Sci-Fi Classic Review: THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS (1953)
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- Опубликовано: 21 дек 2019
- This proto-Godzilla flick set the stage not only for the giant monster craze that continues to this day, but it also launched the solo career of one of the greatest special effects wizards in film history.
If you're looking for a "review" in the traditional sense, then let me just say I like this movie. This video, however, is a "review" in the literal sense (using the Miriam-Webster definition "a retrospective view or survey"), in that I'm going over the history of the film and its place in sci-fi cinema history.
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A iconic 1950s atomic age sci-fi / horror. Who could have known that the Kaiju movies would begin in the USA.
Anyone from the late 40s to the early 60s...
Thomas Dority Agreed!
Though "Gojira" (1954) is commonly held to be the first Japanese daikaiju film, thus awarding Eugène Lourié's "Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" the laurels as the progenitor of the genre, there's reason to doubt this is strictly true. While "King Kong" was a widely popular entertainment in the United States, its effect on the moviegoing Japanese was nothing short of electric. Kingu kongu even entered the lexicon as a word meaning largest, most impressive, or most intimidating. One could go to a restaurant or food kiosk and simply order kingu kongu and receive the largest meal they establishment could serve, or in a hotel the request for kingu kongu meant a demand for the most spacious and luxurious suite in the house. The term was even a popular nickname for anyone taller or beefier than the average Japanese. For example, Chuichi Hara, a notable IJN admiral in WWII, was known as "Kingu Kongu".
At least two pre-war Japanese film releases borrowed heavily from RKO's classic -- a comedy called "Wasei Kingu Kongu" about a poor beggar who hits on the idea of wearing an ape costume to earn enough money to marry his girlfriend, and a drama called "Edo ni Arawareta Kingu Kongu". Both of these films are lost with only a few flyers and production stills surviving.
One of my absolute favorites! If I could only save 3 of the 50's monster movies this would absolutely be one of them. As a child I sobbed when the Beast died at Coney Island. Having read The Fog Horn it was magical to see the Beast come to the light house, only to be disappointed. I was another youngster touched by Harryhausen's genius and absolutely wanted to dive into special effects as a career. Although that didn't pan out I've never lost my love for amazing stop motion animation. The two Rays were brilliant. Thank you for this breakdown.
Informative, well presented and interesting. Decent runtime, neither too long nor too short. Thanks for taking the time to create this.
Thanks for watching it!
Lee Van Cleef, the legendary western actor, plays a sniper in this movie. Clash of the Titans is definitely my favorite Harryhausen movie. I also love The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. The influence of Harryhausen is also clearly visible in the scene with the Rancor in Jabba The Hutt's palace in Return of The Jedi.
I'm reminded of how Tarantula gives the world one of the very few giant radioactive monsters that succumbs to an airstrike. Said squadron led by none other than Clint Eastwood.We've seen what he can do with a Magnum; imagine what he can do with a Lockheed P-80.
It makes one wonder how much film history would have changed if he were Japanese.
My favourite Harryhousen monster and yes, it's because he encapsulated so well the "Kaiju" concept that it inspired so magnificently.
The Rhedosaurus is perfect: a clean, pure giant reptile different from know dinosaurs and more akin of monsters of legends and nightmares, completely opposite of the simian Kong that looks too much like us and has the same feelings.
The fantasy movies, Ymir, Gwangi may have best looks and stories, but this is the one I remember more fondly. Thanks for remind me of this!
"The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" is my favorite film which features the stop-motion animation by Ray Harryhausen. Yeah, the dinosaurs in "King Kong" were very impressive, but the fictional "Rhedosaurus" was more massive and terrifying than any rampaging brontosaur or tyrannosaur. Who knows? There might have been something like Big Rhed prowling the earth sometime during the Mesozoic. The fossil record is incomplete.
The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms is a masterpiece. I also really enjoyed the music.
Veteran Western heavy Lee Van Cleef fires the radioactive isotope into the monster.
Fantastic review - this was one of the first sci-fi movies I saw as a young child. Absolutely love your intro - funny and captures the time, sort of hahah. Have you seen Kronos? The sound effects of Kronos was well done.
Harryhausen is still one of my heroes. Thank you for your work here, AG!
When I was ten I got to see a special preview of The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. With an impressive roster of stop motion monsters. this was movie magic from the start. I happen to recall seeing The Beast From 20000 Fathoms. at a drive in theater. I was five and remember parts of it, I have seen it many times since.
Beautifully done, thank you!
A favorite Harryhausen of mine is 20 Million Miles to Earth. I thrilled to his tail swishing creature from Venus, first run in 1957.
Thanks for reviewing one of my fav Dinosaur movies!👍
A few observations about "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms": The diving bell that allows Dr. Elson his first and last look at the rhedosaurus is not, strictly speaking, a diving bell. It's a studio prop made to look like a McCann Rescue Chamber, a device for rescuing crewmen from a disabled submarine. The long shot of the ship is stock footage of the USS Falcon, one of the first submarine rescue ships of the US Navy. On 12 May 1939, the submarine USS Squalus (SS-192) was performing a series of test dives after an overhaul. During the 19th dive, Squalus's main induction valve failed, causing the aft compartments to rapidly flood, killing 26 men instantly. However, a closed and dogged watertight door saved 33 others in the forward compartments of the boat. Squalus finally bottomed more than 275 feet down. Her sister ship, USS Sculpin (SS-191), discovered the wreck and alerted the Navy rescue force. USS Falcon arrived on the scene and used her McCann Rescue Chamber to save all 33 survivors. The Squalus was later raised, repaired, and recommissioned as USS Sailfish. She went on to be a moderately successful submarine, earning nine battle stars and a Presidential Unit Citation. Her sister and benefactor USS Sculpin wasn't so lucky. On 19 November 1943, Sculpin sustained fatal damage in combat with the Japanese destroyer Yamagumo. Her skipper, Commander Fred Connaway, ordered the vessel abandoned and scuttled. However, the wolfpack commander, Captain John P. Cromwell, chose to go down with Sculpin because he feared he would reveal secret information to the Japanese under the influence of torture or drugs. Cromwell got the Congressional Medal of Honor for his sacrifice. IJN Yamagumo picked up 43 survivors but one was thrown back into the sea because of the severity of his wounds. The remaining 42 American PoWs were divided into two groups of 21, each group being assigned to an aircraft carrier en route to Japan. Ironically, one of the two carriers, IJN Chuyo, was torpedoed and sunk by USS Sailfish, the former Squalus that had been saved by the actions of USS Sculpin in 1939. Twenty of Sculpin's crew went down with Chuyo.
On the Nature of the Beast: The Unapologetic Geek refers to the rhedoaurus several times as a dinosaur. However, I watched the film carefully and discovered that the Beast is never spoken of as such. In every case, the main characters refer to the Beast as a "prehistoric monster", a "prehistoric animal" or simply an "animal". Minor characters use the terms, "monster", "sea serpent", "awesome creature", and "beast". Not once did I hear the word dinosaur. Harryhausen was familiar with dinosaurs or at least familiar with popular notions of that remarkable clan of archosaurs, having informally studied the subject for 20 years prior to the film's production. I think he knew quite well that his creation was nothing like a dinosaur in anatomy or habits. Apparently, Harryhausen invented a completely fictional creature ten times larger than the largest sauropod known to science in 1953 simply for dramatic effect. It may be the case that the word dinosaur was banned from the working script on Harryhausen's insistence. In the scene in Lee Hunter's flat Tom Nesbitt studies several artistic interpretations of actual fossils, including some obviously done by Charles Knight, the most influential paleo-artist of the years before the Dinosaur Renaissance. However, the picture that Nesbitt selects as most like his animal is one of Harryhausen's own pre-production concept drawings of an imaginary giant monster. What we see is a semi-sprawling reptilian quadruped of titanic proportions. Of all the ancient megafauna I'm aware of, the rhedosaursus most resembles certain Triassic pseudosuchians, specifically Postosuchus kirkpatricki (i.redd.it/tv7w4x3l0q921.jpg) though 100 times larger and sprawled rather than upright on four legs. In spite of its predatory proclivities and wanton destructiveness, the screenplay gives us the much more profound threat of a monster that carries a fatal pathogen in its body. This is a truly unique plot element. No other giant monster film offers the viewer the possibility of a prehistoric plague. Brilliant! The climactic death scene has always made me sad for the luckless monster.
Like every film "The Beast..." has its plot holes and goofs. Two of them come to mind. Shortly after emerging from the Hudson the rhedosaurus invades a lower Manhattan street fronting a shipping terminal apparently belonging to the Standard Freight and Steamship Company. (I've tried to locate records of that firm in hope of pinning down the precise location, but without success.) Harryhausen combined footage of that neighborhood with a matte of his animation to put the rhedosarus into action in the streets of New York City. However, it appears time or budget constraints prevented him from airbrushing certain problematic details from the live-action footage, such as pedestrians strolling casually underneath a monster with a fang-filled head the size of a city bus. Then there's the foolish police officer who tries to repel the creature with his .38 service revolver. He fires five shots, pauses to reload, and then gets eaten like a smartass lawyer hiding on a toilet. Only a minute later the same actor wearing the same costume is seen trying a 12-gauge on the Beast without useful results. Maybe he's one of a set of identical twins serving in the NYPD -- Patrolmen Moik and Pat O'Grady, the Tipperary Tyrannosaur Trouncers.
Nesbitt: "Can you handle a grenade launcher?" Lee Van Cleef: "Pick my teeth with them." Nesbitt: "Do you know what a radioactive isotope is?" Van Cleef: "If you can load it, I can fire it." (My kind of hero.)
That's another thing I like about this film. The MC wasn't the be all and end all of everything. They needed a sharpshooter so they got one instead of the MC being a sharpshooter.
@@rsacchi100 I agree. And it rare in the movies to have the hero rely on someone else to win the day.
Ray Harryhausen the veteran Hollywood monster movie specialist was literally producing CGI effects (aka Dynamotion technique of film production).
A comparison to Godzilla is an insult. Godzilla was a guy in a dinosaur suit stepping on model buildings. Harryhausen's "Beast" is art.
I thought that the Beast from 20,000fathoms was beautiful and a work of art come to life.
That Redosaur had some serious personality.
I don't think that I've seen this movie (may have sometime in the 60s watching Deadly Ernest on Melbourne TV) but it was great to see Cecil Kellaway as one of the characters. Cecil was a popular actor in Australia in the 30s before he went to the US.
As for my favourite Harryhausen movie, it's probably a toss-up between Earth vs The Flying Saucers (1956) and HG Wells' First Men in the Moon (1964). First Men was probably not one of his best movies but Lionel Jeffries is such a very good character who steals every scene he's in.
Dynamation!!! Ray harryhausen the king of stop motion animation.♥️🦕🦖
Great review, as usual. You know how to make your subject matter interesting!!! A+
Thanks for another great review of a classic.
very first monster movie i ever watched.
Just bought this on DVD going to watch it tonight (:
Really enjoyed the movie though Keneth Toby was under used .
My wife was actually ruting for the monster!😁
Awesome stuff 👏
I think there needs to be a disction made between "this film is nothing special" and "this film influenced half the movies made after it;" and I personally think this one falls into the latter category. Still, it can be difficult to make that call decades later.
This film walked so Godzilla could run.
Very well done look at an important film here. I always felt some sympathy for the Beast, despite its rampage. Very much out of its proper world, after all.
Sinbad Clash and Gwangi !
From our lengthy suite of David Buttolph's superb score from the movie. Available on our "More Monstrous Movie Music" CD...
ruclips.net/video/r1DHAH1sTng/видео.html
A great movie.
They should make a remake
in the monsterverse!
@@joshmay2884 maybe i dont know i just like a more modern version
Fav movie - Clash of the Titans.
If I had to choose, that would probably be my choice as well.
Was is the best movie the giant behemoth are the beast from 20.000 fanthoms
Yeah most of the movie was a waste of time until the monster showed up and that's where the action was unfortunately they just had to kill it.
A terrific low budget film....Godzilla copied this