The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953)

The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, 1953,
Six Sheet American, 81x81 inches Warner Brothers

THE BEAST FROM SATURDAY EVENING POST

Inspired by a short story by Ray Bradbury that was published in the Saturday Evening Post Magazine, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms became a huge box-office sensation that helped generate a wave of other dinosaur and monster movies during the 1950s. The superb stop-motion special effects were created by Ray Harryhausen who based the fictional dinosaur on the artwork used in the short story. The "Rhedosaurus," as it was called, resembled a gigantic lizard rather than any actual dinosaur known to science. It was the first to break the size barrier in presenting dinosaurs as being far larger than any really were in life.

--Warner Brothers, 1953