An American spacecraft returning from Venus crashes in the sea off the coast of Sicily. One of the pilots is rescued by fishermen, but what they don't know is that a cylinder containing 'something' is picked up by a stupid little kid. Naturally considering that this is a monster movie, something bad is going to come of this. And, from a very small size grows a gigantic Ray Harryhausen creature that threatens the city of Rome. Bummer.
I've seen about all of Harryhausen's films, so it's nice I can evaluate this in light of other similar films he made. I actually think this is one of his very best films as instead of emphasizing LOTS of crazy stop-motion creatures like his ancient Greek stories, here the emphasis is on the lizard creature. Sure, there's also a stop-motion elephant late in the film, but I think because so much of the film depended on one creature, the creature simply looked better. Plus, unlike the 6-legged octopus from his earlier film ("It Came from Beneath the Sea"), this one had a bigger budget and better production values. Part of this could have been because it was filmed in Rome--a definite cost-cutting decision (plus a nice place for a vacation) as many Hollywood productions were being made there in the 50s and 60s. So, there was more money left for the important effects--and it shows. And frankly, there's really nothing I didn't like about this film--exciting, well made and effective. See this one.
I've seen about all of Harryhausen's films, so it's nice I can evaluate this in light of other similar films he made. I actually think this is one of his very best films as instead of emphasizing LOTS of crazy stop-motion creatures like his ancient Greek stories, here the emphasis is on the lizard creature. Sure, there's also a stop-motion elephant late in the film, but I think because so much of the film depended on one creature, the creature simply looked better. Plus, unlike the 6-legged octopus from his earlier film ("It Came from Beneath the Sea"), this one had a bigger budget and better production values. Part of this could have been because it was filmed in Rome--a definite cost-cutting decision (plus a nice place for a vacation) as many Hollywood productions were being made there in the 50s and 60s. So, there was more money left for the important effects--and it shows. And frankly, there's really nothing I didn't like about this film--exciting, well made and effective. See this one.