Film: 20 Million Miles To Earth (1957)
Posted on: 2023-09-01Links
Discussion
I have a soft spot for old science fiction movies. I recently picked up the 50 year anniversary edition on DVD of 20 Million Miles to Earth. I'm also a fan of Ray Harryhausen, having seen his work on Sinbad growing up. 20 Million Miles is one of his earlier films.
The DVD had both the color and black and white versions. Typically I'd watch the original black and white of most films as colorization often detracts from the content. Here though I think they mostly did a great job, and to my eyes it did generally enhance the movie.
The animation of the creatures is very impressive, all the more so as this was all achieved via stop motion animation. Some of the surrounding special effects are a little weaker.
The story is early science fiction trope filled. The action moves fairly quickly, but if you pause to think about the scenario it's perhaps a little problematic. The conceit is that the US government has sent a ship to Venus, and when it returns it crashes. All of the crew die apart from our "hero" Col. Robert Calder. Both the military and Calder, step over this turn of events with hardly a word and nothing you could describe as remorse. Nobody bothers to ask why the crash happened, and Calder is christened a hero. It's somewhat unclear why. Later we have an off handed comment about the ship being hit by a errant meteor. Perhaps Clader could of avoided that, but we'll never know and no one is asking.
On the ship is a captured alien "beast". The US military/government need the creature so that they can determine how it survives in Venus's atmosphere. They need to know this because apparently there are some minerals that will be "important to our civilization". It's never described what this importance is. It apparently is important enough that the creature cannot be killed until they determine how to replicate the mechanism. This means for the majority of the film the creature runs riot destroying things and killing people, whilst our hero tries to capture it. This is all happening whilst the creature grows larger and more dangerous.
Our hero meets "nearly a doctor" Marisa Leonardo, who he is largely dismissive of right at the start of the movie. When she later apologizes (!?!) to him, he is cognizant enough of his behavior to say she doesn't need to, as he's been needlessly nasty to her. He asks if he can he take her out to dinner to apologize. This does seem to diminish his wanton dickishness, but he's still able to throw out a dismissive "I know that" later on. Hey ho. Anyway she's totally in to him now. Such is the life of a 50s hero I suppose.
The other curious part of the film is how they treat the creature. It looks like a kind of lizard man. At one point Calder points out that the creature is peaceful and will only attack if provoked. He then provokes it into a cage with a pointy stick. It's hard to know what to make of the creature aka "the beast". I mean it was captured and taken to Earth to be experimented on. So perhaps understandable it's a little pissed. When the scientists have found out what they need, killing it is all fine which they later do, after it's had a scrap with an elephant. Finding actual complex alien life would presumably be a big deal but not here though. Gotta get those minerals!
In the end the death, mayhem and destruction are an acceptable loss because of those ambiguously important minerals.
To be fair the story is fairly typical fair of it's time, even if the hero and surrounding characters are humorously problematic to modern eyes.
The main purpose of the movie is probably as a platform for Ray Harryhausens animation and special effects. In that regard it remains entertaining and impressive.