20 Million Miles to Earth (1957)

Director:

Nathan Juran

Writers:

Robert Creighton Williams (screenplay) &
Christopher Knopf (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

June 1957 (USA)

Genre:

Fantasy | Horror | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

Monster from outerspace runs wild!

Plot:

The first U.S. spaceship to Venus crash-lands off the coast of Sicily on its return trip. A dangerous, lizard-like creature comes with it and quickly grows gigantic.

Plot Keywords:

Venus | Military | Sicily | Alien | Young Boy

Cast

William Hopper	...	Colonel Robert Calder
Joan Taylor	...	Marisa Leonardo
Frank Puglia	...	Dr. Leonardo
John Zaremba	...	Dr. Judson Uhl
Thomas Browne Henry	...	Major General A.D. McIntosh (as Thomas B. Henry)
Tito Vuolo	...	Police Commissioner Charra
Jan Arvan	...	Contino - Government Official
Arthur Space	...	Dr. Sharman
Bart Braverman	...	Pepe (as Bart Bradley)

Also Known As:

The Beast from Space
The Giant Ymir (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

82 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Argentina:Atp | Finland:K-15 (2000) | Canada:PG (Ontario) | South Korea:All | South Korea:All (2008) | Australia:PG | UK:PG | USA:Approved (PCA #18428) | West Germany:12

Filming Locations:

Ponte St. Angelo, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company:

Morningside Productions

Trivia:

Since he planned to use a real elephant for some of the footage in the zoo, Ray Harryhausen asked for one that was 15 feet tall, but the film was only able to procure an eight-foot-tall one for him. In order to make the elephant look much bigger, a 4'6" actor was cast to play the zookeeper.

Goofs:

Continuity: The Marines board the helicopter with plain metal helmets. Later, they assemble wearing cloth camouflage helmet covers.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Mondello: Pepe! Is it your desire that the fishes, they swim away? Come on! Pull up on the net, here.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Monsterama Sci-Fi Late Night Creature Feature Show Vol. 1 (1996) (V)

See it for the monster

Let's state the obvious right off the bat. If it weren't for the stop-motion animation in this film, it would be simply awful. Awful acting, awful script, mediocre direction, this film has it all.

But once the monster appears on screen, none of that matters. Ray Harryhausen's animation is, as always, simply spellbinding, giving the monster, paradoxically, both a heightened reality (as it really is a physical object photographed in "real life") and a dreamlike quality. It's easy to see how Harryhausen's work set the standards for monster special effects until Star Wars and computer animation came along many years later.

This film is a particularly good example of his work for a number of reasons. There's only one monster (unlike the Sinbad/Jason/Titans movies), so all his effort is spent on that one "character". The monster also starts out small and grows huge by the end of the movie, allowing us to see it in a variety of settings. And, the fact that it's a humanoid (rather than a dinosaur or big octopus) allows it to "act" in a much more expressive manner (not unlike the original Kong).

So while this movie may qualify as little more than "MST3K" fodder as a science fiction work (did I mention how truly awful the script is?), as a piece of animation, it's a pure classic, deserving a space on your shelf next to King Kong, Snow White and Fantasia.