Product Description

An atomic submarine cruising the Pacific discovers a gargantuan octopus concealed in the ocean depths. By the time they figure out that the monster is the nasty by-product of a hydrogen bomb experiment gone awry the creature is already well on its way to destroying San Francisco. The sea creature is yet another fantastic example of masterful stop-motion animation from the technique's master Ray Harryhausen.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: SCI-FI/FANTASY/FANTASY UPC: 043396226203 Manufacturer No: 22620

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23416 in DVD
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 2008-01-15
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Black & White, Color, NTSC, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Portuguese, Spanish
• Dubbed in: Portuguese, Spanish
• Number of discs: 2
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 79 minutes

Customer Reviews

earth vs the flying saucers
Another great sci fi from the 50's.. I can remember hidding behind the seat at the theater everytime the aliens showed up . Great old classic!!! Plus a very excellant job with the colorization process.!!!!

It came from beneath the colorization process
Anything by Ray Harryhausen's stop motion effects is worthy of praise, this is another one of those films my mother told me me about when I was younger and I appreciated the sheer coolness of a giant octopus attacking San Fransisco, it's cool in B&W and just as cool in color but it just takes a tad away from it when you colorize these old B&W movies but what makes this version really cool is that you can switch between B&W/Color while the movie is playing or you can watch one or the other as both versions or included on the discs so you can't go wrong here and you certainly can't beat the price, I tried buying this in the store and they wanted $25 bucks for it so I said "forget it" and came home and ordered it online here. It's a cool movie, don't miss it.

WWII Philosophy: Search and Destroy
By the time IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA was released in 1955, the Second World War had been over only for 10 years, and America had not forgotten the lessons so harshly learned--find the enemy, engage the enemy, and destroy the enemy. Hollywood was in the early phases of releasing a series of films that dealt with Bug Eyed Monsters of various sorts, and this one is typical of the genre. H bomb explosions cause an oversized octopus to rise from the deepest recesses of the Marianas Trench to seek the food that its now radioactive body render impossible. Since its normal marine diet of fish are warned away by its radioactivity (the film does not explain how fish can sense X-ray radiation), the huge creature seeks human nourishment. There are scenes that introduce the creature in a manner that was soon to become familiar to fans of THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, RODAN, and GODZILLA. Innocent victims usually vessels are attacked while the world panics and calls for help. Enter Kenneth Tobey and Faith Domergue as this help, with Tobey as a sub skipper and Domergue as a world reknown marine biologist. One of the film's more interesting but less publicized aspects has less to do with the creature and more to do with the sociological subtext that dealt with the changing vision of women During Moments of Crisis. Tobey is attracted to Domergue (Howard Hughes' real life one time girlfriend) and she to him, with the clearly understood subtext that all gorgeous women regardless of their brains were supposed to fall for handsome uniformed macho types like Tobey. As much as he lusts after her in a manner that must be painful to view to politically correct feminist types today, he still can't view her as little more than eye candy that must be dispensed with when The Going Gets Tough. Most of the latter part of the film shows the magic that FX magician Ray Harryhausen created with his stop-action camera work even if the background effects also evince the cheesiness and phoniness that result when even geniuses like Harryhausen had to operate on a shoe string budget. Behind the forced romance of Tobey/Domergue and the FX of Harryhausen lies yet another subtext--this time political. Much of ICFBTS consists of various scenes of the military reacting to the menace of the creature. You see soldiers in trucks, destroyers dropping depth charges, and jets searching for survivors. It is pretty clear that the America of 1955 was a pre-politically correct nation that still retained a world view that the United States was a force for good and when an enemy were to appear (creatures from the sea, aliens from space, human terrorists), it would be patriotic types like Kenneth Tobey we would call upon to save us--even if he still managed to find time for romance with Faith Domergue.