20 Million Miles to Earth

One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to watch 20 movies from various critics’ lists. One was Robert Mclaughlin of Den of Geek’s “The Top 100 TV and Movie Monsters.” I have seem most of the list but missed a few of the notable monsters, including #70 Ymir, from 20 Million Miles to Earth.

This proved to be a case when the monster was much better than the movie.

The plot starts out with narration similar to to what was used in Plan 9 from Outer Space, only as a voice over instead of featuring the great Criswell.

It cuts to a group of bickering Sicilian fishermen. Soon they witness a giant spaceship crash into the sea. They investigate and discover bodies inside.

Apparently an entire Venus expedition by the U.S. Air Force was kept secret and American authorities kept quiet about a spaceship the size of an aircraft carrier plummeting out of control over Europe. Lucky it didn’t come down in China.

Once he recuperated, the leader of the mission took it upon himself to berate the doctor who attended him because she was one of them “lady doctors.” He ignored what she said and repeated variations of “Stand still and be quiet!” and “Quiet!”

I was pretty sure this would lead to her falling in love with him and I was right. Later, she apologized to him for talking but, surprisingly, he apologized back for being a jerk. That may not sound like much but that was progressive for the era.

The story picks up when Pepe, a Sicilian boy obsessed with Texas and cowboys, found a tube with an embryo alien inside. When released, the embryo grew to monstrous size. The Ymir is by far the best part of the movie

Pepe and the Italian characters weren’t pasta chefs or in the Mafia, but…there were moments.

When informed about the ship, one said, “Venus? You mean Venice?”

While the Ymir looks better than this movie deserved, it didn’t mesh well with background except for a scene with a flamethrower. I’m guessing Ray Harryhausen was in charge of that scene and Edwin Bryant, the editor, merged the footage for the others.

My dad served in Korea and objects when movies use weapons from wrong years or portray them incorrectly (“The recoil would have knocked him over!” “That rifle only held 30 rounds!”). I’ve never seen him say a movie used a flamethrower correctly but I think this one actually did.

Shortly after the flamethrower, the army dropped an electric net on the alien. To make it seem like it was being electrocuted, the footage was sped up, making it look like something from the Three Stooges. That undid the positivity from the flamethrower scene.

What the movie is most famous for is the fight between Ymir and an elephant. It’s one of Harryhausen’s greatest fights overall and it holds up today. Although Ymir beat the elephant, he left it alive (Ymir was meant to be a peaceful creature taken to a planet it wasn’t adapted for). The elephant is still noticeably breathing at the end of the scene.

After growing even larger, the army used bazookas and heavy artillery to fight Ymir in the Roman Colosseum. Tourism never recovered after the extensive architectural damage.

At the very end of the movie as Ymir is sprawled dead, a character eulogized it with “Why is it always–always–so costly for man to move from the present to the future?”

Not as catchy as “Beauty killed the beast.”

All in all, most elements of the movie were grade C at best. The actors playing the Sicilian fishermen at beginning gave the strongest performances. In Rifftrax, Mary Jo Pehl and Bridget Nelson often mock Richard Carlson (star of Creature from the Black Lagoon and It Came from Outer Space) but Carlson was a dynamo compared to the actors here.

The background music sounded like what is used in lulls during Loony Tunes. That’s not a joke–it sounded like the exact music. I’m not sure if it was public domain but the music budget must have been sparse.

The one saving grace was the Ymir, especially in the elephant fight. Ray Harryhausen’s alien deserved a better movie than this one. The Ymir looked like a terrestrial version of the Kracken from Clash of the Titans and dominated every scene it was in.

Although most of the movie is what Homer Simpson would call “serviceable,” the Ymir makes it worth seeing (you could fast-forward through non-Ymir scenes and not lose anything). “A+” to Ray Harryhausen; repeat a grade for everyone else.