Notable neither for its director nor its stars, 20 Million Miles to Earth has been given the widescreen spit 'n' polish treatment because of its special-effects man, the legendary Ray Harryhausen. And it's his work here that makes this daft slice of hokum so watchable. When a group of Italian boat fishermen investigate a crash-landed space rocket returned from a trip to Venus, they find one surviving all-American hero and an alien in aspic: the Emere, a tiny homunculus hungry for sulphur and growing faster than a teenager on steroids. Cue man-vs-alien mayhem, screenfuls... of avuncular patriarchs and the gratuitous destruction of Rome. A by-numbers B-movie, Harryhausen's sixth feature isn't a patch on his later Technicolor masterpieces, but the unusual Italian setting ("I wanted a trip to Europe") adds an exotic quality and his effects are as solid and convincing as ever. The film only really begins to crackle when his stop-motion creation is onscreen. Like a scaly King Kong, he's as likely to engender sympathy as fear: surely anyone who's been bombed, blasted, burnt, electrocuted, shot at by trigger-happy squaddies and involved in a punch-up with a pachyderm is entitled to lose their rag a little. And fans will enjoy spotting in the Emere the flowerings of Harryhausen's later and greater creations, Sinbad's Cyclops and The Titans' Calibos and Kraken. The denouement, with the creature atop the Colosseum, is as effective as that of Kong's. It wasn't beauty who killed the beast here, however, it was bombs. On the DVD: 20 Million Miles to Earth's black and white picture is clean and crisp in this anamorphic 1.85:1 widescreen transfer, and the Dolby digital mono soundtrack is clear enough. The theatrical trailer will please fans of kitsch, as will the featurette "This Is Dynamation" produced at the same time as the first Sinbad movie. The real corker here, though, is the generously lengthed documentary "The Harryhausen Chronicles". Narrated by Leonard Nimoy, this features a stellar cast of devotees (George Lucas among them) waxing lyrical about the influence of Harryhausen's films, and allows the man himself to ramble fascinatingly over clips of his filmic canon. The claw-slash menu marker is a nice touch, too. If you're a fan, this disc is Harryhausen heaven. --Paul Eisinger [show more]
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Script & Special Effects.
The screenplay of this classic picture is fast pace, and it is full of exceptional special effects by Ray Harryhausen and this is when this 'classic' motion picture comes into its own with the creature called the Ymir and the chaos he creates on earth. It must be remembered that this classic motion picture was made long, long before the advent of computer generated images and relied of the skills and inventiveness of Ray Harryhausen and his team.
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'B' Picture Entertainment.
"20 Million Miles to Earth" is pure 'B' Picture entertainment, owing all of its success entirely to Harryhausen's stop motion animation with the Ymir. Persons such as Ray Harryhausen were skilful in their respective fields having learned their craft via long apprenterships in the motion picture film studios. "20 Million Miles To Earth" was made in glorious black and white because the budget was unable to cover the cost of shooting this motion picture in colour.
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Footage Utilised Previously.
The shots of galaxies and two planets seen during the opening credits sequence, are 'stock footage' taken from original motion picture:- "The Day The Earth Stood Still" (USA - 1951).
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Master Animator's Cameo Roles.
Master animator, Ray Harryhausen has two cameo roles in this motion picture:- as a man feeding peanuts to the elephant that later battles the Ymir. He did so because the actor scheduled to play the part didn't show up. He later appears in a crowd fleeing the zoo.
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The Ymir.
Though the creature is referred to as the Ymir in reviews and on various internet web sites, the actual name is never mentioned in the motion picture because Ray Harryhausen was concerned that audiences would mistake it for the Arabic title "Emir". The Ymir roars in the film are variations of elephant roars sped up and modulated in pitches at different rates.
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Recalled Seeing This 'Classic' In 'Sunday Cinema'
I recall seeing this film during 'Sunday Cinema' screenings, during the 1960's era in the former 'Astoria' cinema, West End, Terrace/ Bishop's Place, Ebbw Vale, Monmouthshire, South Wales.
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50th Anniversary Available On D.V.D.
"20 Million Miles To Earth" is now available on D.V.D. Region 1. & Region 2. From play.com. For value for money I suggest you purchase the Region 1. Special Anniversary Edition which contains a colorised version of this classic motion picture. This realised the dream of Ray Harryhausen, because, he had originally planned to shoot this motion picture in colour by the financial budget prevented him from doing so.
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Please note this is a region 2 DVD and will require a region 2 or region free DVD player in order to play Out-Of-Space Creature Invades the Earth! In '20 Million Miles to Earth&39; a US army rocket ship returning from an exploratory flight to Venus crashes into the sea of Sicily freeing a small native Venusian creature called the Ymir Eventually growing to enormous size it threatens the city of Rome Actors William Hopper Joan Taylor Thomas Browne Henry Frank Puglia John Zaremba & Jan Arvano Director Nathan Juran Certificate PG Year 1957 Screen Widescreen 1851 Anamorphic Languages German Italian English - Dolby Digital (10) Mono Subtitles Arabic Bulgarian Czech Danish Dutch English Finnish German Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Italian Norwegian Polish Portugese Swedish Turkish Closed Captions Yes Duration 1 hour and 19 minutes (approx)
A US army rocket returning to Earth, from a mission to Venus, crash lands in the Mediterranean. The surviving astronaut has brought back an egg from Venus which hatches, producing a fast-growing monster. With special effects by Ray Harryhausen.
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