Quand la Terre s'entr'ouvrira

This film falls into one of my favourite categories, that is to say the category " Man Tampers With Nature ". Shot in Technicolor with superb picture quality, it is a feast for the eyes ( Why can't they get the same Technicolor quality in today's films ?? ) The sci-fi films of the 50s and 60s are feasts for the eyes and visual gems ( excuse the tautology ! )The story of this one is fairly limited, but the special effects are wonderful and realistic. I put the film on a par with others such as "Invaders from Mars", "Incredible Shrinking Man" etc. Obviously, the may be scientific inaccuracies, and science has advanced since 1965 but there again, this is an entertaining film and not a technically correct documentary.

Yes, let's put this to bed right away. The scientific premise is flawed. We now know that the crust of the Earth is not a solid shell, but riddled through with many cracks. Not only are these not harmful, they are an essential component and feature of a geologically active world. It is how the Earth renews itself, builds land, and promotes life. There is little mankind can do in the way of "cracking" the Earth that the Earth has not done itself, many times over, in much greater magnitude. But, that said, this is still a fun movie.

The pace of action and buildup to the spectacular climax is first-rate. I found myself just waiting for the next disaster to make itself manifest, be it an earthquake, volcano, tsunami, or all three. The underlying message is still sound: mankind should use caution in tinkering with the forces of nature. A time-worn premise, to be sure, but no less valid today. We as a species are young and have much to learn, by being aware of the hidden forces of nature and the unintended consequences of good-intentioned tinkering.

The cast is quite good. Sci-fi stalwart Dana Andrews is the featured player, of course, but the other actors do some good work. For it's time, the special effects are well-done. Like any well-paced disaster film, as the action races to a climax, we find ourselves pulling for the "good" guys against, hey, wait a minute, there are no "bad guys", just the unleashed forces of nature, knowing no good or evil, just following their natural course. It's a fun twist and makes you think.

Overall, it's hard not to recommend "Crack in the World" for a fun couple of hours' escapism and entertainment. Just suspend the disbelief a bit and go along for the ride.

Very early disaster movie about a crack in the earth.

What needs to remembered here is that this came BEFORE the disaster movies of the 1970s (Earthquake, The Towering Inferno, The Swarm, etc) and you have to wonder just how much of this film was copied by Irwin Allen and others. The music of the film has what now seems like rather routine "disaster music", but back then, the opening score would have been like nothing nobody had heard before. Think about it.

Crack In The World is a wonderfully scripted, acted, filmed, scored, epic that deserves more attention than it gets. Maybe the average science in the plot is the reason it does not get talked about a lot these days?

This is a pretty decent "end of the world" flick from the 1960's. The story is good and the acting is pretty decent. The only flaw in this film is the love triangle, which seems to bog the film down. However, besides the story and the acting the special effects are great considering that this film was released in 1965. I just wish that they would show it more often on television.

Dana Andrews plays Dr. Stephen Sorenson, a terminally ill scientist who decides to follow through on his dream project: using a missile to break through to the planet Earths' magma layer. His associate, Dr. Ted Rampion (Kieron Moore), has been preaching that this will be dangerous, and Ted is naturally proved to be correct. However, he has no time to say "I told you so", because he, Stephen, and others must race to save the world from the resulting title disaster.

Copious stock footage mixes with pretty impressive special effects, designed by Eugene Lourie, himself the director of the classic dinosaur flick "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms". Some viewers may be able to poke a lot of holes in the "science fact" aspect to the screenplay, but this shouldn't get in the way of enjoying what is a reasonably entertaining forerunner to the "disaster film cycle" of the 1970s. It's rather slow to get started, and does devote a fair amount of the running time to the love triangle. Ultimately, it delivers the goods if you stick with it. One thing about it that people should appreciate is the fact that it doesn't necessarily guarantee the viewer a happy ending. It keeps you hanging until its final frame. Among its other assets are the art direction (by Lourie), cinematography (by Manuel Berenguer), and music (by Johnny Douglas).

Andrews gives a typically solid performance in the lead, but most everybody here is fine. That includes the gorgeous Janette Scott as the female scientist caught between Ted and Stephen. Alexander Knox rounds out the quartet of top billed performers in the role of the pragmatic Sir Charles Eggerston.

This does offer a fair amount of fun if you're looking to discover sci-fi and disaster pictures from decades past.

Seven out of 10.