20 Million Miles to Earth

One of the great monster films of the 50's also just happens to be some of Ray Harryhausen's finest work. I caught this just as it was starting tonight on TMC and I must say they have the finest print of this I've ever seen.....mind you...it was probably the digitally remastered version released on DVD last year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of it's release....still...nice, clean and crisp as can be. As far as the story goes, it's a simple one having astronauts returning from Venus, crash landing causing an alien egg to fall into the hands a boy who sells it off to a local carnival. Egg hatches, out pops a baby Ymir who just so happens to grow really fucking big and ends up putting some serious hurt on Rome. Who cares, we're here for the Harryhausen stop-motion animation and the scene where the Ymir fights the elephant, all of it done with clay and wires, is still an amazing sight to behold. Obviously this is one for genre fans only though I think film students in general should see it at least once as the scene when the Ymir is fighting from atop the Colosseum is one of the great classics of the era.