Violence/Gore: None at all really; most of the damage done to and by the creature is pretty bloodless.

Sex/Nudity: Look at the date and ask that again.

Best Line: “Why is it always - always so costly for Man to move from the present into the future?”

Score:

After a cheesy opening speech about the dawn of the “atomic age,” we quickly move to a rousing spaceship crash. The eerie image of an enormous rocket sinking in the Mediterranean sea while a rowboat nearby provides scale reminded me of the painted comic book art of a classic UK sci-fi strip called “The Trigan Empire.” But as that’s a pretty arcane reference, we’ll move on. While the locals dutifully contact the US to let them know that one of their own experimental craft has come down with only two survivors (one of whom perishes quickly), a resourceful little thief named Pepe nabs a strange sample canister, inexplicably opens the damned thing, handles the creepy gelatinous thing inside it (because of course strange alien or unknown material sealed in canisters with warning labels are never harmful when held against human skin), and then promptly sells it to a nearby zoologist. Between the embarrassing stock accents and generally simple-minded behavior of the locals, and of course the avaricious narrow-mindedness of little Pepe, it’s a wonder 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH didn’t set back US/Italian relations by decades. And enough with the damn Texas cowboys already! Somebody give that kid a smack.

While the sole survivor of the crash proves himself to be a real bastard when it comes to professional women (he persists in calling the progressive female doctor and colleague of the zoologist “nurse"), the gelatinous thing reveals itself to be an egg containing a Venusian life form. That’s right, folks - in total secrecy and with only a year or so of travel time, a gargantuan American spacecraft traveled to and from Venus and brought back one egg while losing every crew member aboard - well, every crew member except the misogynist with the tobacco addiction (more on that later).

The movie boasts some amusing back projection work, and not just when the creature is on screen - despite location work, there are lots of studio-bound shots on the water and elsewhere. There are also familiar elements that Harryhausen and producer/partner Charles Schneer would return to in numerous other movies. In fact, the young Italian huckster Pepe is trotted out again many years later and renamed Lope for VALLEY OF GWANGI, thus allowing Harryhausen and Schneer to re-use the reliable “li’l troublemaker” concept and offend another ethnicity at the same time.

And as with many other monster rampage epics of the ’50s, the role of the military/government is often laugh out loud funny. While the entire Venusian operation was carried out in total secrecy, they’re all too happy to spill the beans to some nobody local police chief just to get a salvage team together. Of course, we also have the tried and true cigarette-laden press conference scene, in which the army helpfully provides all the Joe Reporters from Central Casting with sensitive information about the trip and the evil monster here to destroy us all. And when the local police vow to hunt the creature down and destroy him, our forces just stand around helplessly and hope that they can find the creature before the Italian authorities do. Does anyone really believe that the US military would just let some cops gun down the single most important discovery in human history just because they claim local jurisdiction? Ah, the naive 1950s.

20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH is fondly regarded as a classic - many recall the elephant fight scene in particular, or the conclusion atop the Coliseum - but it’s often slow and occasionally uncomfortable to watch such a shameless persecution of another living thing just because he’s “the other;” of course, that was one of America’s favorite ’50s film themes. The real triumph of this somewhat flat sci-fi romp, however, is the creature itself, certainly one of Ray Harryhausen’s greatest character designs, and a clear influence on much of his later work. One scene in which the creature stalks toward the camera in a dimly lit barn can give a sufficiently sensitive viewer goose bumps, but ultimately the creature comes across more as a pathetic victim of human fear than as a dangerous marauder. His birth from the gelatin egg and subsequent eye rubbing when the lights are turned on introduces him to us as a helpless, dare I say ‘cute’ little critter. Although he grows to quite a size and causes a lot of property damage, it’s only after he’s been pushed into it by a number of insensitive, barbaric humans.

The creature (often referred to by fans by its off-camera name, the Ymir) is an even more tragic figure than King Kong, who admittedly kills a lot of people. This creature is born into an environment in which he does not belong, is hounded and hunted from day one, attacked without reason, and tortured until he can’t take anymore. The poor creature is confused, frightened, and even under extreme duress injures other living things but does not kill them. At the very end of the movie, he appears to deliberately cause the death of two soldiers with a hurled stone, but given everything he’s been through, I think that shows remarkable restraint. You don’t see the phalanx of troops with the bazookas and flamethrowers holding back at all. At one point, an official notes that if he isn’t caught, the creature will kill hundreds, perhaps thousands. Um…how exactly is he going to manage that? All he really seems to want to do is chew on sulfur - his preferred cuisine. Hell, he doesn’t even eat any animals!

There’s a completely ludicrous and inexplicable romantic subplot that doesn’t even belong in the film - our ‘nurse’ friend must be one of those women attracted to the ‘bad boy’ abusive types, as a life with the Walking Chimney could only result in endless verbal and emotional abuse and eventual suicide or massive drug use. But that’s a story for another B picture, perhaps shot by Ed Wood or Roger Corman.

DVD Extras: Besides the trailer, the DVD features two small documentaries: “The Harryhausen Chronicles” and “This is Dynamation.” As with other recent Harryhausen DVD releases, the featurettes are not over-long but pleasant supplements to the film.

ATB