The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is a 1953 American independent monster film directed by Eugène Lourié, with stop motion animation by Ray Harryhausen. It is partly based on Ray Bradbury's 1951 short story of the same name, which was later reprinted as "The Fog Horn". In the film a giant dinosaur, the Rhedosaurus, is released from its frozen state in the Arctic by an atomic bomb test. Paul Christian stars as Thomas Nesbitt, the foremost surviving witness of the creature before it causes havoc while traveling toward New York. Paula Raymond, Cecil Kellaway, and Kenneth Tobey are featured in supporting roles.

Jack Dietz and Hal E. Chester arranged the production of a monster movie in response to the successful 1952 re-release of King Kong (1933). While Lou Morheim and Fred Freiberger were solely credited for screenwriting, many contributed to writing the film, including Dietz, Harryhausen, and Lourié. On an estimated budget, principal photography occurred in New York from July to August 1952, under the title The Monster from Beneath the Sea. Harryhausen and Willis Cook created the special effects over roughly six months. In 1953, Warner Bros. Pictures bought the film for , retitled it, and hired David Buttolph to replace Michel Michelet's original score.

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was released throughout the United States in June 1953, to widespread critical praise for its special effects. The film grossed over worldwide, making it one of the highest-grossing films of 1953. It pioneered the "atomic monster" genre and is credited with launching the giant monster and kaiju movie trend that ensued after its initial release. Godzilla (1954) is often cited as having taken inspiration from the film. In recent years, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms has acquired a cult following and has been listed among the greatest science fiction, horror, and B movies of the 1950s.

Plot

Far north of the Arctic Circle, near Baffin Bay, a nuclear bomb test, dubbed "Operation Experiment", is conducted. Prophetically, right after the blast, physicist Thomas Nesbitt muses "What the cumulative effects of all these atomic explosions and tests will be, only time will tell". The explosion awakens a long carnivorous dinosaur known as a Rhedosaurus, thawing it out of the ice where it had been held in suspended animation for millions of years. Nesbitt is the only surviving witness to the beast's awakening and later is dismissed out-of-hand as being delirious at the time of his sighting. Despite the skepticism, he persists, knowing what he saw.

The dinosaur begins making its way down the east coast of North America, sinking a fishing ketch off the Grand Banks, destroying another near Marquette, Canada, wrecking a lighthouse in Maine, and destroying buildings in Massachusetts. Nesbitt eventually gains allies in paleontologist Thurgood Elson and his young female assistant Lee Hunter after one of the surviving fishermen identifies from a collection of drawings the very same dinosaur that Nesbitt had identified. Plotting the sightings of the beast's appearances on a map for skeptical military officers, Elson proposes the dinosaur is returning to the Hudson River area, where fossils of Rhedosaurus were first found. In a diving bell search of the undersea Hudson River Canyon, Professor Elson is killed after his bell is swallowed by the beast, which eventually comes ashore in Manhattan. It devours a police officer shooting at it, totals cars, knocks over buildings, and generally causes a panicking frenzy. A later newspaper report of its rampage lists "180 known dead. 1500 injured. Damage estimated at $300,000,000".

Meanwhile, military troops led by Colonel Jack Evans attempt to stop the Rhedosaurus with an electrified barricade, then blast a hole with a bazooka in the beast's throat, which drives it back into the sea. Unfortunately, it bleeds all over the streets of New York, unleashing a horrible, virulent prehistoric contagion, which begins to infect the populace, causing even more fatalities. The infection precludes blowing up the Rhedosaurus or even setting it ablaze, lest the contagion spread further. It is decided to shoot a radioactive isotope into the beast's neck wound with hopes of burning it from the inside, while at the same time neutralizing the contagion.

When the Rhedosaurus comes ashore and reaches the Coney Island amusement park, military sharpshooter Corporal Stone takes a rifle grenade loaded with a potent radioactive isotope and along with Nesbitt climbs on board the Coney Island Cyclone roller coaster. Riding the coaster to the top of the tracks to get to eye-level with the beast, Stone fires the isotope into the open neck wound. The Rhedosaurus thrashes about in reaction. When the roller coaster cars crash to the ground, a fire starts, setting the amusement park ablaze. With the fire spreading rapidly, Nesbitt and Stone climb down as the park becomes engulfed in flames. The Rhedosaurus collapses and eventually dies from the isotope's radiation poisoning.

Cast

Production

Development The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms had a production budget of around $200,000. Lourié asserted that the budget was ; Chester said it was ; and Variety reported was spent on the film.

The film was first announced in the trades on July 30, 1951, as The Monster from Beneath the Sea, one of 16 titles the newly formed Mutual Films Corporation were readying for production. This appeared exactly a week after Ray Bradbury had his short story "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" published in The Saturday Evening Post, which was later anthologized under the title "The Fog Horn".Ray Bradbury, The Golden Apples of the Sun, Doubleday, March 1953. During preproduction, in the spring of 1952, according to Ray Harryhausen, Dietz showed him an illustration of the monster from the Ray Bradbury story published the previous year. This story was about a marine-based prehistoric dinosaur that destroys a lighthouse. A similar sequence appeared in the draft script of The Monster from Beneath the Sea. During production, Bradbury visited his friend Harryhausen at the studio and was invited to read the script. When Bradbury pointed out to the producers similarities to his short story, they quickly bought the rights to his story. When Warner Bros. bought The Monster from Beneath the Sea from Mutual over a year later, they changed the film's title to match the story's title. Bradbury's name was used extensively in their promotional campaign. It also had an on-screen credit that read "Suggested by The Saturday Evening Post story by Ray Bradbury".Glut, Donald F. (1982) The Dinosaur Scrapbook, Citadel Press

Lou Morheim and Fred Freiberger received the sole on-screen screenplay credit, but the script began as producer Jack Dietz's initial treatment. Eugène Lourié wrote that he was given the responsibility "to get a playable screenplay in the shortest possible time" and that he worked with a friend "who for personal reasons chose not to be named" to craft "a storyline showing live characters and action." That draft was then delivered to producer Hal E. Chester to be polished by writers under contract to Mutual.

Later accounts state that Lourié, effects director Ray Harryhausen, and writer Robert Smith contributed to subsequent drafts adapting Dietz's material; none were credited on screen. A copy of the shooting script held at the Margaret Herrick Library credits the screenplay to Louis Morheim and Robert Smith. Smith and Lourié continued to collaborate after Beast; in May 1954 the Los Angeles Times reported they had formed a company to produce Bottom of the World, a Jules Verne adaptation, with Smith preparing the script and Lourié to direct.

Because Lourié had not named his collaborator, retrospective sources have assumed this was a blacklisted writer working during the HUAC hearings of the early 1950s. For this reason, film historian Bill Warren identified the uncredited writer as the blacklistee Daniel James, because of his later collaborated with Lourié on The Giant Behemoth (1959) and Gorgo (1961) under the pen name Daniel Hyatt.

Creature design and effects Some early pre-production conceptual sketches of the Beast showed that, at one point, it was to have a shelled head and later was to have a beak."Concept art from 'The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms'." theseventhvoyage.com. Retrieved: January 30, 2015. Creature effects were assigned to Harryhausen, a protégé of King Kong co-creator Willis O'Brien. The film monster looks nothing like the Brontosaurus-type creature of the short story. It is instead a kind of Tyrannosaurus-type prehistoric predator, though quadrupedal in stature. The monster was unlike any real carnivorous dinosaur and more closely resembled a rauisuchian. A drawing of the creature was published along with the story in The Saturday Evening Post.

According to author A. T. McKenna, at one point, there were plans to have the Beast snort flames, but this idea was dropped before production began due to budget restrictions. The concept was later used for the film's poster and allegedly became an inspiration for Godzilla's atomic breath.

Filming The climactic roller coaster live-action scenes were filmed on location at the Pike in Long Beach, California, and featured the Cyclone Racer entrance ramp, ticket booth, loading platform and beach views of the structure. Split-matte, in-camera special effects by Harryhausen effectively combined the live action of the actors and the roller coaster background footage from the Pike's parking lot with the stop-motion animation of the Beast's destroying a shooting miniature of the coaster.Hankin, Mike (2008) Ray Harryhausen-Master of the Majiks, Archive Editions LLC

In a scene attempting to identify the Rhedosaurus, Professor Tom Nesbitt rifles through dinosaur drawings by Charles R. Knight, a man whom Harryhausen claimed as an inspiration.Harryhausen, Ray and Dalton, Tony (2010) Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life, Aurum Press Ltd. The dinosaur skeleton featured in the museum sequence is artificial; it was obtained from RKO Pictures' prop storage where it had been constructed for its classic comedy Bringing Up Baby (1938).

Music An original music score was composed by Michel Michelet, but when Warner Bros. purchased the film, it had a new score written by David Buttolph. Ray Harryhausen had been hoping that his film music hero Max Steiner, under contract at the time with Warner Bros., would write the film score. Steiner had written the landmark score for RKO's King Kong in 1933. Unfortunately for Harryhausen, Steiner had too many commitments, but Buttolph composed one of his more memorable and powerful scores, setting much of the tone for giant monster film music of the 1950s.

Release

Warner Bros. Pictures acquired the film for $400,000, $450,000, or $800,000 and launched a large advertising campaign for its June 13, 1953 release.Bill Warren, Keep Watching The Skies! American Science Fiction Movies of the 1950s, Vol. 1 (New York: McFarland & Co, 1986), pg. 410. Sources differ on the exact day it was distributed that month, though Harrison's Reports and the official websites of the AFI and Warner Bros suggest it was the 13th. However, many contemporaneous American newspapers from June 1953 reported the opening date as the 17th. Boxoffice listed the film's distribution date as 27th. The 1954 Film Daily Year Book of Motion Pictures cited the 24th, which Variety stated was its New York premiere. Original prints of Beast were sepia toned. The film earned roughly at the North American box office and more than $5 million worldwide. It is believed to have been a sleeper hit.

Reception

Critical response