Down through the years, I've watched all of stop-motion animation maestro Ray Harryhausen's classic monster/fantasy movies many times – all but one, that is. For reasons that I simply can't explain (especially as I've owned it on an official Columbia Tristar VHS video since April 2000 – a double-bill video, in fact, that also includes another Harryhausen b/w classic, It Came From Beneath The Sea, which I've seen on TV), I've never watched it once, until 6 January 2021. The film in question is 20 Million Miles To Earth (also released with the title The Beast From Space).
Directed by Nathan H, Juran, produced by Charles H. Schneer (famed for his many feature film collaborations with Ray), and released in 1957, this superb b/w monster movie deals with a creature brought back in eggcase form from the first-ever manned return journey to Venus. However, it soon hatches while unattended, and duly grows ever bigger and more ferocious when constantly threatened by humans and other Earth species. Eventually it goes on the rampage in Rome, causing mayhem and wholesale destruction, including turning the famous Colosseum from ancient Roman times into an even bigger ruin than it already was!
Featuring William Hopper (as the Venus spacecraft's pilot Colonel Robert Calder), Frank Puglia (elderly zoologist Dr Leonardo), and Joan Taylor (Dr Leonardo's adult granddaughter Marisa, aka Calder's love interest) as its human stars, 20 Million Miles To Earth is an engrossing movie. Certainly, it kept me thoroughly entertained for its entire 83-minute duration – which is more than I can say for many modern-day CGI-laden flicks.
Moreover, the alien creature is, as ever, designed and animated superbly by Ray. One scene, showing it battling an elephant, is very reminiscent of a more graphic version that appears in a later, full-colour Harryhausen movie, The Valley of Gwangi (1969), where it is the titular dinosaur that slays the poor unfortunate pachyderm.
Speaking of the alien creature: I've long been intrigued that it is always referred to in documentations of this film as the ymir, and especially so after now discovering that this term is never used for it anywhere in the movie. In fact, the creature is not referred to by any specific name at all in it. However, I have since been informed that Ray had originally planned to call the movie The Giant Ymir. So that is where the name is derived from, even though it was never ultimately used in the movie itself.
If you'd like to learn more about the ymir, please click here to access a detailed online account of this alien entity. And click here for an official 20 Million Miles To Earth trailer on YouTube to whet your appetite. Also worthy of note is that a colorized version of this movie now exists (in which the ymir is green in hue), produced with Ray's assistance in 2007 and released later that same year on DVD – definitely one for me to look out for!
A few days after watching 20 Million Miles To Earth on my Ray Harryhausen double-bill video, I watched its other classic b/w monster movie by Ray, It Came From Beneath The Sea, because many years had passed since I'd last watched this cryptozoology-themed film, on TV.
Directed by Robert Gordon, again produced by Charles H. Schneer, and released in 1955, the 'it' in It Came From Beneath The Sea is a gargantuan octopus, one that as a result of nearby hydrogen bomb activity has been forced out into open waters from its previous deepsea seclusion within the Philippine Trench at the bottom of the western North Pacific Ocean. Moreover, it is now not only a physical danger to swimmers and vessels in the area, but because of said hydrogen bomb activity it is also radioactive. Step forward the US Military, led by Commander Pete Mathews (played by Kenneth Tobey), in conjunction with a team of marine biologists headed by Prof. Lesley Joyce (Faith Domergue), in a bold bid to dispatch the maritime menace before it lays waste to San Francisco Bay and the city itself.
So far so good, but unfortunately much of this promising movie is devoted to what soon becomes very tedious, long-drawn-out romantic interplay between the two lead characters, not to mention what by today's standards includes some jaw-dropping male chauvinism and patronizing behaviour by the (not so) good Commander to the besotted Prof. Speaking of whom: despite being supposedly the world expert in her field, she seems almost incapable of offering any response other than "I don't know" when asked for her opinion concerning anything remotely marine biological or for her prediction as to what the tentacle-brandishing behemoth is likely to do next. So it is the Commander who makes all of the brave, vital decisions instead, whereas the Prof. tends merely to shriek a lot when faced with danger.
Ah well, as I've said elsewhere, it's pointless criticizing the content of movies from long-bygone times by referencing present-day mores and niceties. The world has changed since then, and will continue to change for as long as it exists. Far better simply to acknowledge the truth of what is succinctly stated in a famous quote from L.P. Hartley's celebrated 1953 novel The Go-Between: "The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there".
Unsurprisingly, by far the best thing in It Came From the Sea is the monster that did. Namely, Ray's giant octopus, which is why it is so frustrating that this colossal cephalopod barely makes an appearance until the second half of the movie. Actually, I call it an octopus, but technically it is a hexapus, because it only sports six tentacles instead of the eight that are obligatory for an octopus to live up to its name. However, its limited limb count was due not to an unfortunate oversight but rather to a deliberate decision by Ray, who rightly felt that it would be difficult enough to animate six independently moving tentacles by stop-motion techniques, let alone eight. And to be fair, the scenes in which the octopus, or hexapus, is most clearly visible are more than sufficiently action-packed for any but the most zoologically-pedantic of viewers (i.e. moi) to notice that there are only six tentacles flailing about in the fray.
Of the two movies on this Ray Harryhausen double-bill video, in my opinion 20 Million Miles To Earth is by far the superior one. Even so, It Came From Beneath The Sea is well worth watching too, especially the octopus scenes, which show Ray's genius at work in classic, inimitable style as ever. Moreover, as with the former movie, there is now a colorized version of it to look out for too. Finally, if you'd like to watch an octopus-featuring excerpt from this monster movie, just click here to view a colorized one on YouTube.
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Ah, a colorized version would be worthwhile although the action and dialog carry the movie well. The farmer with a pitchfork was brave and foolish. The octopus grabbing the clock tower in San Francisco was exciting to watch.
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