20 Million Miles to Earth

Why is it always, always so costly for Man to move from the present to the future?

20 Million Miles to Earth is written by Bob Williams and Christopher Knopf from an original treatment by Charlott Knight. The film was produced by Charles H. Schneer's Morningside Productions for Columbia Pictures and directed by Nathan H. Juran. It stars William Hopper, Joan Taylor, Frank Puglia and a Ymir, a creation by stop-motion maestro Ray Harryhausen.

The plot sees an American rocket ship on its return from a mission to Venus, crash land in the Mediterranean Sea near the Sicilian village of Gerra. Some fishermen aid the stricken ship and manage to pull free two survivors, Colonel Bob Calder and Dr. Sharman. Once Calder recovers it becomes known that an important canister brought from Venus has not been found after the crash. However, Pepe, a young fisher-boy who was present at the rescue, found the container and sold its rubbery contents to his Zoologist friend Dr. Leonardo. Whilst in the hands of Dr. Leonardo the gelatin like substance gives birth to a tiny Venusian bipedal creature called a Ymir, but it doesn't stay tiny for very long...

As the work of Dynamation legend Harryhausen got more accomplished and praised, it became a standing joke that his creatures were better actors than most of their adult co-stars. That's never more truer than with 20 Million Miles to Earth, where one of his best creations takes centre stage and acts the actors off the screen. It's also true that some, not all, of Harryhausen influenced movies are just thin clothes lines to hang his work upon. Thankfully that isn't the case here, for although it's homage a go go to King Kong, where Harryhausen hero Willis O'Brien pioneered the stop-motion process, Juran's movie has intelligence within its on the surface monster on the rampage plot.

There's nothing totally new in this genre piece about mans pursuit of more via technological advancement, the unremitting pursuit of science as a tool or...