Jackson Booth-Millard
I found out about this film because I knew it featured the genius stop-motion special effects animation of Ray Harryhausen, and it is well known for having one of his most famous monster creations, so I was looking forward to seeing it, directed by Nathan Juran (Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, First Men in the Moon). Basically a spaceship crash lands in the ocean off the coast of Sperlonga, Italy, fishermen witness the crash and row to the wreck to investigate, before the ship starts sinking they pull out two spacemen. After this spaceship has been discovered, Major General A.D. McIntosh (Thomas Browne Henry) travels from Washington, D.C. to the site in Sicily, meanwhile a little boy named Pepe (Bart Bradley, or Bart Braverman) finds a metal capsule on the beach, which came from the spaceship. The boys opens up the capsule, inside is a jelly-like mass, he sells this to zoologist Dr. Leonardo (Frank Puglia), who studies sea creatures, the doctor's granddaughter Marisa (Joan Taylor), a medical student, is summoned to care for the injured spacemen. The spaceship pilot, Colonel Bob Calder (William Hopper), regains consciousness, while the other surviving crew mate, Dr. Sharman (Arthur Space) has a convulsion of a fatal disease that killed many of the men aboard the spaceship. The jelly-like mass hatches out a small creature (an Ymir), Marisa returns to the trailer she shares with her grandfather, he locks the creature in a cage, by the morning it triples in size. McIntosh arrives, accompanied by scientist Dr. Justin Uhl (John Zaremba), they meet with two representatives of the Italian government, they are informed that the spaceship has returned from the first manned mission to the planet Venus. The spaceship carried a sealed metal container bearing an unborn Venusian species, police divers begins to search for it, McIntosh offers a reward for the capsules recovery, prompting Pepe to tell lead them to it, McIntosh and Calder pursue Dr. Leonardo, who is heading to Rome with Marisa. That night, Dr. Leonardo discovers the creature has grown to the size of a human, soon it manages to break out of its cage and flees, the confused creature stumbles into a nearby farm and terrorises the animals, the creature discovers, rips open and eats several bags of sulphur, the Farmer (Sid Cassel) is alerted when the creature encounters and kills the farm dog. Calder and the others reach the farm is trap the creature in the barn, Calder explains that the creature is not dangerous unless provoked, the creature is provoked when he tries to put the creature back in a cage. The farmer injures the creature, stabbing it in the back with a pitchfork, it then breaks out of the barn and disappears into the countryside, the police commissioner (Tito Vuolo) insists that the creature must be destroyed. Calder is granted permission by the Italian government to capture the creature, he devises a plan to drop a giant electric net from a helicopter to ensnare the creature, while Italian police fire at the creature with flamethrowers, Calder uses sulphur, as its food of choice, as bait, the creature is lured to a secluded site and subdued by the net's electric shock. McIntosh briefed the press at the American Embassy in Rome, three reporters are permitted to view the creatures, which is being held in the Rome zoo, it is being sedated by a continuous electric shock, so it can be studied, Marisa begins flirting with Calder. The electrical equipment suddenly shorts and the creature awakens, now gigantic it battles with an elephant, panicked patrons scurry, the creature and elephant fight on the streets of Rome, destroying cars and damaging buildings, until the creature defeats the elephant, and continues to rampage. The beast submerges in the River Tiber, it resurfaces when grenades are exploded, it heads to the Colosseum, destroying an ancient temple and killing many soldiers. The creature disappears into the ruins, Calder leads a group of soldiers carrying bazookas, driving the creature to the top of the structure, Calder gets a direct hit, then gets critical hit with a second shot, causing the creature to plunge to its death, a relieved Marisa runs into Calder's arms. It is a very basic plot, a spaceship from Venus containing an alien monster that grows from the oxygen of the atmosphere crashes, the creature hatches and breaks out to wreak havoc on the nearest population, the snake-tailed reptile the Ymir is certainly one of the most original looking monsters by Harryhausen, and a sympathetic one as well, the best scene is its fight with the elephant, a fairly good minor classic science-fiction horror. Worth watching!
TxMike
This was billed on the "Movies!" TV channel as a "popcorn" movie, and that it is. Nothing at all to take seriously, just a mostly fun B&W sci- fi movie typical of the 1950s.The first thing that struck me was the idea of a space mission to the planet Venus. The atmosphere at the surface of Venus exerts about the same pressure as being under water 3000 feet on Earth, a pressure that would crush most things. Plus the surface is generally in the 800 to 900 degree F range. A very inhospitable place, not likely ever to be visited.But this is a fantasy sci-fi story, I didn't get hung up on that very long and just went with it. To the credit of the writers they explained a few things to make it seem somewhat plausible.The movie starts with two men and a boy in a small fishing boat off Sicily. They look up to see a pointy spaceship in obvious distress that crash-lands into the sea, point down it remains afloat just long enough to let them rescue the commander and to see that there were few survivors.The young boy is a western and Texas fan, he wants a big hat and a horse, and finds things to sell to the local biologist to raise funds. Ashore he finds a USAF cylinder on land and, instead of revealing his discovery, takes the gelatinous contents to the biologist. Inside is the embryo of a creature from Venus which, after exposure to earth's atmosphere grows at a fantastically rapid rate. So much so that it cannot be contained and becomes a threat to all of Italy.As movies like this go the humans eventually figure out a way to prevail, in the meantime the entertainment is to see the monster wreak havoc and the Earthlings avoid death. The final scenes playing out in the ruins of an old Roman coliseum, military shooting big weapons at the now very large alien species. At the end one general says, "Why is it so difficult to move from the present to the future?" Definitely a "B" movie but entertaining as a representative of the 1950s sci-fi movies.
