Die Bestie aus dem Weltenraum

I saw this gem in 1957 at the Vineland Drive In, La Puente, California (which still exists! Saw Hellboy there last night.) The creature was so believable it scared me into peeking from beneath a blanket. I was eleven. I was hooked. Sci-Fi rules. Harryhausen's work is amazing and reason enough to seek it out. I was thrilled to discover it is available on DVD, and disappointed that some TV stations cut the elephant/creature fight scene for fear of upsetting animal rights folks. I will definitely find that DVD - and thanks to someone for noting the Full screen version is best, the "Wide-screen" is actually cropped top and bottom. I wanna see it all!

Let's state the obvious right off the bat. If it weren't for the stop-motion animation in this film, it would be simply awful. Awful acting, awful script, mediocre direction, this film has it all.

But once the monster appears on screen, none of that matters. Ray Harryhausen's animation is, as always, simply spellbinding, giving the monster, paradoxically, both a heightened reality (as it really is a physical object photographed in "real life") and a dreamlike quality. It's easy to see how Harryhausen's work set the standards for monster special effects until Star Wars and computer animation came along many years later.

This film is a particularly good example of his work for a number of reasons. There's only one monster (unlike the Sinbad/Jason/Titans movies), so all his effort is spent on that one "character". The monster also starts out small and grows huge by the end of the movie, allowing us to see it in a variety of settings. And, the fact that it's a humanoid (rather than a dinosaur or big octopus) allows it to "act" in a much more expressive manner (not unlike the original Kong).

So while this movie may qualify as little more than "MST3K" fodder as a science fiction work (did I mention how truly awful the script is?), as a piece of animation, it's a pure classic, deserving a space on your shelf next to King Kong, Snow White and Fantasia.

Or should I say, Ray Harryhausen's creature IS the film. Compared to the creature, the human habitants here don't have a chance to emote and are only what one might charitably call "adequate" to the task.

WILLIAM HOPPER lacks the energy and personality he put into playing Paul Drake in all those "Perry Mason" TV movies. He appears to be almost immobilized and never changes his expression, even when the creature is doing maximum damage to the surroundings. JOAN TAYLOR is quite forgettable as "the girl", a woman who tells Hopper that she's "almost a doctor", when introducing herself. She's almost an actress too.

But nobody is going to give a whit about the acting in this sort of thing, so I'm happy to report that the frightful looking bit of slime that turns into a fast-growing creature with a human torso and scaly skin is extremely well animated by Harryhausen, who creates some very realistic looking fight scenes and displays of temper as the creature goes on the loose. There's an awful lot of screaming going on, both from the creature and the spectators who run into him.

Helpful too is the fact that this was filmed in Italy, where the action takes place, and there's a terrific climax shot in the Roman Coliseum where the creature finally meets his fate.

For the child in all of us, this is terrific fun--but just don't expect much from the human cast. The story is absurd and follows the usual sci-fi pattern of keeping you glued to your seat just to see how it all turns out.

This is a simple enough film. Rocket returning from Venus crashes near Sicily and a foetal thing grows to become a giant lizardy humanoid type thing. The acting is ordinary and the script predictable.

What makes it better than average for a 1950s monster movie is the Ray Harryhausen animated Venusian, called a Ymir here. Photographed in atmospheric black and white, its progress from small caged creature to being loose and dangerous on the streets of Rome and fighting an elephant is engrossing. You can't help rooting for the Ymir, attacked along the way by dogs and soldiers. The Ymir becomes a character like Frankenstein's creation or the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Excellent work by Harryhausen, and far more interesting than the CGI dinosaurs from Spielberg's over praised (and underwhelming) Jurassic Park trilogy.

I have to admit I was drawn to this because it was set in Sicily, but they really never got far from Rome.

It is a significant film for the fact that special effects were done by Ray Harryhausen, who has a cameo in the film (watch for the man feeding the elephant at the zoo.).

William Hopper, who played Perry Mason's assistant Paul Drake, will be a familiar face for those who grew up during the 50's and 60's. Joan Taylor was also on TV a lot during those years. They both have a rich sci-fi history in films like Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, "Men Into Space", and Conquest of Space.

The little Godzilla-like monster from Venus is the focus of the film as they try to find and capture it. Of course, Hooper knows all about the creature when facing it. Such plot holes would raise howls of derision today, but it was common in the films of the 50's.

An enjoyable reach into the past with a film that entertains more than a lot of the DTV we see today.