William
Hopper, Joan Taylor, Frank Puglia , John Zaremba, Thomas Brown Henry,
Tito Vuolo , Jan Arvan.
One of special-effects wizard Ray
Harryhausen's pre-Seventh Voyage of Sinbad efforts, 20 Million Miles
to Earth borrows a few pages from King Kong. An American spaceship
crashlands off the coast of Sicily. The rescue party discovers that
the astronauts have inadvertently brought back a curious gelatinous
mass from the planet Venus. This lump of goo rapidly evolves into
be a living reptilian creature, which scientists label an "Ymir".
While being subjected to laboratory experimentation, the Ymir begins
growing by leaps and bounds, and before long the gigantic monstrosity
has escaped and is wreaking havoc in Rome. After battling a zoo
elephant and taking a swim in the Tiber, the gargantuan creature
holes up in the Colosseum, where the film's pyrotechnic finale occurs. |