20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH, or from it, lies our hot (874 °F), human-inhospitable cousin Venus. The distance actually varies quite a bit, but the conditions perpetually suck. For us, anyway. Yet back in 1957, brave space explorers made it there (Top Secret, did even Ike know?) and found that there is life on the poem-inspiring sulfuric gasball. They brought a sample back. It escaped. It grew. It got loose in Italy!

Not enough that malicious Martians made repeated trouble, now we have to tackle a scaly ‘Ymir’ from planet #2, and further wreck Rome’s ruins in the process. Even though we were told halfway thru the 83 minute tale “Incredible! The creature has to be taken alive!”  Sure.

When the gigantic American spaceship ‘X-21’ nosedives into the Mediterranean off the coast of Sicily, there are just three survivors. One shortly dies of (pretty gnarly) injuries. The second, pilot ‘Col. Bob Calder’ (William Hopper) is okay, treated by ‘Marisa Leonardo’ (Joan Taylor), handy American med student. The third is a spooky-looking critter that grows in size as it goes on the run—from Earth’s frightened human and animal life forms. When cages and nets fail, call in flamethrowers and bazookas, and if the Colosseum gets in the way, well, there’s plenty of old architecture all over the country.

Written by Bob Williams and Christopher Knopf, this rampage-time-around the monster is as pitiable as it is ugly, which adds pathos to the action, giving kids in the audience some ‘Old Yeller’ sentiment to go with the excitement of all the damage to property. The offbeat choice of locales came because special effects whiz Ray Harryhausen, who also came up with the story, was on vacation in Italy. He not only created the still-cool stop-motion creature and its movements but co-directed the Italian footage with producer Charles H. Schneer. Back in Hollywood, the rest was directed by Nathan Juran, who took sole credit. Juran was busy that year, knocking out The Deadly Mantis, The Brain From Planet Arous and the most unrealistic of the four, Hellcats Of The Navy.

There’s an inordinate amount of running in this one, from soldiers, scientists and civilians. The lion’s share goes to Hopper, who perhaps wanted to grab footage that had him demonstrating some basic dude-in-command physicality, since his flirty biz with a blasé Freeman is less than thrilling. This same year Hopper started his 9-year run as jack-of-all-assignments ‘Paul Drake’ on TVs Perry Mason. Miss Freeman was stuck with 8th billing as ‘Yaffa’ in Omar Khayyam.

But who ever cares a Frito about the romantic subplots in these creature features? The ‘thing’ is the thing, and Harryhausen’s panicked Venusian is one of the more impressive entities of its era. Like watching a bullfight, this nostalgic matinee has you cheering for the misunderstood, continually harassed and injured visitor/captive/specimen/target rather than we hypocritical/weapons-wielding/ food-chain altering tyrants.

Taking 102nd place, the gross of $2,400,000 reflected the tapped allowances of a lot of happy kids. With Frank Puglia, John Zaremba (later to man controls on The Time Tunnel), Thomas Browne Henry (dealing that same year with Beginning Of The End and The Brain From Planet Arous), Tito Vuolo and Arthur Space.