When film critics talk about influential movies they often rattle off titles like: Citizen Kane, 2001: A Space Odyssey, King Kong, Breathless,The Gold Rush, Psycho, etc. However, a title that you never find in their lists is the 1953 film The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. What? Are you kidding? How can anyone even think of putting The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms in the same company as these great films? It's just a silly 1950s sci-fi film made for children!!! The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms may not be in the same league as the titles listed above, it is nonetheless one of the most influential movies of all time; at least in the science fiction genre. The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms is important for two reasons:
1) It would establish the template that many science fiction films of the decade would follow.
2) It helped launch the career of special effects master Ray Harryhausen, who in turn would influence many great future filmmakers.
It wasn't made by a cinematic genius, but rather a director for hire (Eugene Lourie) who only made three other films (two about dinosaurs, one about a robot). Its two leads (Paul Christian and Paula Raymond) had rather forgettable careers. And it was made for an extremely low budget ($200,000). Yet, despite it's rather humble beginnings, it spawned many imitations for years to come; the most famous being Godzilla.
The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms owes a great debt to King Kong; both in terms of story structure and allowing for the film to be made. In 1952, King Kong was re-released in movie theaters and proved to be a huge success; even bigger than its initial release in 1933. The success of King Kong naturally allowed for The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms to be green lit. Would Warner Brothers have shelled out $450,000 for the rights to The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (a film that cost only half the amount) had King Kong gone unnoticed or hadn't been re-release at all? Probably not! While King Kong's influence is undoubted, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms managed to bring new things to the genre that have been copied ever since.
The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms was the first film to introduce the idea of atomic testing awakening a giant menace; in the film The Beast (the fictional Rhedosaurus) is awaken from its slumber in the Arctic by the blast of an atomic bomb. This plot device was later repeated in films like: Them!, The Giant Behemoth, The Deadly Mantis, It Came From Beneath the Sea, and most famously, Godzilla. The fact that Godzilla movies are still being made to this very day only further enhances just how influential The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms was. In the film's climax, the Beast has been wounded and drips blood over the city streets; when soldiers come into contact with it they become extremely ill. It is later revealed that the Beast's blood has been poisoned by radiation. Godzilla replaces the radioactive blood with radioactive breath. It should be noted that shots of people fleeing from the Rhedosaurus would later be reused in other Giant Monster films of the 1950s; most notably The Giant Behemoth.
As far as I know The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms is the first film to introduce the attractive lady scientist. The Thing From the Another World had a strong female presence in Margaret Sheridan, but she was in the more traditional role as a secretary; not to mention doesn't really advance the plot. Her main function is to be the love interest to Kenneth Tobey's Captain Henry. In The Day the Earth Stood Still, Patricia Neal plays Helen Benson, a woman who is sympathetic to Klaatu's mission. However, Neal's character is an ordinary character caught up in events beyond her wildest dreams. In The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Lee Hunter (Paula Raymond) is an expert paleontologist and is the only person who believes Tom Nesbitt (Paul Christian) when he claims to have seen a dinosaur. Lee helps drive the narrative of the story by investigating Tom's claim and persuading her mentor, Professor Elson (who has credibility with the military) that this demands serious attention. It is also to the film's credit that the romance between Tom and Lee is hinted at, rather than made into a major, time consuming subplot: the audience gets that these characters are in love just by the occasional glances they throw each other's way. The attractive, but extremely intelligent woman scientist (with a guy's name) would become a staple in 1950s sci-fi films, most notably in: Tarantula, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, Them!, It Came From Beneath the Sea, and many more. The relationship between Lee and Professor Elson (Cecil Kellaway) was mirrored a year later in the movie Them! In that film, Dr. Medford (the terrific Edmund Gwenn) is called upon to help the military and local state authorities into stopping the threat of giants ants and accompanying him is his beautiful assistant, Pat (Joan Weldon), who also happens to be his daughter. Professor Elson/Dr.Medford are both elderly men who are at the end of their careers and often out of touch with the modern world. They tend to be absented minded and need their young female assistants to help keep them focused. Elson is like a father figure to Lee, while Medford is Pat's father. It's also no coincidence that Pat has a strong resemblance to Lee (both brunettes). And like in The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, the romance between Pat and Robert is implicit, rather than a major plot point.
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| Lee Hunter and Professor Elson in The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. |
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| Dr. Medford and his daughter Pat in Them! |
The film was inspired by a short story by Ray Bradbury called "The Foghorn." In that short story, a dinosaur destroys a lighthouse after hearing the foghorn coming from it. This short story gets condensed into one memorable scene in The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, in which The Rhedosaurus destroys a light house. This scene is nicely shot, set in the dark, where only the outline of The Rhedosaurus can be seen as it collapses the light house. Bradbury himself didn't care too much for the film, but he was happy for the pay check it brought him and the work that it gave to his good friend Ray Harryhausen.
There have been many Giant Monster movies made since the release of The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, but for my money, none has ever topped the scene in which the Rhedosaurus rampages through New York, toppling buildings in its way and picking up cars in its jaws and tossing them across the street. In one memorable moment a foolish police officer tries to stop the Rhedosaurus by firing his pistol at it and promptly gets swallowed whole for his effort.
Sure, special effects have improved over the years, but this sequence is still a lot of fun to watch. Despite being limited by an extremely low budget, the filmmakers were able to turn out a very memorable moment in cinema history; Spielberg would later pay homage to this bit in Jurassic Park, with the lawyer on the toilet being eaten by the T-Rex. This scene also popped up in Gremlins 2: The New Batch; the Gremlins are channel surfing and come upon this clip, and laugh when the police officer gets eaten.
Harryhausen's effects hold up surprisingly well; it's amazing how he was able to give the Rhedosaurus a personality, despite it being rubber model. The beast's death at the end is oddly moving, despite all the terrible things it has done. This is largely due to the fact that the Rhedosaurus never seems malicious in its attacks, but rather just an animal stumbling into a new world that it is not equipped to handle. Its attack on the lighthouse seems to be done out of curiosity, rather than for any sinister motive.
While the Rhedosaurus is the "star" of the film, it must be said that the actors do a fairly admirable job. There is not much depth in the characterizations, but the actors add credibility to the film by playing their parts completely straight; a sense of urgency is prevalent throughout the film, thanks to the seriousness the actors bring to their roles. In the 1950s, many actors dreaded being in science fictions films and often their condescension to the genre came out in their performances. The main flaw in many big budgeted films of today is that the actors are so cheerful and lackadaisical in their performance, that it's hard to take the "threat" of the film seriously. It seems very out of place for characters to be cracking jokes while being surrounded by endless death and destruction; the Transformer films spring to mind. It should be noted that The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms helped launch the careers of two actors; Lee Van Cleef, who would go on a great career in westerns, plays the role of the marksman who fires the isotope into the Rhedosaurus open wound. And James Best, who played Sheriff Roscoe on The Dukes of Hazzards, appears briefly as a radar operator.
I first saw The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms when I was nine years old. I had often heard my dad speak about it; he would often mention it while I was watching my Godzilla films, telling me that it was the movie that inspired Godzilla. Finally, on one fateful Saturday I finally saw it on the local program "Saturday Night a the Frights." In my mind, nothing could top the awesomeness that was Ghidorah, the Three Headed Monster or Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster, but I was wrong, this film did. The ending in which the Rhedosaurus is tearing up a roller coaster is the stuff of dreams. It was exciting when I was a kid and it's still exciting now.
Credits:
Cast: Paul Christian (Prof. Tom Nesbitt), Paula Raymond (Lee Hunter), Cecil Kellaway (Prof. Elson), Kenneth Tobey (Col. Jack Evans), Donald Woods (Capt. Phil Jackson), Lee Van Cleef (Corp. Stone), Steve Brodie (Sgt. Loomis), Jack Pennick (Jacob Bowman), Frank Ferguson (Dr. Morton), King Donovan (Dr. Ingersoll).
Director: Eugene Lourie
Screenplay: Lou Morheim, Fred Freiberger
Running Time: 80 minutes.
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