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
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Far north of the Arctic Circle, 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 assistant Lee Hunter after one of the surviving fishermen identifies from a collection of drawings the very same dinosaur that Nesbitt saw. 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 estimates $300 million".
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, he fires the isotope into its open neck wound. It thrashes about in reaction, causing the roller coaster to spark when falling to the ground, 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.