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Robot
Monster (1953) is one of the few movies that can compete with
Ed Wood's Plan Nine from Outer Space (1959) for the title
of worst film ever made. Clips from Robot Monster have become
synonymous with the depths that no-budget 1950's sci-fi movies can
reach. Even if you've never seen it in its entirety, you'll no doubt
recognize George Barrows lumbering around in a gorilla suit and
space helmet. What sets it apart from the rest of the drive-in dreck
is that there's a naive determination on the part of it's participants
to forge ahead despite rock bottom production values. In spite of
everything it has going against it, there's an endearing "Let's
put on a show!" quality that's so wonderfully inept that its
reaches a level of badness that rivals any Ed Wood film.
Little
Johnny (Gregory Moffett) and his sister Carla (Pamela Paulson) are
playing outside when they happen upon an archeological dig. The
Professor (John Mylong) and his assistant Roy (George Nader) are
working outside the mouth of a cave in Bronson Canyon. "Gee,
are you scientists?" Johnny asks. His questions will have to
wait until after a picnic lunch with the family. After eating, Johnny's
mother and his sisters Carla and Alice (Claudia Barrett) take a
nap among the rocks and dirt.
While
the family is asleep, Johnny sneaks back to the cave but Roy and
the Professor are gone. Suddenly there's an electric flash and Johnny
falls to the ground. Stock footage dinosaurs are suddenly and inexplicably
doing battle. When Johnny recovers, he finds "hi tech"
machinery at the mouth of the cave. There's another electric flash
and Johnny runs for cover as the mighty Ro-Man appears. The infamous
Ro-man costume is so blissfully silly that Ro-Man should be named
the official mascot…no, patron saint of bad movies.
Equally ridiculous is the "Billion Bubble Machine" that
sits and percolates for no other reason than it must have looked
cool in 3-D. (Robot Monster was originally released in both
2-D and 3-D formats)
Using
his futuristic communication console (a bedroom dresser with a "view
screen" where the mirror should be) Ro-Man contacts his home
planet. Using his kooky style of techno-jargon, he reports on his
progress. He has destroyed mankind with his Calcinator Death Ray
(the electrical flashing light). "Their resistance pattern
showed some intelligence," he tells the Great Leader, "But
all are gone now. The way is clear for our people."
"Reject.
Error."
"Then
there are perhaps eight people left on earth?"
"Precisely.
Find and destroy them."
Johnny
runs back home…or what's left of it. In the crumbling ruins
of suburbia, humanity's only hope has set up house. The Professor
(who is now Johnny's daddy) explains in his faintly European accent
that, "The only reason we are still alive is that your sister
Alice and I worked out a way to reflect his deadly beam away from
the house."
A
crude system of wires surrounding the house prevents them from being
discovered. When Ro-Man appears on their home view screen, he taunts
them with an instant replay of the earth's destruction. "Your
death will be indescribable. Fool hu-mans, there is no escape!"
Roy
hypothesizes that the Professor's experimental antibiotic serum,
which they have all taken, is what makes them immune to the death
ray. They must get word to the space platform where what is left
of humanity is stationed. Alice comes up with a way, "We'll
have to rewire the circuits on the view screen so that we can broadcast
without Ro-Man picking it up. If only I had a decent assistant who
could take orders instead of trying to be the boss."
Though
the script by Wyott Ordung is packed with quotable Ed Woodsian dialog,
Roy's response to Alice's jibe is shocking hilarious. "You're
so bossy that you ought to be milked before you come home at night!"
Since
she's the last dateable woman on earth, Roy quickly has a change
of heart. As they work on the transistors, he makes his move, "You
know something, you're either too beautiful to be smart, or too
smart to be beautiful."
"I
guess we do get along alright at that," she admits. "Let's
work together now…we can play later." Despite their hard
work and flirty repartee, they fail to succeed.
Ro-Man
calls them up and taunts them again, this time with footage of the
destroyed "space platform". The sequence is a wacky combination
of stock footage and a rinky-dink spaceship model. As the ship flies
erratically towards the camera, the prop man's hand can clearly
be seen.
Ro-man
orders them to give up. "Calculate your chances. Negative,
negative, negative." He then asks what might be the most hilarious
rhetorical question in film history, "Is there a choice between
a painless surrender death and the horror of resistance death?"
The
Professor refuses to surrender in the face of such nonsensical threats.
Instead, he tries to appeal to Ro-Man's humanity by introducing
each member of the family, "Let me show you the six people
you want to destroy."
Intrigued
by Alice, Ro-Man agrees to negotiate only with her. "Is Alice
gonna have a date with Ro-Man?" young Carla asks. Alice is
determined to face the alien, but her concerned family ties her
up to keep her from going.
Johnny
sneaks away to meet with Ro-Man. When the death ray fails to work
on him, Johnny tells Ro-Man that he "Looks like a pooped out
pinwheel." Being the precocious blabbermouth that he is, Johnny
reveals the secret of their survival.
Ro-Man
angrily shakes his fist as Johnny scurries away. "I will recalculate
the spectrum dust in the Calcinator Death Ray to counter act this
antibiotic and you will all be destroyed!"
While
searching for little Johnny, Roy and Alice hide from Ro-Man in some
dry brush. Danger apparently gets Roy frisky, but Alice acts coy.
This entire sequence is played without sound, leaving poor Nader
and Barrett to mime like two very bad silent movie stars. "Have
you been playing house?" Carla asks when a very satisfied looking
Roy and Alice return home. In a makeshift ceremony, the professor
marries the two lovebirds.
When
Carla ventures outside the safety of home, Ro-Man captures and strangles
her. He then stumbles onto the honeymooners who are making out in
the dirt. An awkward fight ensues and Roy is thrown over a cliff.
Actually, he only ducks behind a hill with a prolonged scream indicating
a fall to his death. Alice is swept away by the hairy simian conqueror,
but they stop long enough to discuss Ro-Man's weakness.
While
his parents bury Carla, Johnny comes up with a plan to lure Ro-Man
away and rescue Alice.
With
a seemingly indifferent Barrett clutched in his arms, Barrows stumbles
back to the cave where Ro-Man makes his move. "Suppose I were
hu-man, would you treat me like a man?" he asks as he tears
at the straps of her dress. When his groove is interrupted by the
telecomunicator, Ro-Man must somehow subdue Alice.
In
a moment so sublimely silly that it has to be seen to be believed,
Alice stands idly by as Ro-man tries to tie her up while repeatedly
adjusting his crooked helmet. When it becomes apparent that tying
her up is too complicated and time consuming, Ro-man simply knocks
her unconscious. After a brief conversation with the professor on
the view screen, "Call me again at another time." Ro-Man
turns back to Alice who is now wide awake and has been miraculously
bound in rope!
Quality
time with his favorite earth gal is interrupted yet again when the
Great One calls to berate him, "You violate the law of plan.
Fact. You have captured the girl and not destroyed her. Fact."
"To
laugh, feel, want. Why are these things not in the plan?" Ro-Man
questions.
The
Great Leader hasn't time for mushy emotions and gives Ro-Man his
orders, "One, destroy the girl. Two, destroy the family. Fail
and I will destroy you."
But
how can he kill the woman he loves? In a crisis of conscience, Ro-man
expresses his newfound feelings in a bad movie sonnet that is Shakespearian
in scope. "I cannot, yet I must. How do you calculate that?
At what point on the graph do must and cannot meet?
Yet I must, but I cannot." When Johnny arrives at the mouth
of the cave Ro-Man begs, "Alice, do not hate me. I must."
Just
as Ro-Man strangles Johnny to death, the wrath of the Great One
is unleashed. "You wish to be hu-man? Good. You can die a hu-man!"
Shocked by his own flashing death ray, poor Ro-Man collapses as
more dinosaur stock footage is shown.
The
earth's final destruction dissolves away to show a helpful Roy carrying
Johnny, who apparently got a serious bump on the noggin. "Boy
was that a dream or was it?" he asks as they leave the cave
and head for home.
A
last electrical flash reveals the ghostly apparition of Ro-Man,
who lumbers menacingly towards the camera not once…but three
times!
Director
Phil Tucker had originally planned for there to be a robot villain
in Robot Monster. When use of the robot costume they wanted
fell through, Tucker contacted actor and stunt man George Barrows.
He owned his own ape costume and made his living by appearing in
low-budget jungle adventures. The rest, as they say, is history.
In another tale that has since passed into bad movie legend, Tucker
was so distraught over the failure of Robot Monster and the
direction that his career had taken, that he got a gun and attempted
suicide. The punch line of the story is that he missed. How much
of this tale is true (it's undoubtedly been embellished over the
years) is anybody's guess. Tucker directed a handful of other films,
including The Cape Canaveral Monsters (1960).
After
being put under contract at Universal, George Nader's Hollywood
career consisted mainly of beefcake roles like the Cool Cinema Trash
favorites Carnival Story (1954) and The Female Animal
(1958). In the sixties he left Hollywood behind and continued his
career in Europe. Nader retired from acting after an eye injury
and in the late seventies wrote the gay sci-fi novel Chrome.
Robot
Monster has been released on VHS and DVD by various companies
over the years. The DVD put out by Image Entertainment (as part
of the Wade Williams collection) looks great. A few minor specks
on the print are understandable considering the films age. The disc
includes a trailer and previews of other Image titles including
several Ed Wood films.
Robot
Monster was once the butt of caustic jokes on MST3K,
and it's easy to see why it was chosen. Every oddball moment of
Robot Monster is a veritable treasure trove of comedic fodder.
Whether you're a hu-man or a ro-man, it's hard not to love this
bad movie gem.
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