The film stars Cornel Wilde, Jean Wallace, Abbe Lane, Francis Lederer, Michael Landon and Joe E. Ross.

[1][2] Red Adair–type former Navy Frogman Vic Scott is on vacation in Venezuela when a huge oil fire at a well of his rich friend erupts.

More romance than adventure for the first two-thirds of the film, Maracaibo ultimately settles down to dramatic scenes of underwater work to extinguish the fire before a huge storm arrives.

[3] Film rights were bought by Universal who intended to turn it into a vehicle for Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman and Ted Sherdeman wrote a script.

Silliphant later called it "a perfectly dreadful, stinking film... with a screenplay that must have been written in the men's room of the Hollywood Knickerbocker.