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An atomic bomb tested in the Arctic frees a gigantic dinosaur
from the icy tomb that has encased it for 100 million years.
An ice fall kills all witnesses except one, Professor Tom
Nesbitt who returns to New York with the fantastic story.
No one will believe his tale, but the truth is revealed when
the beast emerges from the ocean and lays waste to Manhattan.
Can the Professor come up with a plan to save the city before
it's too late?...
Based
partly on a short story by Ray Bradbury, The
Beast from 20,000 Fathoms
marked the start of the special effects career of Ray
Harryhausen (more famous for his work - especially the skeleton
warriors scene - on Jason and the Argonauts).
The
story builds suspense convincingly, and the movie's showdown
at Coney Island is well realised - if a little crude by today's
standards. Even
for it's time, 1953's
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was
a low budget movie and to be honest the fact that it is half
as good as it is is a mystery.
It
was due to the lack of a serious budget that led Harryhausen
to experiment
with a new technique for inserting his monsters into real-world
backgrounds called split-screen. The origins of split-screen,
a system of rear projection onto overlapping screens, lay
in the stop-motion photography invented by movie pioneer Willis
O'Brien, used most famously in King Kong.
Sadly,
no real restoration has been attempted on this release. There
are plenty of hairs, scratches and dropout on the negative,
which is a shame.
Extras
on the disc are nothing stunning, but are worth watching,
and include The Rhedosaurus and the Rollercoaster: Making
the Beast featurette and Harryhausen And Bradbury:
An Unfathomable Friendship featurette. There is also an
Easter Egg which is easy to find... and not really worth the
effort.
This
is certainly a movie worth watching, but whether it's worth
buying is questionable - you might be better off waiting until
it's on TV again.
Nick
Smithson
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