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The last of Harryhausen's four independent black-and-white 'monster-on-the-rampage' features, and the third with producer Charles H. Schneer.
The story concerns a very interesting, hard-done-by and even loveable character called a Ymir, a reptilian, bipedal alien from Venus. We begin off the coast of Sicily where a fishing boat encounters a rocket ship entering the Earth's atmosphere and plunging into the sea. Upon investigating, the Italians rescue two survivors.
The Pentagon hears this news and is anxious to find out more, and sets out for Sicily, where the two survivors are being nursed. Colonel Robert Calder wakes to find that the only other survivor, a professor, has a disease, and dies shortly after telling him he must find a lost cylinder with a specimen inside, which was with them in the rocket. The nurse, Marisa, cannot save the man's life and he dies.
Meanwhile, General McIntosh and colleagues from the Pentagon have arrived and talk to the Italians who rescued the two astronauts. Unknown to them, a young boy, Pepe, has found a mysterious tube in the sea, the contents of which he takes to Dr Leonardo, a doctor of zoology whom he has sold various items to. The doctor buys Pepe's 'merchandise'; he finds he has bought a mysteriously gelatinous, cocoon-like piece of matter.
Dr Leonardo's daughter, the nurse Marisa, is there when the creature hatches out of the cocoon, in a superbly animated sequence of the Ymir awakening to life. The doctor rushes over and places the Ymir in a cage. The next morning, it has grown to at least half its previous size.
Meanwhile the Pentagon has talked to Colonel Calder and has also seen the young boy, Pepe. He shows them the empty cylinder and they hear of Dr Leonardo, who has now put the caged Ymir onto his trailer and is taking it to a higher authority. Shortly before the Pentagon officials catch up with him, the Ymir escapes and heads for a local barn, where it is attacked by a dog and kills it. They arrive and the Ymir kills a man who attacks it with a pitchfork. The Ymir escapes again.
The Italian government declare that the beast is a menace, even though a rare Venusian lifeform, and must be killed on sight, but the Americans persuade them to let them try to catch it first with the aid of an electric net. The plan succeeds and they take the stunned and even more grown Ymir back to a laboratory-zoo in Rome.
But the creature, now a giant, awakes and breaks free and kills an elephant before it is finally brought down from atop the Coliseum, in an impressive climax - one of Ray's homage's to King Kong.
A well-paced adventure with a superbly animated star attraction. This is possibly one of Ray's most satisfying features from his black-and-white era, due in part to Nathan Juran's direction, a role which he repeated for Harryhausen's next feature, the legendary 7th Voyage of Sinbad.
Incidentally, in the scene at the zoo in Rome, the more eagle-eyed will spot Harryhausen himself making an unaccredited appearance!

Creatures to look out for:

Trivia:

• Some of the interiors for the spaceship were filmed at the Edison Electrical Plant, to which they added a few balsawood girders, filled with smoke and shot it at an angle to resemble a wrecked control room of the rocket ship

• The initial design of the Ymir followed Ray's original idea of a giant Cyclops, with one eye, cloven hooves and two horns

• The film brought to a close a chapter in Ray's life, not only was it to be the last black and white  film he would make, but was destined to be, with one later exception the last monster-on-the-rampage film.