20 Million Miles to Earth (1957) / The 27th Day (1957) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - June 23, 1957

20 Million Miles to Earth tells the tragic tale of a Venusian animal brought back to Earth where, alone, confused, and scared, it is tormented by equally confused and scared humans. Although somewhat hampered by its paltry budget, the stop motion animation by Ray Harryhausen is superb. The unnamed alien, known to fans as the Ymir, is so skillfully animated that it moves and reacts as if it were a living being and not a mere special effect.

This would be the first of three films that Nathan Juran would make with Harryhausen. The other two being the 1958 classic The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and 1964's First Men in the Moon.

The 27th Day is a movie I have the vaguest memory of seeing a portion of on television. It was a scene of a man being hit by a car. But that is all I remember of it.

The film was based on a 1956 novel written by John Mantley, who would go on to write a season two episode of The Outer Limits that was titled Behold Eck! Mantley also served as producer, perhaps show runner, for the television series Gunsmoke from 1965 - 1975, and is credited with writing 17 episodes and producing 240. He also produced and wrote the late 1970s series How The West Was Won. He also had some producing credits on the series The Wild, Wild West, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and MacGyver.

I was also surprised and delighted to learn that the film was directed by William Asher. A television workhorse, Asher credited as director on 102 episodes of I Love Lucy, a first season episode of The Twilight Zone titled Mr. Bevis, 131 episodes of Bewitched, and many, many more.

But I know Asher best for directing the queasy 1981 hagsploitation-themed slasher thriller Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker, which I saw on the big screen as Night Warning.