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.
