Robot Monster (1953)

66 minutes, Black & White, USA, 1953

Written By: Wyatt Ordung

Directed By: Phil Tucker

Dramatis Personae:

Gregory Moffett is Johnny, our...ahem...hero. A typical 1950's preteen, with his obsession with alien invasions and space rangers and the whole shebang. The entire movie may or may not be all in his head, which explains a lot.

John Mylong is George, The Professor, a doddering old scientist with a vaguely-defined accent. You gotta have one of those.

George Nador is Roy, The Professor's assistant and Red-blooded American Male.

Selena Royle is Martha, Johnny's 1950's style Single Mom.

Claudia Barrett is Alice, Johnny's elder sister and love interest to Roy.

Pamela Paulson is Carla, Johnny's Slow-witted Younger Sister and redshirt.

George Barrows is the Extension Ro-Man XJ2, the titular Robot Monster, destroyer of the Human Race and tragic hero of the piece...aw hell, who am I kidding? He's a guy in a gorilla suit.

Commentary:

Hoo Boy. This one's a classic. And perhaps the perfect movie to use as a kickoff to my new review site. After all, EVERYONE's done this movie already; why not me?

Our story begins with Johnny and Carla playing...something. Which involves Johnny wearing a space helmet and "disintegrating" Carla with his bubble-gun. They meet Roy and The Professor doing Archaeological work in a nearby cave, who convince Johnny not to disintegrate them and live in peace (hooray for Science!). Johnny's Mom tracks them down and drags them back to the picnic area. Later that day, Johnny wanders back to the cave, is struck by lightning - or something - and passes out.

Several stock footage reels of fighting dinosaurs later (?), Johnny comes to and flees the cave. The world has changed, apparently. The Professor is now his Dad, and he and his family are the last humans on Earth. The Human Race was wiped out by Ro-Man, an evil alien who has taken up residence in the cave. With his fiendish "Calcinator Death Ray" and his fiendish bubble machine, Ro-Man has reduced the earth to a slagheap. Except for Johnny's family; in this weirdo parallel universe, The Professor is a biochemist who developed a super-antibiotic serum that somehow made them all immune to the effects of the death ray. Much to Ro-Man's chagrin, of course; after getting thoroughly chewed out by his boss, the Great Guidance Ro-Man, Ro-Man has to find these pesky humans and thoroughly wipe them out with "physical means." Which turns out to be harder than you'd think. For not only is Alice some manner of scientific genius herself - able to jury-rig some kind of radar-jamming shield that conceals them Ro-Man's all-seeing eye - but she's also cute as a button in a 1950's kind of way. And as everyone knows, no monster or alien can resist the charms of a cute-as-a-button 1950's American Girl.

Holy crap, this movie. Legend has it that director Phil Tucker was so embittered by the critical reception of his little opus that he tried to kill himself, then dropped out of the public eye until his death in 1985. I find this unfortunate, because I would really have welcomed the opportunity to actually speak with this man and ask him just what the HELL he was smoking when he made this movie. There's just so much going on here, and not one thing makes a lick of sense. It's not even a "bad" movie in the traditional sense; it's so loopy it defies conventional definitions of quality.

I mean, look at our villain, Ro-Man. What the hell? This being is, if one is to judge from the impenetrable dialogue, the physical extension of some great collective artificial intelligence, sent to Earth to oversee its destruction. And yet...it's a guy in a gorilla suit with a space helmet on. What's the thought process that leads to that costuming decision? WHY a gorilla suit? What led Tucker to the conclusion that THIS would be an effective rendering of a monster capable of destroying billions of people? I know it's a low-budget movie, but gorilla suits aren't exactly cheap. Oh, and for some reason Ro-Man has a bubble machine. Hunh?

Oh yes, and Ro-Man soon succumbs to the feminine wiles of Alice – because it's the 1950's and that's what monsters DO, despite there being no logical reason behind it. And to the film's credit, even Ro-Man acknowledges the illogic of the situation. He doesn't seem to understand it any more than the audience; why, after annihilating the entire human race without a second thought, does he now hesitate to kill this girl? Why is his cold logic failing him now? He doesn't know, and he gets no help from the Great Guidance. In fact, pretty much all the Great Guidance does when he calls on his Futurescope-type videophone is yell at Ro-Man and threaten to execute him for failure. Either Ro-Man is not the most competent Extension Unit the Great Guidance could have sent on this mission, or there's just no pleasing the Great Guidance. Either way, this vague "Plan" they keep arguing about in their strange circular way has a few bugs in it.

Surprisingly, one of the film's better features is the acting of its principles. I mean, the dialogue is not the best, fraught with clichés and written with only a basic understanding of how certain technologies work, but the actors do do their best with what they've got. Some of the banter between love interests Roy and Alice has its moments. Not exactly Tracey and Hepburn, but it's better than what you'd expect. Little Johnny himself...well, he's a child actor in the 1950's. If you keep your expectations low you won't be disappointed.

I have read many an analysis of this film, which points out the fact that this entire movie is a dream little Johnny has (or is it?) while passed out on the cave floor. And now that I think about it, there is a point to that. If nothing else, the movie is a tribute to "dream logic" in action. The Professor is Johnny's Dad in his dream adventure; just before having that dream he casually suggested to his widowed Mom that she might marry the Prof so he could have a brand new dad. The fact that the Professor is an Archaeologist in real-life and a Biochemist in the dream world suggests a child-like view of Science: very different disciplines being interchangeable in the mind of an unschooled child like Johnny. As for Ro-Man himself...well, it WOULD be a child with an overactive imagination who would dream something like that up. And the fact that the movie doesn't exactly end – everything just blows up – makes a lot of sense; Johnny just got woken up, after all. If that's a fair reading, then perhaps Phil Tucker was a misunderstood genius, attempting to kickstart Surrealist filmmaking a few decades early.

Or he was just a nutjob making a low-budget film.

Either is a possibility if you ask me.

Things To Look For:

- This film was shot in Bronson's Canyon, legendary site of many a B-movie. The place is quite barren, with lots of caves and interesting rock formations, that lends itself well to being the backdrop for a tale of a primitive world, or an alien world, or a post-apocalyptic world. But as a place where a nice wholesome American family might have a nice picnic? Um...no. Just look at the setting of Mom's picnic lunch. They're just surrounded by huge jagged boulders. Such a delightful place to take the kids for an afternoon. Don't splinter your shins on the rocks, Johnny!

- There's a kind of mad genius behind the Ro-Man dialogue. His communications with the Great Guidance are little more than meaningless figures and calculations which make no bloody sense whatsoever. And yet, there's something believable about it. It's a layman's attempt to try and get into the mind of a sentient machine, to use mathematics as a language. It doesn't work, of course, but it was a good try.

- The Plan. Criminy. Apparently Ro-Man's people – the Ro-Men? – wanted to wipe out humanity "Just Cuz." From what we can glean from the dialogue, only the human race had the potential to oppose the Ro-Men's dominance of the universe, so they launched a pre-emptive strike to wipe them out before that could happen. Gah. If that's not typical 1950's thinking about advanced alien cultures, I don't know what is. "You're not a threat to us YET, but we're gonna kill you off anyway, just in case." Yep. That's why we have to keep watching those skies, people.

- The "Space Platform." Hee hee. Yes, apparently Mankind's last hope is the Space Platform in orbit around Earth, which Ro-Man did not destroy for whatever reason, and which still has a military force aboard. Much is made about it in dialogue, and when we finally see it...hee hee. First of all, it's not even a "platform." It's a model rocket. With a sparkler stuck in the back. Flying around in a circle. Being held up by the most obvious hand ever captured on film. Dang. Oh, and then Ro-Man destroys it (while gloating in a rather peculiar way, for a member of a race claiming to have no emotions), calling upon the full power of the Great Guidance...which involves him gesturing menacingly and causing the film to turn negative. Such power! Only Doctor Who can save us! Thank goodness it was only a dream (or was it?).

Date Posted: November 24th, 2006

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