The Incredible Petrified World 1959

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.

The Cast

John Carradine-Prof. Millard Wyman
Robert Clarke-Craig Randall
Phyllis Coates-Dale Marshall
Allen Windsor-Paul Whitmore
Sheila Noonan-Lauri Talbott
George Skaff-Dr. J.R. Matheny
Maurice Bernard-Ingol - Old Man in the Caverns
Joe Maierhauser-Jim Wyman

The Director: Jerry Warren
The Writers: John W. Steiner

Certificate : A

Film Trivia

Phyllis Coates accepted the role of Dale Marshall as a favor to director Jerry Warren, who was a former boyfriend; the actress originally cast in the lead couldn't do it and Warren couldn't find anyone else in time. He convinced Coates to do it by telling her that the film would not be shown in California. However, after it was completed, she found out that Warren did indeed release the film in California, and she was told by at least one studio executive (at Columbia) that the film was so inferior and shoddy that the studio would not be hiring her again. On top of that, Warren never paid her.
In an interview, star Robert Clarke said that the film's cinematographer is actually a well-known Hollywood cameraman who used the pseudonym "Victor Fisher" so he wouldn't get in trouble with the union for taking a job on this non-union picture.
The opening shots of the film contain a copyright from 1957, but the film was never actually registered for an official copyright.
Completed by at least March 1957, not released until 1959.
The film remained unreleased for several years until it was put on the bottom of a packaged double feature with another Jerry Warren film, Teenage Zombies (1959).
Brianne Murphy who worked as the dialogue director for the film was married at the time to director Jerry Warren. The two co-owned G.B.M. productions, the company that produced this film.
The underwater caves scenes were filmed at Colossal Cave in Tucson, Arizona.