20 Million Miles to Earth (1957)

A spaceship returning from Venus crashes into the sea off Italy. The gruff and square-jawed Colonel Bob Calder (William Hopper—from The Deadly Mantis) is rescued, but the rest of the crew is lost. A child, Pepe (Bart Bradley), finds a specimen of Venusian life, washed out of the rocket, and sells it to a wandering scholar (Frank Puglia). By coincidence, the professor’s daughter (Joan Taylor) is a medical student and is called in to treat Calder. In the strange atmosphere of Earth, the creature grows quickly to gigantic size.

There has never been anyone like Ray Harryhausen. In no other case does a special effects creator trump directors, producers, and actors, but he always does. 20 Million Miles to Earth is a Harryhausen film and if you are watching it, that’s the reason. It is also the best of his early career.

Produced in the thick of the ‘50s alien invasion cycle, 20 Million Miles to Earth has many of the weaknesses common to those films: the human characters aren’t interesting, the plotting is simplistic, people act stupidly, and the sets and cinematography are uninspiring. There’s also the issue of a Kenny. For those of you not seeped in Japanese monster movies, a “Kenny” is a precocious child that we are supposed to think is cute (but never is) that keeps showing up when he should have no part in the film. In Japanese movies, a Kenny is uniformed in overly short shorts (a cultural aspect we manage to escape). This is hardly the only American monster flick with a Kenny—the The Black Scorpion’s is even more obnoxious—but it does stand out in that Pepe is the cause of all the trouble. His obsession with American cowboy films and need for toys at any cost cause death and pain, yet he is never punished and learns nothing.

But those flaws aren’t as severe as in other films of the subgenre, and the problems are made up for by the Ymir. The reptilian beast has a great look and moves in ways that make us stop motion fans giddy. The critter (and the film) are also aided by avoiding the normal vicious monster cliché. The Ymir is not violent by nature and only harms things when he is mistreated (and mistreated, and mistreated again) giving it more in common with Frankenstein and King Kong than The Deadly Mantis. Every scene with the monster is a joy, and he invoked my sympathy.

The message is very light and is mainly noticeable by contradicting the pro-military stance of similar films; in this case, lots of guns are not a good thing and the outsider is not evil, but rather humans are foolish and cruel. It isn’t laid on very thick, but it is hard to miss that Pepe going nuts with his new play pistols is followed by the US military pulling out their toys. And it is pertinent that the farmer decides to stab the Ymir in the back.

20 Million Miles to Earth is a B-level monster movie, but it’s a good one and shows off Harryhausen’s talent.

Ray Harryhausen’s other features are The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955), Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers (1956) The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960), Mysterious Island (1961), Jason and the Argonauts (1963), The First Men in the Moon (1964), One Million Years B.C. (1966), The Valley of Gwangi (1969) ), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973), Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977), and Clash of the Titans (1981).