Incredible Petrified World (1957)

Cast:

John "" Carradine is Prof. Millard Wyman
Robert Clarke is Craig Randall
Phyllis "Lois Lane from the 1950s Adventures of Superman" Coates is Dale Marshall
Allen Windsor is Paul Whitmore
Sheila Noonan is Lauri Talbott

What the box says:

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 exploreres, however, trace the flow of oxygen to a volcanic vent and a possible escape router.

Plot:

During footage of the stock footage of the sea, the narrator explains about the oceans and the creatures of the deep. A group s watching this footage and are readying a diving bell which will be ready after the first one is used.

That first diving bell is being prepped for its exploration of the deep. Dale, (the lady reporter), Lauri (oceangraphic student), Peter, and Craig will be in Professor Wyman's bell. Let the lowering begin. However, the bell loses contact with surface.

Afterwards, Professor Wyman is being interviewed how the bell broke and its lost crew.

In the bell, the crew awakens. Donning the diving suits they try to head for the surface but are too far deep. While things look bleak, they're able to find a phosophorous cave nearby.

On the surface, the boats are searching for what they think wll be the floating bodies of the bell crew.

The crew explores the cave and the guys start scavenging the bell for all the useful equipment. Let the cave exploration ensue. Luckily, they discover fresh water. Not so luckily, they discover a human skeleton before the bearded guy pops up. He explains that there is no way to escape the cave. He takes the guys to a nearby volcano from where the air comes.

Later, Craig professes his undying love for Lauri. They're unaware that beardedguy is spying on them.

On the surface world, Wyman has been trying to figure what happened the failure of the bell. He hunts up the company of the 2nd diving bell that was cancelled. Wyman wants to build the 2nd bell to search at the crash site to examine the 1st bell. After a bit of John Carradine voice of pseudo-scientific ranting, that impresses the compay president to agree.

Back at the cave, Dale is chewing Lauri out for Craig. The guys have headed back to scavenge anything left at the bell while the diving equipment still has any air in the tanks.

Sea-level, Wyman's brother is lowered in the bell. He spots Peter and Craig who reach that bell.

Bearded wants Dale to be for him. He even offers to kill the others just so they can be alone. The volcano starts rumbling. Lauri rushes up and grabs Dale away from captain crazy. Running away with bearded in hot pursuit until a rock slide crushes him. The women reach the pool to where the guys dove from.

Craig is there with new diving equipment for them. With the time, he doesn't have the time to explain the rescue bell. Getting wet-suited, they escape.

The diving bell is pulled up to the boat. The life-saving has seemed to get Dale to realize how horrible she's been to Lauri and apologizes. Cue the celebrating.

What I say:

With the last few years, we've had plenty of killer sea creatures attacking B and C level actors in direct to video movies from Sea Snakes to Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus. It isn't quite the last decade new creation. Take a trip in the Way-back machine to the 1950s, you'll find something quite like these current ones without the lousy CG monsters. The Incredible Petrified World is set between a diving bell and a couple of caverns. This is a very scenery limited movie. In fact, the shorter a movie is the more stock footage and narration need to be added into the movie.

Ed Wood and Roger Corman are known as some of the famous B-movie directors. Well, Jerry Warren is probably a close follow up after those 2. However, he is better known for directing Wild, Wild World of Batwoman rather than this movie.

Phyllis Coates or "Lois Lane" as Dale Marshall is one of the most annoying alpha-FEmale reporters in movies. How annoying? Katherine Hepburn from a couple of her movies would tell her to tune it down a couple of notches.... Half of the movie, she doesn't do anything. Suddenly, she becomes totally jealous against Lauri and sniping at her. During bearded guy professing his undying love for her, Lauri saving Dale does seem to get her into realizing how terrible she's been acting lately.

When an actor goes from one of the most famous Westerns in the 1930s Stagecoachto some lower -thought of movies such as Hillbillys in a Haunted House, John Carradine definitely had a wide range of roles. Carradine didn't turn down roles. In fact, this movie had him only in a few scenes almost like the last movies of Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. Though, Carradine was acting into the mid-1980s.

Bearded guy sort of just pops up in the cave for no reason. The diving bell crew had wet suits, air tanks, etc. They managed to get from the bell to the cave. (OK, we'll ignore mentioning how the diving bell had no airlock) How did bearded and the skeleton guy get from wherever to the cave?

Many of the 1950s sci-fi movies had small groups of scientists battleing aliens or giant irradiated insects. With a title like Incredible Petrified World, it would be expectable to come into this as some kind of monster movie. Be it dinosaur or even some forgotten large creature. However, we get a little stock footage and several caves. At least these are caves that are lit well enough to actually see what's happening.

Quotable Dialogue
"I guess only time will tell."
"There's nothing friendly between 2 females."
"What's the difference? They both taste terrible..."
"So, he's a weirdo..."
Morals of the Story
Underdground caverns are extremely well lit.
1950s lady reporters are required to wear high heels when climbing ladders.
Diving bells are giant beach balls.
Slapping relieves hysteria.