20 Million Miles to Earth
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20 Million Miles to Earth is an 82-minute 1957 black and white science fiction film scripted by Bob Williams and Christopher Knopf from an original treatment by Charlott Knight. It was produced by Charles H. Schneer's Morningside Productions for Columbia Pictures Corp. and directed by Fred F. Sears. It was developed as a piece to showcase the stop-motion animation talents of Ray Harryhausen, as with several other Schneer-Columbia collaborations. This film starred William Hopper as a U.S. Army colonel, Joan Taylor as a scientist's daughter, Frank Puglia as her father, and featured Thomas Brown Henry and John Zaremba as another military officer and scientist, respectively.
Synopsis
The first manned spaceship to visit Venus, launched by the USA, returns to Earth and crash lands into the sea off a small Italian fishing village. The surviving crewman is rescued by some fishermen and taken to the local hotel, where a visiting American scientist's daughter, formerly an Army nurse, tries to tend to him. By the time American military officials reach the village, the astronaut is dying; however, he lives long enough to advise the colonel-in-charge that he and his colleagues found an "egg" from some form of Venusian life and brought it back with them. A search of the ship turns up nothing. The egg has washed ashore and been found by a young local boy, who sells it to the young woman's father. Overnight, however, the egg hatches a bipedal reptile-like Venusian creature which just as quickly begins to grow. It is placed in a cage by the scientist, but shortly becomes big enough and strong enough to free itself. It goes on a rampage through the countryside and is captured, eventually taken to the city of Rome, by which time it is the height of a two-story building. After escaping and fighting with an elephant, the Ymir goes on a rampage. The American and Italian military authorities combine to stop the menace, which in fact is an innocent animal who is not understood.
Trivia
Although the creature was named an "Ymir" in the treatment, it is never actually called anything in the film itself, as Harryhausen was worried that audiences would confuse Ymir with the Arabic title Emir.The film is supposedly also known as "The Beast from Space" and "The Giant Ymir", but in what context is unknown and, in fact, these reported alternate titles cannot be confirmed.
External links
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