20 Million Miles to Earth (1957)
Directed by Nathan Juran

Film Review

Going by its cheesy screenplay and equally uninspiring performances, 20 Million Miles to Earth would be an easy film to forget, the archetypal bad monster B-movie with dialogue so awful you wonder how the actors were able to keep a straight face.  Whilst it may fall down flat in virtually every other department, the film excels in one - its special effects, which showcase the stop-motion animation wizardry of Ray Harryhausen.  The star of the film is one of Harryhausen's most brilliant creations, a reptilian creature (named Ymir) which looks like a cross between a tyrannosaurus rex and the monster from Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). 

So perfect is Harryhausen's animation that you could easily mistake Ymir for a living, breathing creature.  Not only does he (let's assume it's a he) eclipse all the human actors on screen (not so difficult, given that most of them patently cannot act), he totally monopolises our sympathies, to the extent that when the US military goes after it with guns blazing (as is their wont) we end up firmly on the side of the green scaly lizards.  The sequence in which Ymir wrestles with a fully grown elephant is harrowingly convincing and rivals anything that can be achieved today with the latest CGI effects.

Ray Harryhausen had wanted the film to be made in colour, but budgetary constraints prevented this.  However, the film was finally colorised in 2007, although it can be argued that the colorisation takes away some of the atmosphere of the original black and white film.  In either case, Harryhausen's genius elevates a poorly scripted B-movie into a minor classic of the sci-fi genre.

Film Synopsis

Off the coast of Sicily, some Italian fishermen see a fantastic space rocket crash into the sea and feel compelled to investigate.  They manage to rescue the two surviving astronauts, just before the vessel disappears below the waves.  The rocket in fact belongs to the United States government, and has just returned to Earth after a manned mission to explore the planet Venus.   A sample of the animal life found on the planet has survived the crash and is discovered by a small boy who sells it to Dr Leonardo, a well-known zoologist.  The sample is identified as an egg, and the creatures that hatches from it, a ferocious reptile, begins to grow at an alarming rate.  The US military are able to subdue the creature, allowing Leonardo to transport it to his laboratory in Rome.  But the creature still hasn't finished growing, and when it escapes its human captors a second time it goes on a killer rampage across the Italian capital...