Classic Horrors Club

What I always remember about 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957) is the little boy, Pepe, played by Bart Bradley. He’s a shrewd, business-minded child always looking for an angle. He’s also annoying. He opens a canister washed up on the beach of an Italian fishing village after a rocket ship returns from a mission to Venus and crashes in the ocean. He sells the contents to a local zoologist, Dr. Leonardo (Frank Puglia) for enough to buy a cowboy hat, then shows General McIntosh (Thomas Browne Henry) where he found it for half a million lira. (That was only about 80 U.S. dollars.)

What I always forget is that he soon disappears and the movie isn’t really made for children. Once a reptilian creature emerges from the substance in Dr. Leonardo’s possession, then rapidly grows in size, it becomes more serious. The “Ymir” as it’s now known, is captured and held for study at the zoo, but an accident allows it to escape and wreak havoc on a path to Rome. The events evoke King Kong (1933), but the Ymir isn’t nearly as big and doesn’t have a romantic interest.

Sceenwriters Robert Creighton Williams and Christopher Knopf leave the mushy stuff to one of the astronauts from the rocket ship, Col. Robert Calder (William Hopper)m and Dr. Leonardo’s daughter, nurse Marisa (Joan Taylor.) They meet cute at the hospital when he’s being stubborn about his recovery. When he realizes he’ll be working with her tracking the Ymir, he apologizes and soon invites her to dinner. They have good chemistry and the obligatory subplot evolves organically after it’s forced beginning.

Director Nathan Juran was familiar with giant creatures. He directed The Deadly Mantis the same year and would direct Attack of the 50 Foot Woman a year later. He also became familiar with the real behind the scenes star of the movie, Ray Harryhausen. Post-20 Million Miles to Earth, he’d work with him on The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) and First Men in the Moon (1964.) Juran was a hit-or-miss director, but Harryhausen and his creatures brought out the best in him. That depends, I guess, upon how much you like The Brain from Planet Arous (1957.)

I enjoy this movie more each time I watch it. It clips along at a brisk pace for 82 minutes, leaving Pepe in the background, as well as the fishermen who aren’t afraid to step inside the gaping hole of a rocket ship that lands near them in the water. Why Italy, though? There’s nothing about the story that requires the location. You see, Harryhausen already had enough clout at the time to change the shooting location at the last minute because he always wanted to take a vacation there, but couldn’t afford it. Good for you, Ray!