*For the next week or so, I’m going to add a random film the great Ray Harryhausen worked on. The legendary special effects MASTER passed away on May 7, 2013 at age 92 in London and yes, the film world owes him more than they can ever repay…

For some fans of giant monster movies, Godzilla is their gold standard, but I’m a Rhedosaurus man, myself. 1953’s The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms is a smaller-scale picture when compared to Toho’s epic genre entry and it’s also not as sprawling and dynamic as King Kong in terms of impact. On the other hand, Ray Harryhausen’s work here is superb and at a mere 80 minutes, this one goes down easy and doesn’t wear out its welcome one bit.

With its giant lizard (OK, fake, but pretty scary and really huge dinosaur) awakened from the Arctic ice by a nuclear bomb, some interesting plot twists and yes, plenty of wonderful stop-motion mayhem (and some great crowd scenes), this one’s yet another memorable classic for genre fans… As long as you don’t apply too many actual laws of science or pay attention to how long it would take that pissed off dinosaur to travel from the Arctic Circle to New York City where it meets its fate, the film is quite entertaining throughout. Yes, indeed, you get some great (and predictably cliched) genre characters here for your money, but they all click and keep things rolling merrily along. There’s the witness to the beast’s awakening no one believes, the scientist and his pretty assistant, plenty of talking about where the monster came from and where it’s going and once it hits The Big Apple, some on and off-screen chomping and stomping.

One of the better moments in the film comes after the creature is wounded and it’s soon found out its blood is toxic to humans. This makes for quite a dilemma (as you can imagine), especially when people start dropping like flies. Of course, SCIENCE! (and more radioactive materials) come to the rescue and save the city, but at the cost of Coney Island burning to the ground. Oh well, and hell, that was quite a damn lucky shot from of all places, the top of a friggin’ roller coaster. I still wonder what the carnival prize was for taking down that beast… it was probably a life-sized stuffed version of the thing (and imagine trying to get that into your home afterwards)…

Despite the low budget (most of which probably went to the effects), the direction is solid throughout, the monster and destruction scenes are stellar all the way and although the film isn’t as depressingly gloomy as the first Godzilla was (the Japanese version, of course!), you still feel the pain of all those crushed New Yorkers as they try in vain to escape the terror and smackdown the city gets from that smelly old dinosaur. So, yeah – add this one to your list of “B” flicks to catch and I bet you’ll be surprised at how well it turned out. Um, well… not for those who didn’t make it through the monster’s raging tourist trip, but hey – great entertainment means some artists suffer for their craft, I guess…