Neil Welch Dr Sorenson has the brilliant idea of sending a rocket propelled bomb into the earth's crust to release free geothermal energy, but things go horribly wrong.Director Andrew Marton (of whom it has been said "Who?") pretends to be Irwin Allen in a colourful widescreen action adventure disaster movie.I'll cut this film a break over the dumb science, on the grounds that maybe they didn't know that much about plate tectonics in the 60s. Maybe they didn't know that loosening a chunk of the planet wouldn't result in it zooming off into space and forming a new moon. But the model work, while typical of the era, looks very unconvincing these days. And leading man Keiron Moore is very handsome but acts extremely badly. Seriously badly.But there is also some good stuff here. Location photography is attractive, Janette Scott is always appealing, there is some production value on show, the action climax isn't bad, and Dana Andrews shows Keiron Moore how to act.On the whole, though, this is as dumb as a box of frogs.

Scott LeBrun Dana Andrews plays Dr. Stephen Sorenson, a terminally ill scientist who decides to follow through on his dream project: using a missile to break through to the planet Earths' magma layer. His associate, Dr. Ted Rampion (Kieron Moore), has been preaching that this will be dangerous, and Ted is naturally proved to be correct. However, he has no time to say "I told you so", because he, Stephen, and others must race to save the world from the resulting title disaster.Copious stock footage mixes with pretty impressive special effects, designed by Eugene Lourie, himself the director of the classic dinosaur flick "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms". Some viewers may be able to poke a lot of holes in the "science fact" aspect to the screenplay, but this shouldn't get in the way of enjoying what is a reasonably entertaining forerunner to the "disaster film cycle" of the 1970s. It's rather slow to get started, and does devote a fair amount of the running time to the love triangle. Ultimately, it delivers the goods if you stick with it. One thing about it that people should appreciate is the fact that it doesn't necessarily guarantee the viewer a happy ending. It keeps you hanging until its final frame. Among its other assets are the art direction (by Lourie), cinematography (by Manuel Berenguer), and music (by Johnny Douglas).Andrews gives a typically solid performance in the lead, but most everybody here is fine. That includes the gorgeous Janette Scott as the female scientist caught between Ted and Stephen. Alexander Knox rounds out the quartet of top billed performers in the role of the pragmatic Sir Charles Eggerston.This does offer a fair amount of fun if you're looking to discover sci-fi and disaster pictures from decades past.Seven out of 10.

Spikeopath Crack in the World is directed by Andrew Marton and written by Jon Manchip White and Julian Halevy. It stars Dana Andrews, Janette Scott, Kieron Moore, Alexander Knox, Peter Damon and Jim Gillen. Music is scored by Johnny Douglas and cinematography by Manuel Berenguer. Dr. Steven Sorenson (Andrews) plans to tap the energy magma source deep in the Earth's interior by exploding a nuclear device down in the core. In spite of desperate warnings by fellow scientist Ted Rampian (Moore) that it will cause a disaster, Sorenson proceeds after getting the backing of his superiors. The experiment causes a crack to form in the Earth's crust, which starts to escalate and threatens to split the Earth in two. Can the scientists come up with something to avert the catastrophe they have created?The science might be hokey but the premise is a "cracker" in what seems to be the forgotten film of the sci-fi/disaster movie splinters. Much time is afforded to human interactions and discussions of the science involved, and of course the repercussions of man's inherent need to tamper with the world we live in. When the effects come they are excellent, aiding the drama considerably, there's even a bit of model work that nods back to a time when such a thing was a staple of genre movies. There's a tension fuelled love triangle going on between the three main protagonists, and one of them is ill, very ill, this adding spice to the human drama as the world starts to come apart. The clock ticks down and as the jeopardy rises so does the excitement, leaving us with a tense finale that rounds the film out as a more than worthy film for genre fans to enjoy. 7/10

MartinHafer While this is not the sort of movie I usually like to watch, I sought it out for one reason--Dana Andrews. While he's not especially famous today, Andrews was a wonderfully realistic and solid actor who never seemed to get his due--even though he made a ton of films--many of which were terrific (such as "Laura", "The Ox-Bow Incident" and "The Best Years of Our Lives"). Part of this might be because of his rather ordinary looks and perhaps part of this might be his own fault, as later in his career he wasn't exactly choosy about the roles he took--with appearances in schlock films like "The Frozen Dead". Whatever the reasons, even his disappointments feature him doing his best and putting in one great acting performance after another. I just marvel at his professionalism and seemingly effortless acting and would watch him in anything.Andrews plays a very flawed scientist. Because he is dying and wants to make a name for himself, he has decided to try a risky experiment--one that his co-worker thinks might cause a chain-reaction that could rip the planet apart. At first, the experiment seems to have worked, but by shooting a nuclear bomb into the Earth and releasing magma, the integrity of the planet has been compromised. Earthquakes and tsunamis begin and it appears as if eventually the Earth will crumble apart. In a last-ditch effort to avert this disaster, a wacky plan involving blowing up a volcano to relieve pressure is planned. Will this work or is mankind royally screwed?! This movie is reasonably well done technically, though a few scenes are a tad clumsy when it came to special effects. As for the plot and acting, they are all fair--worth seeing, perhaps, but it's far from a must-see and really only a pretty good time-passer.