20 Million Miles to Earth

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20 Million Miles to Earth
50th Anniversary Edition DVD cover.
Directed by	Nathan H. Juran
Produced by	Charles H. Schneer
Written by	Bob Williams Christopher Knopf
Starring	William Hopper Joan Taylor Frank Puglia
Cinematography	Irving Lippman Carlo Ventimiglia
Editing by	Edwin Bryant
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	June 1957 (U.S.)
Running time	82 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
IMDb profile

20 Million Miles to Earth is a American 1957 science fiction film written 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 and directed by Nathan H. Juran. As with several other Schneer-Columbia collaborations, it was developed to showcase the stop-motion animation talents of Ray Harryhausen. The film stars William Hopper, Joan Taylor and Frank Puglia, and features Thomas Brown Henry and John Zaremba.

1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production
4 Colorized version
5 Miscellany
6 See also
7 Notes
8 External links

[edit] Plot

The first manned spaceship to visit Venus, launched by the USA, returns to Earth and crash lands into the sea off a small Sicilian fishing village. The surviving crewmen are rescued by some fishermen and taken to the local hotel, where a visiting American scientist's daughter (played by Joan Taylor), a medical student, tends to them. One crewman, the ship's doctor, dies, leaving behind his notebook; the other crewman, Col. Robert Calder (played by William Hopper), survives and takes up the quest to find a specimen brought from Venus. Meanwhile, the specimen, shrouded in a jelly within its metal cylinder, washed ashore and was found by a excitable young local boy, who sold it to the visiting scientist. Overnight, however, the egg hatches a bipedal, reptile-like Venusian creature with a manlike torso, 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. An apparent vegetarian, the creature attacks only when provoked. It goes on a rampage through the countryside and is captured in a net (to which it is lured by sulfur, which it natively eats back home on Venus), eventually taken to the city of Rome, by which time it is the height of a two-story building. After escaping and killing an elephant, the monster goes on a rampage. The American and Italian military authorities combine to stop the menace—which in fact is an innocent animal that is not understood—trapping it atop the Colosseum, whence it loses its footing while under bazooka fire and tumbles to its death.

[edit] Cast

William Hopper as Col. Robert Calder
Joan Taylor as Marisa Leonardo
Frank Puglia as Dr. Leonardo
John Zaremba as Dr. Judson Uhl
Thomas Browne Henry as Maj. Gen. A.D. McIntosh
Tito Vuolo as Police Commissioner Charra
Jan Arvan as Contino (government official)
Arthur Space as Dr. Sharman
Bart Braverman as Pepe

Cast notes

Ray Harryhausen makes an uncredited appearance as a man feeding an elephant in the zoo.

[edit] Production

The Ymir

20 Million Miles to Earth was in production in Rome, Italy in September 1956, using only William Hopper of the main cast, and in the U.S. from 30 October to 9 November of that year.^[1] Rome was chosen as the location for filming because Harryhausen wanted to vacation there.^[2] The working title of the film was The Giant Ymir,^[3] and it has also been released as The Beast from Space. In the released version of the film, the creature is never referred to by name, as Harryhausen was concerned that audiences might confuse "Ymir" with the Arabic title "Emir".

[edit] Colorized version

Ray Harryhausen wanted the film to be shot in color, but the filmmakers were not given a budget large enough to accommodate color film. In 2007, Harryhausen worked with restoration and colorization company Legend Films to create a colorized version of the film. That version, along with the original theatrical black & white version, was released as part of a 50th Anniversary Edition of the film on July 31, 2007.^[4]^[5]

[edit] Miscellany

The actual distance between Earth and Venus varies. The closest approach of the two planets is approximately 23.7 million miles, while the greatest possible distance is 162.2 million miles.

In Norse mythology, Ymir (not the Ymir) was a giant of unimaginable size who lay frozen in ice at the beginning of time. The universe was created from Ymir's body by Odin, king of the Norse pantheon, and his two brothers.

The Ymir bears striking physical similarity to another Harryhausen creation, the Kraken, from 1981's Clash of the Titans. The names of both of these creatures were taken from Norse mythology, employed in wholly unrelated contexts.