Ray Harryhausen Collection : 20 Million Miles to Earth / Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers / It Came From Beneath The Sea [1955] [DVD]

This collection contains the colourised versions of `It Came From Beneath The Sea', 20 Million Miles To Earth' and `Earth vs. The Flying Saucers'. Each film is the two disc edition, each comes in a normal size DVD case, all collected into a card slipcase.

It Came From Beneath The Sea - Another entertaining creature feature with special effects by Ray Harryhausen. The basic plot is along the lines of giant squid is forced to rise from the depths in search of food, and finds man to be a tasty snack. The American Navy set out to stop it, and there is a final show down in San Francisco involving the destruction of the Golden Gate bridge and a rail station. For various reasons of the plot, the navy decide the only safe way of destroying it is to explode a bomb inside the creature's brain. It's supremely daft hokum, but as entertaining an 80 minutes as you are likely to watch.

The real joy of this film is Harryhausen's special effects. These never fail to entertain and amaze. The giant squid is pretty well realised and this lends a certain air of professionalism to the film. A must see for all creature feature fans.

Earth vs. The Flying Saucers - Someone is knocking Earth's space probes out of the sky. Dr. Russell Martin and his new bride don't know it yet, but it is the work of aliens in flying saucers, who are specifically trying to contact Martin and give him a message. The message is that Earth will comply with their demands or die. For reasons best known to the aliens they then give Earth 56 days to surrender, giving Martin time to build a new super weapon to defeat the invaders. But will it work? We find out in a thrilling climax as the aliens invade Washington.

At times the film almost feels like a follow on from `Day The Earth Stood Still', due to the likeness of the invaders to the robot Gort in that film, and the presence of Hugh Marlowe. At other times you can see the clear debt that the makers of `Independance Day' and `Mars Attacks' owe this film. It is an entertaining slice of classic `50s sci fi hokum, complete with some bad acting, shaky premise and terribly scripted lines. But when Harryhausen starts to work his magic and most of Washington's monuments are sestroyed by the invaders you cannot help but be entertained.

20 Million Miles To Earth - This is an entertaining creature feature from the height of the genre. A manned mission has flown to Venus and back, picking up a specimen of the local life form whilst there. We enter the story just as the space ship is returning to Earth. It crashes in the Mediterranean, killing all but one of the crew and casting the specimen jar adrift. The jar is found and opened by a young boy who sells the contents to a local zoologist. The egg contained therein hatches and a Ymir is born. The film then follows the struggle between Ymir and man, as the creature starts to grow in an unfamiliar world. The Ymir just wants to be left alone and is by nature not an aggressive creature. But after unprovoked attacks it is driven mad, leading to a final thrilling showdown in then Coliseum of Rome.

It's a reasonably well constructed plot, and moves along at a good pace from one incident to the next. The acting is of variable quality, from the good performance of William Hopper as the space ship captain through to the terrible Italian accents of some of the Sicilian fishermen. But this is all part of the fun of these old B movies. The real joy of the feature is Ray Harryhausen's model work. He manages to imbue the Ymir with a real personality, and we feel much sympathy for the creature. The special effects are quite something, especially in the elephant fight and the rampage through Rome. From a technical and artistic point of view it is as good as only a Ray Harryhausen film can be.

These films have been colourised, though there is an option to watch the original black and white version, and one can even toggle between the two using the angle button on the remote. The colourisation works very very well. The films were originally conceived in colour, and would have been filmed as such except that the cost of colour film was prohibitive, and apparently colour film stock of the era was not of a good enough quality for Harryhausen to make his special effects. I feel that seeing them in colour is how they was originally intended, and the colourisation process has been done so proficiently you cannot see any running or overlay. The discs of special features are all fairly similar, containing a short piece about the colour process which is interesting, an interview between Tim Burton and Harryhausen and a short piece about the composer. All in all it is an excellent package.

This is the process how movies made in black and white are transformed into colour. A common reaction among film fans to this is similar to that of an animal lover watching their favourite pet tortured to death; it is a vile and disgusting abomination.

I'd never seen a colourised movie before I bought this set of three of Ray Harryhausen's earliest full length movies. And you know what? I like it just fine. No doubt it helps that the process was supervised by the man himself who stated that if they'd had the money they would have been filmed in colour in the first place. Also technology has improved since the process was first invented so if you didn't know that these were originally made in b/w you almost certainly wouldn't be able to guess.

As for the films themselves, well they are good examples of 1950's monster/sf movies and very much of their time; creaky by today's standards but still good fun. I remember actually seeing two of them in the cinema, probably on their second run at smaller cinemas (the fleapits), back in the 50's when I was around eight or nine and no doubt they contributed greatly to my lifelong love of science fiction and monsters.

All three come with a second dvd of worthwhile extras.

And if you really have to see them in black and white, all you have to do is click the appropriate item on the menu screen or toggle the angle button after its started.

3 classic genre movies, a bargain price, loads of extras, and in colour, or not. Everyone wins!

You get three standards dvd sized boxes each with 2 discs inside.

The first disc of each set is the movie, available in BOTH original black and white and new colorised format...the colourisation process used on these discs is excellent, you would think it HAD been colour from the beginning, much better than past attempts.

The second disc is the main bulk of the extras which include interviews and documentaries and all manner of wonderful things, there is some duplication of extras but there is still a vast quantity of great stuff here.

As for the films, well, they were B Films and they were made in the 1950s but, allowing for time, the quality of the special effects is stunning, considering this was all done by hand, no computers, truly amazing what Ray did here.

The stories are also good and very watchable, true classics that will hopefully be around for a very long time.

Great that you can choose colour or black and white, whatever your particular taste is....mine is black and white, there are a billion more colours in my imagination than can ever be put onto film, so I love old movies in black and white.