The Incredible Petrified World (1959)

Interesting facts

The Incredible Petrified World is a 1959 horror adventure film produced and directed by Jerry Warren, and starring John Carradine, Phyllis Coates and Robert Clarke. The film follows four explorers who travel down into the depths of the sea and get stranded in an underwater cavern.

Production

In an interview, star Robert Clarke said that the cinematographer was a well-known Hollywood cameraman who used the pseudonym "Victor Fisher" to avoid trouble with the union for taking a job on a non-union picture. The cavern sequences were shot at Colossal Cave in Tucson, Arizona. Phyllis Coates was never paid for her performance.

Warren had a monster suit built to use in the film, but "it ended up looking too bad even for Warren", so the suit was scrapped. The ad line retained the mention of the monster however, stating "A Nightmare of Terror in the Center of the Earth with Forgotten Men, Monsters, Earthquakes and Boiling Volcanos!"

Thomas Reddy in the Los Angeles Examiner commented "In a film of this type, you'd expect a monster or two. But no, not one teensy-weensy monster. The closest thing to it is a bearded bum found living in the cavern....it's incredible that for more than a hour, nothing the least bit exciting happens." The film opens with some stock footage showing a shark battling, and tearing apart, an octopus (perhaps these were the monsters spoken of in the ad l…

Bill Warren said "The film is so uneventful that it's puzzling as to why it was ever made....it has no possible reason for existence....there is at least one zombie in Teenage Zombies". He goes on to state "The film may have taken an entire week to shoot, and Carradine probably did all his work in one day."

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