Le monde pétrifié

The best sequence is the shot of the raging sea storm and the huge waves that lead us into this movie. But they have absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the movie...which is incredibly calm and quite dull.

There is little if any action in this film. Diving bell goes down down down. There's trouble. Crew screams that something is buckling. On the ship above John Carradine, who looks like they got him out of bed for this movie, shouts, "What's buckling?" I don't know about you but if you hear someone screaming that something is buckling in a diving bell I would instantly reverse their submersion. This doesn't happen so they go down another quick 1000 feet and vanish - at least to the ship's crew.

Meanwhile the crew of the diving bell manage to find a series of underwater caves to escape to. They walk, they eat, they walk some more, they run into a monitor lizard, they drink water, they find a man with a very bad beard living in these caves. He tells them there is no way out. They settle in for the long haul. The man with the bad beard becomes menacing. Then a volcano blows up just in the nick of time.

Whew! I don't mind watching a bad film if it has purpose. This one denies me.

Like The Mole People, Unknown World and The Abyss, The Incredible Petrified World (IPW) defies sci-fi conventions by taking place entirely in inner space. Also like Mole People and Unknown World, inner space seems to have been built for human habitation - not only are the cave networks the perfect size for humans to walk upright in, the absurd Cyclotram of the unknown world even has a nicely graded (though bumpy) road to travel along while drilling through solid bedrock.

The only resemblance between this film and The Abyss is the underwater setting. IPW was made with less than a fraction of The Abyss' budget and the most talented actress in the film (Coates) was not paid. The film proceeds with mostly character-actors, and little to no character development.

Four people - a professional diver, two oceanographers and the stereotype female reporter - man the first deep-sea submersible diving bell (ya, this technology was already somewhat obsolete by the 1950s and the Navy was doing far more interesting things but who cares) on its first exploratory mission. Predictably, something goes wrong. But soon enough the crew finds itself in an underwater maze of caverns complete with fish ponds, potable water, a monitor lizard and a vaguely menacing hermit with extremely bad hair.

Putting all the absurdities aside (which is asking a lot), the plot is at least different and does take a few unanticipated turns. The terrestrial portion of the plot - focusing on Carradine as the philanthropic engineer sponsoring all of this - is actually more or less believable and interesting. But any value this plot adds is easily balanced by the laughable goings-on down below - especially the unnecessary and ridiculous hermit subplot.

All in all, I think this film deserves a better rating than it has here on IMDb, but I was seriously reconsidering my rating after I read about Ms. Coates' difficulties resulting from this film.

Recommended for B-sci-fi fans. AAAC (avoid at all costs) for everybody else.

"I've made some of the greatest films ever made - and a lot of crap, too."

John Carradine, who had roles in The Ten Commandments and Stagecoach and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, But Were Afraid to Ask among his 334 films, and won awards for The Scarecrow and House of the Long Shadows, would probably list this film as one that was crap.

He plays a scientist that sends down a diving bell with four people to 1,700 feet when they get stranded. They manage to make it into Arizona's Colossal Cave and they meet up with a hairy bugger who has been stranded there 14 years. Forget the others, this guy is focused on Phyllis Coates, who was the first Lois Lane on TV.

Yes, 14 years all alone and this old timer wants to find a way to get rid of the competition and have Lois to himself. Before he could get started, the volcano erupts and, well, just one eruption.

I just love this exchange between the two women:

Dale Marshall: You just listen to me, Miss Innocent. There's nothing friendly between two females. There never was. There never will be. Lauri Talbott: Sorry you feel that way. I was hoping we could help each other. Dale Marshall: You don't need help - neither do I. Not as long as we have two men around us.

O, the days when women thought that way.

This film had some very valuable information in it. I didn't know that people dived with a thermos of hot coffee, but it is good they do, as it is just the thing to revive someone who has run out of air.

When this film was released back in 1959 to an appalled public, one newspaper reviewer described it as "an incredible petrified movie." Since then, that description has been used over and over to appropriately describe this movie. The plot is about undersea explorers testing a new type of diving bell and the discovery of a vast network of air filled under sea caverns. Inside the caverns they discover an old man who had found his was into the caverns years before. Nothing happens in this film. Its just talk (all of which is not any good) with no thrills what so ever. Nothing! The posters for this film promised undersea thrills and a giant octopus. No giant octopus! No! Not even one measly stock footage octopus to enliven this dull film. The undersea "thrills" are scant. This film was so boring I couldn't wait till it was over. This may just be the worst movie Jerry Warren ever made. As bad as Jerry Warren's other films are, at least something happens in those.

Wow, what an incredibly BORING movie!! I kept on singing the cheerful songs of "The Little Mermaid" and "Finding Nemo" in order to stay awake, but it was just hopeless! And yet it all started out so promising, with a typical 1950's Sci-Fi voice-over that informs us that the sea is a largely undiscovered jungle that will always hide mysterious secrets for us, idiotic humans. While this guy is talking, there's this ultra-, super-, mega-cool battle going on between a shark and an octopus! That stuff was fascinating!! And then, sadly, the actual movie begins… Veteran actor John Carradine stars as the leader of a sea-expedition (I'm not even sure of that) that sends a diving bell containing four people to the bottom of the ocean. Something goes terribly wrong and the crew is considered lost. They're not dead, unfortunately, but end up in an undersea network of caves where it's possible to breath normally. There's no encounter with Ursula the Wicked Sea Witch, but they do hook up with an old bearded guy who claims to live there since 14 years already. From then on, there's absolutely NOTHING going on apart from tedious speeches and lousy acting. This movie is not even worth mocking! All the cast members seem to believe they're involved in some kind of masterpiece of Science Fiction, which makes it all the more sad. Even though it only runs 64 minutes, I strongly recommend not wasting your precious time on this thing.