20 million miles to earth (cinema history class)

Session: Giant Monster Month, week 2
Movie: 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957)
Directed by Nathan Juran
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL

Plot:
A mysterious animal, brought back from venus and accidentally let loose, is growing at an alarming rate and rampaging through Italy. Hilarity ensues.

Reaction:
There are some ways that this movie is extraordinary. The alien's movement (and some other things) was achieved through stop-motion animation. Given the movie's vintage, and what was generally being done when it was made, this was done remarkably well. There is a little bit of jerkiness to the monster's movement, but not a whole lot. On the other hand, I found a lot of the blue screen effects to be jarring. In the film's defense, Dave pointed out that that's a result of the extra clarity renderred on the DVD. When it was shown in theatres (and, later, on TV) it would have looked less conspicuous.

Putting aside the technical marvels, this was a decent narrative. In some ways, it was an update of King Kong (Joe correctly pointed that out).  And like that earlier movie, this one makes you sympathize with the monster. He was kidnapped on his won planet and brought to earth. Once here, he still seems to want to get along. But the damn humans just won't leave him alone. The humans really are the monsters here. In some ways it reminded me of that episode of Twilight Zone with Agnes Moorehead. Where she, silently and alone, tries to fend off invading space aliens.

But, while it was a good story, I didn't find it to be as compelling as The Monster Who Challenged the World.

I couldn't help marveling at how much the creature reminded me of the Gorn. Though he was much better done. But, in a subsequent email, Sean noted that it looked like several different monsters from different movies. I guess he was just...monstrous.

One thing that struck a chord was the long climactic battle at the Coliseum. I have often thought about the struggles and issues of fighting a war among historically significant ruins. The walls around the old city of Jerusalem are pockmarked by bullet holes from the many wars fought there.

Finally, one thing that bothered me -- in a minor way -- was the fact that they inserted exposition to explain why the monster was growing so fast. It was some gobbledygook about the earth's atmosphere. Seems to me they should have left that out. Until that point, I was just assuming it was growing fast because that's what members of its species do. That seemed more believable to me than the explanation that was given. I pointed that out in our after-discussion. Keith called me out, claiming that, if they hadn't given that explanation, I would be complaining -- "how the hell was he growing that fast." And the rest of the class agreed with him. The bastards.

Well, they're all wrong. I was happy assuming that the monster's species simply grows fast. I found their explanation distracting and annoying. So fuck everyone else in the class.

The ratings:

• Joe: 9.8
• Dave: 9.5 to 9.6
• Sean 3 (on a scale of 1 - 4)
• Scott: 8.5
• Ethan: 8
• Me: 8

20 Million Miles to Earth fails the Bechdel Test.