Saturday, June 29, 2013

The Incredible Petrified World (1957)

Director: Jerry Warren

Starring: John Carradine, Robert Clarke, Phyllis Coates, Allen Windsor, Sheila Noonan, George Skaff, Maurice Bernard, Joe Maierhouser, Lloyd Nelson, Harry Raven, Milt Collion, Robert Carroll, Lowell Hopkins, Jack Haffner, Jerry Warren

More info: IMDb

Tagline: See! The terror of a skindive to the center of the Earth! Caverns of Forgotten Men! Boiling Volcanos! Tidal Earthquakes! Horror of Undead Monsters!

Plot: Four adventurers descend to the depths of the ocean when the cable on their underwater diving bell snaps. The rest of their expedition, believing them to be lost, abandons hope of finding them. Exiting the diving bell, the party finds themselves in a network of underwater caverns. They encounter a shipwreck survivor. He tells them he has been there for 14 years and that there is no way out. The two men in the exploring party believe him only after a hike to a volcanic vent that supplies the caverns with oxygen. On the surface, Prof. Millard Wyman, the elder scientist who designed the original diving bell, decides to try again to explore the depths of the ocean. He finds out that there is another diving bell in existence that is identical to the one that was lost...


My rating: 5/10

Will I watch it again? No.

Who would have thought that 67 minutes could last so long? If you know what kind of stinkers John Carradine is capable of being in, this one's probably about average.  It's not that horrible but it's the slow pacing that gets to me and that's with a picture that seems to have a lot going on.  The story is OK at best, there's nothing wrong with the acting (if only it had reached the point of so-bad-it's-good, it would have been more enjoyable) but it's a 40 minute story stretched beyond its means. 

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