Build a movie plot around this: What does Alec land naked in? A tree
Scotland, 1880: Oliver Lindenbrook (James Mason), a distinguished professor at the University of Edinburgh, has just been granted knighthood for service to the Crown in the field of geology. When he arrives at his lecture hall on the day of the announcement, he is surprised by a gathering of staff and students. They present him with an elaborate decorative inkwell and the Dean declares a holiday in celebration of the occasion. As the others leave, one student, Alec McKuen (Pat Boone), remains behind. He offers Lindenbrook an extra token, a rock he acquired in a curiosity shop in Glasgow: a lump of lava, strangely heavy, although lava is usually very light. Pleased with the offering, Lindenbrook invites him to dinner at his home that evening. As Alec leaves, Lindenbrook turns his attention back to the unusual rock.Alec arrives at Lindenbrook's house that evening to find that the professor never came home, and his niece, Jenny (Diane Baker), is both angry and worried. Alec and Jenny go to his laboratory at the University, and find him and his assistant, Paisley (Ben Wright), feverishly experimenting on that same piece of lava. Lindenbrook shows Alec that he has chipped away a fragment of the lava and uncovered a manmade object inside, marked with three grooves or notches. He is about to melt off the rest of the lava to discover what it might be. Tired and distracted, Paisley pours in too much fuel at that moment, and the stove explodes. In the aftermath, Lindenbrook finds that the lava has been blasted free of the object, and it is revealed to be a surveyor's plumb bob with a few Nordic words painfully scratched on it. Lindenbrook and Alec recognize the signature with wonder: Arne Saknussem, a brilliant but eccentric Icelandic scientist, who had disappeared many years earlier while exploring the volcanoes of his homeland.Two weeks later, the Dean and the Rector of the University (Alan Napier and Alan Caillou) call at Lindenbrook's home to ask why he's neglecting his teaching duties. He tells them the story of...