Gog (1954)

Gog
Directed by Herbert L. Strock
Written by Tom Taggart and Richard G. Taylor; story by Ivan Tors
1954/USA
Ivan Tors Productions
First viewing/Amazon Prime

 ‘The Three Laws of Robotics: 1: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm;
2: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law;
3: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.” ― Isaac Asimov, I, Robot [/box]

An OK science fiction film in which the robots have not read the rule book.

The setting is a top-secret laboratory buried deep beneath the desert floor.  One of the lab’s main missions is to put a space-station up, after which for some reason mankind will not have to worry about nuclear weapons.  The story begins in a lab doing a monkey experiment on cryogenics in hopes that it can be use on humans during long space voyages.  Unseen hands disrupt the experiment and the scientists.

This signals the arrival of Dr. David Sheppard (Richard Egan), a security expert.  Joanna Merritt (Constance Dowling), secretly his main squeeze shows him around the various labs where we explore the 1954 vision of high tech.  Equipment and robots continue to run amok.  With Herbert Marshall (!) as the head of the lab.

This one started out stronger than it ended.  I thought the stuff in the cyrogenics lab was the best part.  The film makers obviously were trying to make a good move and it’s really not too bad if you don’t mind a little cheese.

Preview