20 Million Miles to Earth

Of course, nothing that was achieved in "20 Million Miles to Earth" was what you could call original. It had a very similar idea and style to many movies that were before and would come after. An incident involving space travel and landing on another planet results in the birth of a creature on Earth that is seemingly immune to our weapons. A rough and tough leading character who has a position of authority stars in the film. Alongside him are the typical secondary characters for a monster flick: an under-developed love interest, a scientist wanting to preserve the monster, politics wanting to eliminate it, and so on and so forth. The creature in the film was brought to life through the fantastic art of stop-motion animation, done by visual effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen. As in most films, it is flawless with perfectly smooth movement performed by the creature. There is a battle sequence, again typical for a 50s monster film, and although it's nothing primal like the T-Rex fight from the 1933 "King Kong", is fascinating. "20 Million Miles to Earth", while not what I'd consider a classic monster movie, is the perfect film to watch on a weekend morning or evening. And it still holds out today, fifty years since its debut screen appearance, as a fun monster movie.

I have to admit I was drawn to this because it was set in Sicily, but they really never got far from Rome. It is a significant film for the fact that special effects were done by Ray Harryhausen, who has a cameo in the film (watch for the man feeding the elephant at the zoo.). William Hopper, who played Perry Mason's assistant Paul Drake, will be a familiar face for those who grew up during the 50's and 60's. Joan Taylor was also on TV a lot during those years. They both have a rich sci-fi history in films like Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, "Men Into Space", and Conquest of Space. The little Godzilla-like monster from Venus is the focus of the film as they try to find and capture it. Of course, Hooper knows all about the creature when facing it. Such plot holes would raise howls of derision today, but it was common in the films of the 50's. An enjoyable reach into the past with a film that entertains more than a lot of the DTV we see today.

20 Million Miles To Earth finds William Hopper, very shortly to be Paul Drake in Perry Mason, the one lone human survivor from a trip to Venus. Arthur Space dies shortly after the return and a little creature from Venus hatches from an egg they brought back. Everybody else on the expedition died there and before we go again, we want to see just what makes Venusian life survive. William Hopper says the creature is docile, but its actions are anything but docile. In fact it's never really given a name, but he's mean and ugly reptilian type animal, one of the best that the fertile mind of Ray Harryhausen ever designed. Unfortunately the story that came with the creature from 20 Million Miles To Earth didn't survive the voyage as well as the monster did. The science here wasn't the least plausible, it all being explained that the normal laws don't apply to Venusian creatures. Especially when they grow real fast in our atmosphere. Maybe he's got some built in steroids. The ship crash lands in Sicily and the final confrontation with the lizard from Venus takes place at Rome's Colosseum. What Emperor Nero and the gang back then would have paid to see a few of his best gladiators take on this guy.

'20 Million Miles to Earth' is only half as smart as its predecessor THEM! While THEM! is concerned about the advancement of story with support of the effects, 'Earth wants to try and entertain with the crude methods of those days. The annoying kids, the obligatory scientists and love interests, the gung-ho heroes, nothing is serious. The only realistic player, of course, it the Ymir. The level of detail Harryhausen cranks into it makes it the most interesting character in the movie, considering it is synthetic. One point of interest is that the darn thing never sits still for a moment. Spielberg only wishes his dinosaurs had as much personality. There you have it, a film of fake acting and actors. Better than most of the 50s braindead work, still not that great. The moral at the end is also ripped from THEM! 1.5 out of 5.

In 1957 this was state of the art technology. The film is about a returning probe from the planet Venus although, only the commander survived. Landing near a small fishing village near Italy a small boy recovers a capsule front the sinking probe. The capsule contained an embryo of a Venusians inhabitant which resembled a lizard sort of creature, the creature was by default adopted by a circus show. In travel it was provoked and escaped. After many reports pf a creature the commander caught up with the creature and captured it. The creature's main staple was super and it was captured at a local sculpture pit. The creature was sedated with electrical current. However, the creature continued to grow during this state of electrical hibernation. When the power was disrupted the creature was abruptly awakened, went on a rampage. As always the military was called in and prevailed. You will feel sorry for the creature as it didn't have a chance or choice.

From the opening of the Sicilian fishermen watching as a ridiculously big rocket embeds itself in the seabed of the Mediterranean like a big dart to the ending big shoot out in the Colloseum, this movie is just wonderful. There's an Italian kid who is really focused on Texas: he wants the cowboy hat, the horse, the pistols. There's the horny astronaut, always hitting on the professor's daughter (and visa versa). There's the professor. Then there's the monster. Man, what a monster! The Black and White is beautiful in this film and the ending is so crazy that you just have to experience it. This one turns up pretty regularly on TCM and other stations, so watch your local listings for this mesmerizing, goofy sci-fi klassic.

I rented "20 Million Miles from Earth" because it was one of the few Ray Harryhausen films I'd never seen. Overall, the movie is a pretty average 50's grade B sci-fi film. What makes it worth watching is the character of the Ymir, the creature from Venus. In later years, Ray Harryhausen remarked on the innocence of this creature and its final resort to violence only when it had been tormented to its breaking point. If you watch the performance of the Ymir (the best in the movie!), you can really see that it's essentially a non-violent creature that's highly confused and just looking for it's home (and some food!). I think a scene that really captures this is when the rapidly-growing Ymir breaks out of its first cage. Although the professor and his daughter are standing 5 feet away from it, and the professor has placed it in the cage in the first place, the Ymir doesn't attack them. It paces back and forth, then turns to them and gives them a quick roar, as if to say "Why did you do that!?" If you watch the creature closely, most of the time it's scared and just trying to get the humans to leave it alone. A very good piece of work. Overall, the movie is very silly and pretty stupid. People are constantly screaming about the monster's great danger,then they go after it, poke it with a big stick, and wonder why the thing's ticked off! Nobody ever get's the "V-8" moment and says, "Hey, why don't we just feed this thing, it's probably starving!" The reason, of course, is that you don't get to blow up the Coliseum if you're just having a nice picnic!

Put em' back where you found him! That's the only solution to this issue, bringing a creature from Venus down to earth in order to study how they can survive on Venus's atmosphere. Of course, if some Earthling was pulled off this planet by a Martian or any other planet for the same reason (or any reason), they wouldn't like it either. This all starts in the coast off of Sicily where a space craft suddenly plunges into the sea as fisherman watch. Two of them and one of their younger sons head to the craft to help rescue any possible survivors, not even sure if they are going to be earthlings. Fortunately, their gamble pays off, but the little boy finds a remnant from the ship which he turns over to a local scientist and his daughter (Joan Taylor) for examination. This object contains a monstrous looking creature from Venus which starts off as arms length but quickly grows thanks to the earth's atmosphere, soon traipsing all over Italy and ending up in Rome where it takes a tour of the grounds where Nero once fiddled and Caligula once tortured Christians. By this time, he's the size of Godzilla and not at all happy that the military (mostly American) won't leave him alone. Superb in every aspect (with a few goofs that only today's audiences would pick up on thanks to advanced special effects that just aren't as fun as what Ray Harryhausen does here), this roars by in under 90 minutes and is filled with so many great sequences that to mention just a few would be a detriment to those who have not seen it before. Still, to see this sad creature being tracked, almost electrocuted and placed in solitary confinement, and finally, breaking out of the zoo and battling an elephant, you can't help but be touched by it. When the creature does finally find some seclusion, it's in the middle of Rome's famous Colosseum where even there he can't find peace. William Hopper's surviving astronaut seems compassionate to the poor creature but, knowing it's too late to take them back to their home planet, is resolved to the fact that he's going to either have to kill it or watch the earth be destroyed by it. His acknowledgment that through every advancement mankind makes, the costs are greater, is one of the great theories of our times, and one which should wake today's audiences up to how we further destroy ourselves and potentially our own planet and species, through messing in science where we should just leave it alone.

This 50s sci-fi film has always been one of my favorites from that era. As with another Columbia Pictures film, "Earth vs the Flying Saucers", released the previous year, "20 Million Miles To Earth" features some of the same cast. This film has a relatively simple, straightforward plot, perfunctory acting, and a brisk pace. And as with "Earth vs the Flying Saucers", the main attraction is the outstanding Harryhausen effects. It is because of these similarities that I consider the two films companion pieces. Leonard Maltin calls the film one of the best monster-on-the- loose movies ever made and I certainly agree. The sulphur- eating, reptilian-like Venusian creature, "the Ymir's" titanic struggle with an elephant in the streets of Rome, preceding the climatic confrontation in the Colosseum with mankind, remains one of the greatest one-to-one creature battles of all time. Definitely recommended for the 1950s sci-fi connoisseur.

Don't get me wrong, it's an enjoyable flick, but it typecasts humans *perfectly*, for the asshats they usually are. This is the King Kong epic, only with a reptilian "ape" kidnapped from Venus, not some obscure tropical isle. And of course, "humanity" wins by murdering the creature when it proves to be inconvenient. I'm hoping the purpose of the flick was to be a sort of expose', rather than rooting for the "good guys" to kill the "bad" creature, and if so, this hits the mark dead-on. The unfortunate creature, Ymir, is taken from his native Venus as an egg, where he later hatches into a cute little lizard-critter. But of course, the "scientists" react by grabbing, capturing, and caging the little critter, to be experimented on, without even wondering what it needs as far as food, water, etc. And the nerve to call it "so ugly"... like it'd think the pink squishy things imprisoning it were paragons of beauty?? Okay, Joan Taylor is seriously hot, but still... So, when Ymir can *finally* escape, all he does is grunt at his captors and wanders off, never so much as touches them. Only when provoked does he react in anger; they even *say so*! He wants to eat, gets attacked by a dog, and only then gives the dog a beat-down. He gets repeatedly attacked, and only when pitchforked in the back does he attack his attacker. He's electrocuted and recaptured, experimented on some more, and only through human incompetence is able to escape again. But from there, he's met with guns, flamethrowers(!), tanks, all sorts of weaponry. Finally, in his last-ditch effort to escape by just blindly climbing to nowhere in particular, he's howitzered and finally murdered. Yes, murdered. Yay, "humanity". So then, finally, can the gorgeous almost-doctor and square-jawed military-dood go have a nice quiet meal in a dark cafe. Gives ya the warm-fuzzies just allllll over. Again, I'm really hoping that was the intent of the movie, to show humans in the light they've earned throughout history. Maybe it'd be a wake-up call to some. We can only hope.