One of the reasons the film takes place in Italy is that Ray Harryhausen always wanted to vacation there but could never afford to go on his own.
Ray Harryhausen's original design for the monster was a giant cyclops, similar to the one he later used in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. He discarded the idea after making a clay model of it, and eventually settled on the reptilian Ymir.
Since he planned to use a real elephant for some of the footage in the zoo, Ray Harryhausen asked for one that was 15 feet tall, but the film was only able to procure an eight-foot-tall one for him. In order to make the elephant look much bigger, a 4'6" actor was cast to play the zookeeper.
Though the creature is referred to as the Ymir in reviews and websites, the name is never mentioned in the movie. Ray Harryhausen was concerned that audiences would mistake it for the Arabic title "Emir".
The Ymir roars in the film are variations of elephant roars sped up and modulated in pitches at different rates.
The Ymir is a vegetarian, eating grain when first attacked by the farmer with a pitchfork.
Distance from Earth to Venus- The closest approach of about 39.5 million kilometers (23.6 million miles)
Ray Harryhausen: a man feeding peanuts to the elephant that later battles the Ymir. He did so because the actor scheduled to play the part didn't show up. He later appears in a crowd fleeing the zoo.
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The General, fearing that the space ship has sunk, points to a body of water on the map and says that the lost astronauts are now "20,000 leagues under the sea." Of course, it's a coy reference to the recent sci-fi flick 20000 Leagues Under the Sea (and Jules Verne's novel). However, a league is about 3 miles; no ship could sink 60,000 miles under the sea since the earth isn't that large. The Verne title refers to the amount of miles traveled under the sea, not how deep the craft was operating. So the General has made a geographical error while trying to make a hip quip.
The general and scientist consult a wall map of the world to locate the small village in Sicily where the rocket has crashed. At the end of the scene the camera pulls in for a close-up of Sicily, and we see that there are no city names printed on the map - not even major Sicilian cities like Syracuse or Palermo, let alone a tiny fishing village.
After testing the release of the wire net from the helicopter, an enlisted man with one stripe on his uniform says to Col. Calder, "The hook's working fine, sir!", to which Calder replies, "That's good, sergeant!" One stripe is the insignia of a private, not a sergeant.
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If “The Day The Earth Stood Still” was intended to showcase mankind’s preconceived idea that all things that are not immediately understood are inherently evil then “Twenty Million Miles to Earth” was destined to drive the point home. Very rarely has there been a more tragic figure portrayed on film as the Ymir. (Named for the first of the giants in Norse mythology) The poor creature is kidnapped from its native planet of Venus, attacked by a dog, attacked by a farmer with a pitchfork, tortured with electricity and finally is sent plummeting to its death by a barrage of bazooka fire. Welcome to Earth.
The film “Twenty Million Miles to Earth” and its misunderstood monster both came from the mind of legendary special effects genius Ray Harryhausen. The films exotic local, Italy, also sprang from Harryhausen’s desire to make a film outside the confines of Hollywood. Once again his outstanding stop motion work would help turn an otherwise average monster film into a classic.
The first manned flight to Venus is struck by a meteor on its return and is forced to crash in the Mediterranean Sea. The crew’s only survivor, Col. Calder, is quickly taken to Sicily while a young boy named Pepe makes an interesting discovery among the crashed ships washed up debris. Little Pepe doesn’t realize that the metal canister he holds in his hands contains an unborn creature from the planet Venus. Dr. Leonardo, a local zoologist, examines the discovery a finds it interesting enough to purchase it from the youngster. As soon as it is returned to the lab the egg hatches and the young Ymir begins growing at an amazing rate. The creature soon outgrows the confines of the lab and escapes into the countryside. Col. Calder and Major General A.D. Macintosh from the Pentagon soon come looking for the canister and its cargo only to learn that they are too late. The young Ymir however leaves a trail of accidental death and destruction for the two to follow and is soon discovered hiding in a nearby cave. The military uses bags of sulfur, the creatures only known source of food, to lure the now giant Ymir out for capture. The monster is flown to Rome where it is kept at bay by large doses of electricity. A malfunction in one of the generators causes the creature to awaken and make another escape into the streets of the Italian capitol. The confused Venusian soon becomes cornered atop the famed Roman Colosseum. A barrage of military firepower brings both the wall of the great landmark and its alien occupant crashing to the ground ending the life of Earth’s first alien visitor.
