20 Million Miles to Earth (also known as The Beast from Space) is a 1957 American horror science fiction monster film directed by Nathan Juran and starring William Hopper, Joan Taylor, and Frank Puglia. It was produced by Charles H. Schneer's Morningside Productions for Columbia Pictures. The screenplay was written by Bob Williams and Christopher Knopf from an original treatment by Charlott Knight. As with several other Schneer-Columbia collaborations, the film was developed to showcase the stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen. Plot The first U.S. spaceship to Venus, the XY-21, crashes into the Mediterranean sea off the coast of Sicily, Italy. Fishermen in their boats head to the spacecraft, enter through a hole in the spacecraft, and pull two spacemen from the nose-down craft before it completely sinks. In Washington, D.C., Major General A.D. McIntosh discovers that the missing spaceship, piloted by Colonel Bob Calder, has been located. As McIntosh flies to the site, Pepe, a little boy, finds and opens a translucent cylinder marked “USAF” on the beach. It contains a gelatinous mass egg, which he presents to Dr. Leonardo, a zoologist studying sea creatures. Meanwhile, Leonardo's granddaughter Marisa, a third-year medical student, is summoned to take care of the injured spacemen. When Calder regains consciousness, he finds his crewmate, Dr. Sharman, in the last throes of the fatal disease that killed his other eight crewmen. After Marisa returns to the trailer shared with her grandfather, a small creature hatches from the egg, and Leonardo locks it in a cage. By morning, the creature has tripled in size. McIntosh arrives, accompanied by scientist Dr. Justin Uhl, and meets with two representatives of the Italian government, informing them the spaceship has returned from Venus. Leonardo and Marisa hitch the trailer to their truck and head for Rome. Calder's spacecraft carried a sealed metal container bearing an unborn Venusian species. As police divers begin to search for it, McIntosh offers a half-million lira reward for the capsule's recovery, prompting Pepe to lead them to the empty container. When Pepe tells them that he sold the mass to Dr. Leonardo, McIntosh and Calder pursue him. That night, Leonardo discovers that the creature has grown to human size. Soon after, it breaks out of the cage and heads to a nearby farm, terrorizing the animals. The creature eats sulfur and rips open several bags it discovers in a barn. While feeding, the creature