the film just drags. Just dull and silly throughout and not worth seeing unless you are a public domain film junkie.

"When a diving bell goes missing along with its crew of four, their expedition gives up hope of finding them alive. However, the missing vehicle has become trapped in a labyrinth of underwater caverns. After exiting their craft, the foursome encounters a survivor from a shipwreck who informs them that there is no escape from their underwater tomb. Our intrepid explorers, however, trace the flow of oxygen to a volcanic vent and a possible escape route," according to the DVD sleeve description.Possibly, producer/director Jerry Warren was trying to fool audiences into thinking something might happen if he had professor John Carradine (as Millard Wyman) submerge two shapely 1950s women - lady reporter Phyllis Coates (as Dale Marshall) and Sheila Noonan (as Lauri Talbott) - with two heterosexual men. Wrong. Ms. Coates is trying to get over "Tom" (tossing his hopefully cheap ring into a pool) and Ms. Noonan fails to hook up with Robert Clarke (as Craig Randall). Nothing excites. * The Incredible Petrified World (1959) Jerry Warren ~ Robert Clarke, Phyllis Coates, John Carradine, Sheila Noonan