20 Million Miles to Earth (1957)

This is a nice example of the fifties monster movie. Like "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" and "The Giant Behemoth," we have a lizard like thing that hatches and launches and attack on Rome. William Hopper (Hedda's boy and Perry Mason's investigator) is the central figure here. While the plot is pedestrian, Ray Harreyhausen's monster is a sight to behold. With stop action animation, it squirms and writhes as it tries to dominate its new habitat. You have to feel sorry for these guys. They are merely acting like wild animals (although the propensity for knocking down buildings seems to be a problem). Anyway, as the creature gets bigger and bigger, we watch it to its climax atop the Rome Coliseum.

It's probably being picky, but it wouldn't have been too much trouble for the film makers to find out that the closest Earth and Venus ever get depending on where they are in their respective orbits, is about twenty six million miles. Oh well, I guess they rounded down to come up with the title.I always get a kick out of these 1950's era sci-fi and monster flicks, doing the best they could with whatever the story writers came up with. I had to laugh when Colonel Calder (William Hopper) warned the others on the monster chase that the creature only got ferocious when provoked, at which point he poked him with a stick and beat him with a shovel. I wonder how he thought that was going to work out. And while I'm reading here that the beast was called an Ymir, I never heard it referred to by that name, nor did I see it come up in captioning as I watched the picture. If anyone could help on that score I'd appreciate it.As for the creature itself, it was a pretty cool Harryhausen creation, with that neat appearing handlebar mustache that really topped off the look. The battle against the elephant went a full three out of five falls if you were counting, by which time the Venusian beast was fully realized due to Earth's atmosphere. I'm not quite sure how Calder determined that the creature was susceptible to electric shock; it could have been a good guess but when they specified it took just the right eighteen hundred volts to keep it tranquilized, I knew they had to be making this all up on the fly.But you know what - none of the silly science stuff matters if you go for this grade B stuff from the Fifties. In a way, the picture seemed to be an ode of sorts to a couple other classic favorites of mine from the gorilla genre. When the Ymir broke the giant metal clamp pinning him to the lab table it reminded me of Mighty Joe Young, and the creature's death summoned up the way King Kong died in the original. If I ever get tired of this stuff, just throw one of those electrified nets over and haul me off.

If you enjoy crazy "rampaging monster" movies from the 1950s, then 20 Million Miles To Earth is sure to give you an extra-satisfying adrenaline rush with its top-notch special effects by Ray Harryhausen.As the story goes - The 1st spaceship to Venus crashes into the sea off the coast of Sicily. Its only 2 survivors are its pilot and a fast-growing Venusian monster who doesn't hesitate to fight back when frightened.With an intelligent, fast-paced script - This Creature Feature's wild climax takes place at a showdown between monster and man in the Colosseum in Rome.20 Million Miles To Earth's running time is only 82 minutes.

This was billed on the "Movies!" TV channel as a "popcorn" movie, and that it is. Nothing at all to take seriously, just a mostly fun B&W sci- fi movie typical of the 1950s.The first thing that struck me was the idea of a space mission to the planet Venus. The atmosphere at the surface of Venus exerts about the same pressure as being under water 3000 feet on Earth, a pressure that would crush most things. Plus the surface is generally in the 800 to 900 degree F range. A very inhospitable place, not likely ever to be visited.But this is a fantasy sci-fi story, I didn't get hung up on that very long and just went with it. To the credit of the writers they explained a few things to make it seem somewhat plausible.The movie starts with two men and a boy in a small fishing boat off Sicily. They look up to see a pointy spaceship in obvious distress that crash-lands into the sea, point down it remains afloat just long enough to let them rescue the commander and to see that there were few survivors.The young boy is a western and Texas fan, he wants a big hat and a horse, and finds things to sell to the local biologist to raise funds. Ashore he finds a USAF cylinder on land and, instead of revealing his discovery, takes the gelatinous contents to the biologist. Inside is the embryo of a creature from Venus which, after exposure to earth's atmosphere grows at a fantastically rapid rate. So much so that it cannot be contained and becomes a threat to all of Italy.As movies like this go the humans eventually figure out a way to prevail, in the meantime the entertainment is to see the monster wreak havoc and the Earthlings avoid death. The final scenes playing out in the ruins of an old Roman coliseum, military shooting big weapons at the now very large alien species. At the end one general says, "Why is it so difficult to move from the present to the future?" Definitely a "B" movie but entertaining as a representative of the 1950s sci-fi movies.