Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube
    • Home
    • Film Reviews
      • Films Beginning With Numbers or Symbols
      • A – C
      • D – F
      • G – I
      • J – L
      • M – O
      • P – R
      • S – U
      • V – X
      • Y – Z
    • Book Reviews
    • Franchise Corner
    • Competitions
    • HorrorScreams Podcast
    • Contact Us
    Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube

    Film Review: 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH (1957)

    Peter 'Witchfinder' HopkinsBy Peter 'Witchfinder' Hopkins13th December 2020No Comments2 Mins Read
    Share
    Facebook Twitter Email

    20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH **** USA 1957 Dir: Nathan Juran. 82 mins

    A stand-out 50’s monster movie from the director of THE DEADLY MANTIS and THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD (amongst others), this nods to the crashed alien visitor of THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, THE BLOB and THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT while also catering for the significant youth audience of these movies with a juvenile protagonist. After a typical 50’s narration, it opens in a fishing village in Sicily, where a US space rocket (the first manned flight to Venus) crashes into the Mediterranean, leaving its crew dead and washing up a cylinder discovered by local boy Pepe (Bart Braverman). Obsessed with American cowboy movies (he has a treasured hat) and yearning to go to Texas, Pepe unwittingly unleashes the creature inside, the Venusian “Ymir”, who rapidly grows due to exposure to the Earth’s atmosphere. Not ferocious unless provoked, the Ymir fights with a farmer’s dog and gets ever more monstrous while the sole survivor of the flight Colonel William Hopper (also a Col in THE BAD SEED a year earlier) flirts with “not quite a doctor” heroine Joan Taylor (who had similar thankless female lead duties on EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS).

    Following the ground-breaking success of THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS, fledgling animator Ray Harryhausen made many memorable contributions to 50’s genre films, but this is holds up as the most ambitious and exciting. The action-packed pursuit of the creature, afforded significant screen time compared to many of its lower budgeted contemporaries, is peppered with terrific set pieces – notably a brilliantly animated / edited extended battle between Ymir and an elephant against the familiar backdrop of panicking extras. It’s surprisingly bloody and brutal and precedes one of the great action climaxes of 50’s monster movies, prefiguring the 70’s disaster movie fondness for destroying international landmarks. In the tradition of KING KONG, much sympathy is generated for the monster as the military unleash their firepower while he roars from the top of the Colosseum – and the last words offer a typical lament about humanity in the post-atomic age: “Why is it always so costly for men to move from the present to the future?”

    Review by Steven West

     

    20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH is available on Amazon

     

    Facebook0Like0Share0Tweet0Pin0
    1950s movie 20 Million Miles To earth Action Adventure Fantasy Nathan Juran Ray Harryhausen

    Related Posts

    Fractured Visions presents the worldwide Blu-ray premiere of Sergio Martino’s Silent Action on Blu-ray 12 April

    19th March 202102 Mins Read
    Read More

    Crowdfunder heads out of this world for sci-fi adventure film ALIEN PLANET

    8th March 202103 Mins Read
    Read More

    Film Review: I AM TOXIC (2018)

    8th February 202103 Mins Read
    Read More

    GETAWAY Trailer Is Out Now!

    17th December 202002 Mins Read
    Read More

    Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

    Search The Website
    https://youtu.be/xvqaEFk5nUs
    HORROR SHORT STORY WRITING COMPETITION
    Recent Posts
    • New trailer released for the Sci-Fi Thriller C E R E B R U M
    • Bayview Films Re-Animates ROCK & ROLL FRANKENSTEIN on DVD
    • Bloody Good Clip from ‘I Had a Bloody Good Time at House Harker’
    • The Christopher Lee Collection Now Available from Bayview Entertainment
    • New Trailer released for the action packed horror ‘WRONG PLACE, WRONG TIME’
    Archives
    Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.