REVIEW: CRACK IN THE WORLD
REVIEW: PARAMOUNT PICTURES [ 1965 ] 96'
DIRECTOR: ANDREW MARTON
WRITERS: JON MANCHIP WHITE, JULIAN ZIMET
CAST: DANA ANDREWS, JANETTE SCOTT,
CAST: KIERON MOORE, ALEXANDER KNOX
WTFFILM RATING:

There are a multitude of films that I recall seeing as a child, but only a few that have managed to really stick with me over the years. MIRACLE MILE [1988] is one, THE GIANT CLAW [1957] another.

I only saw CRACK IN THE WORLD once as a child - I was at my grandmother's house watching it on AMC (it had an introduction by Nick Clooney if memory serves). It's amusing to think that, even though the special effects and score have stuck with me to this day, the most prominent memory I have of that viewing was my grandmother patronizing me about the on-screen kiss between Janette Scott and Dana Andrews. It's funny how the mind works . . .

It would take ten years and the blossoming of the eBay bootleg VHS revolution for me to find the film again and finally add it to my home video collection (I had missed its only other subsequent local airing when my VCR failed to record it). In spite of the horrid quality of the VHS I managed to procure, the experience of seeing the film again - I watched it at around 3 in the morning, just before heading off to a rather early work shift - was certainly a good one. It had definitely been worth the wait.

Dr. Steven Sorenson (Andrews) is a brilliant geophysicist on the verge of the breakthrough of his career - Project Inner Space, whose goal is to tap the near limitless potential of the magma beneath the Earth's crust, is his brain child. Unfortunately the project has hit a snag - the drilling that had been so successful up to this point has been stopped in its tracks by an unknown variable. In order to complete the project, Sorenson decides to use a thermonuclear weapon to burn through the remaining crust. It's up to an international consortium of scientists, politicians, and military men - the representatives of the money backing the project - to decide whether or not to go ahead with the new plan, which Sorenson insists will be a ostensibly benign event.

His young geologist colleague Dr. Ted Rampion (Moore) sees things from a slightly different perspective - with the Earth's crust already weakened extensively by the multitude of atomic tests undertaken in the previous two decades, he feels that the detonation of a weapon of that magnitude at such a depth could have irreversible and disastrous consequences. Unfortunately for Rampion, Sorenson sees the furthering of his project as too important, sending the young scientist away on business in order to keep him from frightening the committee. In his stead, Sorenson uses an over the top demonstration (smashing a plate of safety glass with a hammer) to ensure that the funders see the theory as bunk.

The pressure on Sorenson is palpable - his reputation as a scientist rests on the advancement of the project, and his desire to see Rampion (his wife Maggie's old flame) proven wrong outweighs any possible risks the nuclear detonation may pose. What's more, Sorenson has been diagnosed with a terminal illness and knows that Project Inner Space is to be his last chance to leave his mark on science. Placated by his demonstration, the committee decides to back Sorenson's plan and final preparations are made for the exploding of the warhead.

Rampion eventually learns of Sorenson's actions and promptly quits the project before heading to the committee chair's office in London, in hopes that he can force them to resend their orders and call off the detonation. The chairman agrees and immediately calls up the project, but Sorenson and his team are far to involved in the pre-blast preparations to answer. Before anything can be done to avoid it, the bomb has been detonated, seemingly successfully. A fountain of magma erupts from below the Earth's surface - the team, Rampion included, rejoices.

But all is not well, it seems. Soon reports begin pouring in of earthquakes and other related disasters occurring, many in locations with no prior history of such activity. It seems Dr. Sorenson's has created an ever-growing crack in the Earth's crust - one that, if not somehow stopped, threatens to obliterate the planet and all life on it . . .

CRACK IN THE WORLD is a well made little science fiction and disaster film with rather lofty ambitions considering its budget - 2001, made just three years later, had nearly 18 fold more financing than CRACK IN THE WORLD's estimated $600,000. But this Philip Yordan (DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS [1962]) produced and Paramount distributed effort still largely succeeds, thanks to an increased focus on well-developed characters and thoughtful relegation of its sparse funds for special effects.

On the leading edge of the character front is Dana Andrews' Dr. Steven Sorenson, one of the more complexly drawn scientists in the genre's history. Faced with his own imminent death at the hands of an un-treatable disease (which leaves him in worse and worse condition as the film goes on), a failing marriage to a wife who may or may not still have feelings for her former lover, and pressure from his financial backers to see that Project Inner Space is worth their investment, Sorenson's decision to go ahead with a drastic and potentially disastrous plan becomes understandable and pitiable, if not entirely forgivable. And to the character's credit, when things do take the inevitable turn for the worse, he turns all of his concentration away from his own legacy and towards saving the planet.

Kieron Moore and Janette Scott were more or less regulars to Philip Yordan productions of the time, having already starred in his production of DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS just two years before. The characters they play are more or less traditional - with Moore playing a rugged leading man with Scott as his devoted love interest. Still, the characters have complex motivations (if not as complex as those of Sorenson) and are well developed by White and Zimet's script. Oddly, Scott's character Maggie fares possibly the worst out of all of those in the film, being something of a popular science groupie who seems to flip between her marriage to Sorenson and her former relationship with Rampion without much hesitation (admittedly, her relationship troubles with Sorenson are largely his responsibility, be they as a result of his unwillingness to disclose his illness to her or his jealousy over her having once been involved with a younger and more handsome man).

While the dramatics described above dominate the majority of the first half of the film, the latter half relies increasingly on the fine special effects talents of Eugene Lourie and Alex Weldon. With few exceptions (the gantry for the warhead at the beginning of the film and the creation of a second moon in the final act), the effects work is very, well, effective. Matte work and miniatures as well as some very interactive utilization of library footage leads leads to a believable depiction of the epic disaster of the film's title. The destruction of a passenger locomotive as it comes around a mountain amazed me as a child and, much to my surprise as an adult, still comes across as being quite well done today. Eugene Lourie had, of course, directed both THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS (still the best of the Harryhausen vehicles in my mind) and the much-underrated GORGO prior to working on this film, while Weldon had honed his skills with such epics as EL CID and THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

Also noteworthy is the set design throughout the film, but particularly in regards to the underground headquarters of Project Inner Space. The sprawling laboratory features a spiderweb of thick concrete pillars reaching towards its cathedral-esque ceilings - that such a set would be built for as limited a production as this is astounding, in and of itself. Equally impressive is the full-scale destruction we see at the conclusion of the film, with Rampion and Maggie being forced up a collapsing elevator shaft only to have to run through a gauntlet of concrete, rebar, and burning cars once outside. It's all very exciting and helps distract from some of the lesser miniature work seen during the climax.

The well-paced direction from Andrew Marton is quite successful throughout, allowing time for characters to properly develop as well as adequately building suspense as the film's cataclysmic finale approaches. Aside from the Oscar-winning KING SOLOMON'S MINES and his work on the equally applauded THE LONGEST DAY I can't say that I've seen anything by the Austrian-born Marton, though he seems an above-average genre director to say the least and his work here is appreciated. As important as the production design, casting, special effects, and direction to me, however, will always be the score contributed by Johnny Douglas - his opening theme impressed upon me so much that I was able to recall it, from that one fateful viewing in my early elementary school years, for all of the ten years that passed before I heard it again.

Perhaps the only major issue with CRACK IN THE WORLD is in its disastrous premise itself, the science of which will strike the majority of modern viewers as being rather dubious. CRACK IN THE WORLD had the unlucky distinction of having its science firmly debunked only a matter of a few years after its production (though in its time, before the idea of plate tectonics had been largely accepted, its science was more than passable). I have no problem accepting the premise at face value - this is fiction after all - in light of the otherwise fine production. And given the imbecilic nature of recent blockbusters like THE CORE and ARMEGEDDON the scientific inaccuracies in CRACK IN THE WORLD are a walk in the park.

It's a real pity that Paramount seems so reticent to release more of its finer genre offerings, leaving it up to companies like Criterion or Legend Films to pick up their slack (both of whom have been doing a fine job as of late, with the likes of ACE IN THE HOLE and PHASE IV finally seeing release on DVD). Seemingly withdrawn from television syndication, along with many of the other genre offerings that I remember so clearly from my childhood, and largely forgotten over the past decade or so, CRACK IN THE WORLD is still a fantastic little film, a minor classic even, and more than worthy of a recommendation from this reviewer. Hopefully the studios in charge of such things will realize the financial potential of an official release of this title at some point in the near future - it certainly deserves it after all these years.