Loved The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms as a kid. Those of us of a certain age will remember that Ray Harryhausen's films were around long before the Jurassic Parks/ Worlds and all the cgi of today and these were the Grand MONSTER MOVIES and still are!
The movie was shown on television on many creature features and a fan favorite. It still holds up as a classic enthralling viewers. Who doesn't thrill at the cop getting gobbled up by the beast scene.
Had just bought this film and watched it, wow was it amazing, definitely one of the best monster movies out there alongside the original _Godzilla._ And certainly one of Ray Harryhausen's best work, stop-motion is something I would always commend and embrace, I even love the "jerky" movements. And the Rhedosaurus is a great monster in the entire genre, I'd love to have it as a model maquette.
One of my favorite stories from the production of the film is one Ray Bradbury told. (Anyone else think fate has a funny sense of humor that the two best friends would have the same first name) Since Harryhausen, a good friend, was working on the film, he told Bradbury that the producer needed help rewriting the script. Well incidentally, the producers had taken Bradbury‘s work from the Saturday evening post, never asked the author for permission to make it into a movie, and then had brought him in to rewrite the plagiarized script. Being the gentleman that he was, Bradbury didn’t need to say anything, only that the story sounded a lot like one he had written. And then the next day, there was a telegram asking for permission to buy the rights. (so don’t tell me when an unknown author claims that a big studio has stolen their work, that is just coincidence or that they are lying)
David Buttolph's classic score from this movie can be heard on the CD "More Monstrous Movie Music": www.mmmrecordings.com/More_Monstrous/more_monstrous.html
Harrihausen was a great talent.We will not see someone like him in our lifetime.He made you feel kind of sorry for the beast PATHOS like Robert Dinero acts.Dinero makes you feel sorry for some of the bad people he portrays
I think Harryhausen was great. This beast had a lot of realiastic behaviors. The scene where the army is shooting at him in broad daylight, and he turns to put his back to them... that is a very typical animal response to an attack, and brilliant of Ray to make happen. The end always made me sad. The cries of the beast just tug at my heart for some reason. It wasn't a monster, after all, just a beast out of place and out of time. I also felt bad fo King Kong. What can I say?
