The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms

A nuclear test in the Arctic wakes a creature that has been frozen in the ice for millions of years. Named a Rhedosaurus, it moves south toward the American coast and reaches New York. Nobody believes the scientist who saw it first. Eugène Lourié directs. The creature animation is Ray Harryhausen's, his first major solo job and one of the cornerstones of stop motion in cinema. The source is Ray Bradbury's story The Fog Horn, which is a far smaller thing: a lonely creature answering a lighthouse. When the producers bought it they already had a monster script; Bradbury's material was folded in afterwards, and the lighthouse scene survived into the film. Its real importance is what it started. The idea of a giant creature woken by nuclear testing begins here, and the following year Japan made Gojira. This film is routinely named as Godzilla's direct source. The creature's destruction of New York and the final amusement park sequence remain among Harryhausen's most cited work. Who it is for: viewers interested in fifties science fiction and the history of stop motion. Who it is not for: the effects are plainly dated and the human material is weak. Without the monster on screen the minutes are long.