It was bound to happen. Friend Jim (of 23 years old) recently lent me his copy of Plan 9 From Outer Space. I watched it, love it again; next day pulled out Robot Monster (1953) from my "50 Movie Pack - SciFi Classics DVD Collection" boxed set. I explained the film to Jim after I realized he had not heard of the other atrocious but entertaining classic. After describing the actual monster to him, Jim said, "oh, that one".A few days later, he came to me and rather enthusiastically claimed to have liked it very much. But before returning my disc, Jim said he wanted to see it again. He showed me the screen on his laptop computer... with all the icons denoting the various files of Shakespeare's great works. The real pride and joy however was the background image. Jim had frame captured a scene where Ro-Man is carrying the girl Alice, played by Claudia Barrett.
I watched Robot Monster again late tonight for the first time since the summer of 1995 when my then friend Steve and I laughed uproariously at all the wrong times... and right times. One thing I noticed this time around, or was pleasantly reminded, there are a few moments in Robot Monster that were clearly designed to elicit laughter from the audience. My favourite is when Ro-Man carries Barrett to the entrance to the cave (where he also keeps all his sensitive communications gear) and tries to get it on with her. First, he grabs the girl's hands and holds them to his chest to convince her that he is quite the Hu-Man's ladies man. Now, some women like hairy chests, but not one attached to an all conquering, but inept, ape sporting a astro helmet. Barrett would probably like it if Ro-Man could at least do that well -- conquering. Just when he thinks that he can force himself on her the phone rings: The communication screen. First, it's some of the girl's buddies calling. (Ro-Man says something that put me on the floor.) The call ends and he goes back to the girl to pick up where he left off; which was nowhere. Again, the phone rings. This time it's his boss. Of all the times...
Some days you can't make love to a Hu-Man Wo-Man!
Ro-Man spends an awful lot of time "calculating". Granted, he must get rid of those pesky Hu-Mans, but to me he is too fixated on whether five survive or six survive; or seven or eight. This seems rather trivial. (After all, the last of the humans will eventually die off.) It's like the Ro-Man saying to the humans, "yesterday, you were wearing checkered pants... today, you are wearing plain ones".
That trivial.
The score was written by one Elmer Bernstein -- yes, that Elmer Bernstein; who would just three years later write the music to The Ten Commandments. As my friend Jim said, "the score was so huge for this".
Great stuff.
(Final note: Robot Monster was shot in 3-D. The print which has been circulating for years is 2-D.)
4 comments:
I'm not certain if Robot Monster was completely shot in 3D.. it may have just had some sequences with the process-- perhaps the oft-repeated shot of Ro-Man walking towards the camera, as Elmer Bernstein's "deh-deh-DO-DUH" music swells.
As you may know Barry, Phil Tucker is a great obsession of mine-- perhaps because he such an enigma. But if you like this flick, you absolutely must-must-must see "Cape Canaveral Monsters".
Yesterday, I was telling a friend that Cape Canaveral Monsters is the other notororius film of Tucker's.
I would love to see it... should make some moves in that direction.
There is a lot of confusion about whether or not Robot Monster was shot in 3-D. It might have been Harry Medved who joked that the producers claimed they shot it in that process but it was just a sales scam. (Today, that would just spell a class action lawsuit.)
I thought I read somewhere recently that Robot Monster was shown in 3-D not long ago and the photography/dimensional effect was well done.
Cape Canaveral Monsters is not on video (wink wink). Rhino did put out a 3D VHS of Robot Monster, but I haven't seen it.
I actually have Robot Monster in 3D, I think Greg is right. I watched it this weekend, there is no shortage of scenes with no tell-tale red/cyan.
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