The Incredible Petrified World, starring John Carradine (sort of), could have also been titled The Incredibly Petrified Movie, because that's about how fast this thing movies. Wait. Petrified isn't a measure of speed is it? Let's just say that even someone with my profound and admirable tolerance for meandering movies found himself eying the fast forward button during the endless scenes of "overexposed footage of diver moving slowly along" and "group explores a cavern and finds another dead end."

The movie begins as many super-cheap 50s and 60s sci-fi fantasy films did: with a ten minute nature program introducing us to the grand mysteries of the sea, like the octopus and the squid and various fish. Eventually, the movie cuts to a party where the aforementioned video was being screened (and what a party it is), and in between lingering shots of a guy eating a cracker, we learn that the plot of the movie is to be about a group of people descending to a record depth in one of those old diving bells that just don't get enough attention in today's world of robotic exploration subs.

Of course, anytime someone in a sci-fi film descends to any depth in a diving bell, there's a 90% chance the bell is going to break loose and end up in some vast and hitherto undiscovered undersea world, which is what happens here. Movies with more vision and money usually throw a whole kingdom down there, complete with shiny Greek-style tunics and Flash Gordon lasers. This movie, on the other hand, envisions an underwater world that is nothing buy miles of plain, faceless caverns inhabited by this one old dude who, after fourteen years lost and stranded in the caves, has still never bothered to take off his expertly tattered rags (how do trousers end up in that traditional "fraying in large, perfect rectangular shapes" look that castaways so often sport?). Oh, there is also a lizard for a few seconds, but in a movie like this, one expects lizard-men, or at least guys with scales. Something, you know, besides Fred Sanford's friend Grady. You don't even get an octopus attack (though the original poster art promised one), and really, absolutely nothing happens until an underwater volcano erupts for no reason and causes the cameras to shake a bit.

Our heroes are two manly men, one of whom keeps taking off his shirt and changing into a new one even though they only have one tiny bag of supplies they rescued from the diving bell. It must have been full of extra shirts, though one wonders why this guy has so many shirts for a trip that was supposed to be pretty short. The others are two women: the cool scientist one, and the bitchy photographer one who seems bitchy in the most gratuitous fashion.

As boring as this movie is -- and this is an hour film comprised of at least 45 minutes of filler -- I still like it because I tend to like just about any old sci-fi film, no matter how daft and cheap, especially when there's a scene of scientists diligently doing delicate scientific work with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths. And if you ever wanted a montage of the many steps that go into designing and making coupling for a deep sea diving bell, well then you'll be in seventh heaven.

There's just something quaint and likable about films this low on the totem pole, though I seriously doubt I'll ever find myself saying, "You really need to see The Incredible Petrified World."

Labels: Set: Sci-Fi Classics