Robot monster

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Movie
German title Robot monster
Original title Robot monster
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1953
length 66 minutes
Age rating FSK ?
Rod
Director Phil Tucker
script Wyott order
production Phil Tucker, Al Zimbalist
music Elmer Bernstein
camera Jack Greenhalgh
cut Merrill G. White
occupation

Robot Monster is a 3D film with a science fiction story that was produced on a budget in 1953 and over time has become a cult film of the "bad movie". Along with the film Plan 9 from Outer Space ( Plan 9 from Outer Space , he is often considered one of the worst films of all time). The authors of the book Golden Turkey Award , however, gave “Plan 9” this title. Robot Monster was also "successful" in the vote and received the award in the "Worst movie monster of all time" category.

The young actor George Nader played his first leading role here. Later he became known, also in Germany, in the black and white television series "Shannon clears up" ( Shannon ) as an insurance detective and in the 1960s in particular as FBI man Jerry Cotton in the cinema.

action

The film is framed by two sequences that leave open the possibility that the whole story told may only be a dream experience - or not. At the beginning, Johnny, a little science fiction enthusiast with a diving helmet, meets two archaeologists who are “exploring” a cave while playing with his youngest sister Carla. The older of the two is a German professor (in the English original with a corresponding "funny" accent), accompanied by his younger assistant Roy. The children introduce the archaeologists to their single mother Martha and their older sister Alice. After Johnny returns to the cave after a picnic followed by an afternoon nap, there is a lightning strike and the real monster story begins, with the same actors who now play family members.

The story revolves around six out of eight survivors of a worldwide catastrophe in which all other inhabitants of the earth were wiped out. The professor is now Johnny's father, and Roy appears as Alice's fiancé, who is herself a successful scientist. The two remaining survivors are only mentioned in the film. In the course of the plot you try unsuccessfully to flee to an intact space station orbiting the earth.

The worldwide catastrophe was triggered by an evil "indestructible" alien robot monster called "Ro-Man". It has a body like a gorilla and wears a kind of diving helmet with two antennas. Ro-Man killed almost everyone with his "Calcinator" beam cannon in order to prepare the earth for colonization by the robot monsters. Only the eight survivors are "immune" to the death ray thanks to the professor's antibiotic serum. Since they survived, Ro-Man's mission to conquer the world is not yet successful, and so on the orders of his leader - Great One - he wanders through the American wilderness for the remainder of the film to find the remaining survivors and wipe them out himself. When, after all sorts of entanglements with the family, he makes contact via video transmission to ask them to surrender, he sees Alice and develops an affection for her and tries to kidnap her. This endangers his mission, so that his leader eventually kills him, aborts the mission and destroys the entire world.

At the end of the film, the boy with a wound on his forehead is found by the scientists near the cave and handed over to the worried mother. When everyone leaves the entrance to the cave, there is another flash and Ro-Man appears coming out of the cave and marches towards the cinema audience with outstretched arms. This final sequence is repeated three times.

production

Apart from the unusual use of 3D technology for this production, the film's “ special effects ” essentially consist of the insertion of scenes from the film Tumak, the Lord of the Jungle ( One Million BC , 1940) and a Billion Bubble Machine that was used as part of Ro-Man's communications facility to report to his manager. This machine was deemed so important by the producers that it is even mentioned in the opening credits . The only thing she does is, for some inexplicable reason , produce bubbles as soon as “Ro-Man” speaks to his superior “Great One”.

The total film budget is said to have been only 16,000-20,000 US dollars (at the time about 64,000–80,000 DM). The film was shot within a few days in the Bronson Canyon natural monument , which had previously served as a location for various film and television projects. The film music comes from the later famous film composer Elmer Bernstein ( The Glorious Seven ), who also composed the music for the low-budget film Cat-Women of the Moon in the same year . The film is also interesting - in the female-friendly portrayal of the older sister Alice, which is rare for the time, who is a scientist on par with men in the dream sequences and not only screams in one of the fight scenes, but also actively fights the monster.

Because of the film's numerous obvious flaws, it was rumored in the American film industry that director Phil Tucker tried to commit suicide because the audience had not received his film well. According to Keep Watching The Skies! by Bill Warren , the attempted suicide is said to be related to depression that arose from the dispute with the film distributor, who refused to pay Tucker the royalties granted. The film is said to have grossed about a million dollars in the first exploitation, so about ten times its budget.

Robot monsters in other media

  • Ro-Man made a brief appearance in Looney Tunes: Back in Action .
  • A film clip appeared in the music video You Might Think by the group The Cars (1984).
  • George Barrows, who played the Ro-Man (because he had his own gorilla suit ), also appeared with this in an episode of "The Beverly Hillbillies" as a gorilla.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wyott Ordung in the Internet Movie Database (English) .