Daily Archives: January 22, 2016

Tobor the Great
Directed by Lee Sholem
Written by Philip MacDonald; story by Carl Dudley
1954/USA
Dudley Pictures Corporation
First viewing/YouTube

Brian ‘Gadge’ Robertson: Gee, Tobor, you’re wonderful!

If it weren’t for the boy genius, this would be ideal cheesy fun.  As it is, it could appeal to your inner 10-year-old.

In the contemporary “near future”, scientists are at work on sending a man into space.  Dr. Ralph Harrison is sickened by experiments on human volunteers that have resulted in injury or death.  After he gives his boss a piece of his mind to no avail, he resigns.  As he is packing to move house, genius professor Arnold Nordstrom comes to visit, tells him he feels exactly the same, and invites him to come and work on his project to allow unmanned space exploration.

We arrive at the professor’s home where we meet his grandson “Gadge” and conveniently widowed young daughter, his mother.  The men set to work on a robot the professor names Tobor (get it?).  The robot is to receive its orders in outer space via mental telepathy.  When improvements have been made, the doctor invites journalists to a press conference at his home.  An uninvited Soviet spy also attends and plans to steal the secrets for evil purposes.

Gadge figures out how to operate the robot on his own, causing a lot of destruction in the process.  Mother scolds but the professor beams with pride.  Finally the Soviets kidnap the professor and Gadge.

The kid is just insufferable and has phony dialogue like the above quote throughout.  There’s quite a flavor of 50’s TV to the whole.  However, the pace is good and the romance is kept to a bare minimum.  Tobor is also one of the most convincing robots of the year, his fanciful operating system aside.

Trailer

Target Earth
Directed by Sherman A. Rose
Written by William Raynor, James H. Nicholson, and Wyott Ordung from a story by Paul W. Fairman
1954/USA
Abtcon Pictures/Herman Cohen Productions
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Nora King: You don’t need a reason to die, Frank. Just one to live.[/box]

This has a very promising start.  Then the actors start to talk and we are introduced to the alien.

A woman, Nora, is laying in her bed, a bottle of sleeping pills at her side.  She wakes up from her unsuccessful suicide attempt and tries to find a neighbor.  None are in and when she goes out into the town the streets are eerily empty.  She starts to be pursued by a stranger, Frank, and runs.

The two gradually establish that neither has a reason to fear the other and that they are apparently the only two people in town.  They speculate that the city was evacuated during the night.  They begin to search for a radio or any news of what has happened.  Before very long, the shadow of a gigantic robot begins to tell the story.  They manage to escape its clutches.

One of their expeditions takes them into a hotel bar where they discover Vicki (Virginia Grey) and Jim, a couple who are partaking of all the free champagne available on the premises.  The four join forces.  Eventually, an escaped convict shows up to make the party complete.  Romance and danger ensue.

The first ten minutes or so of this movie are dialogue-free and reminiscent of a Twilight Zone episode.  If the story had continued on that track this could have been something really interesting.  Unfortunately, the alien turns out to be a comically flimsy robot that looks as if it might be made out of cardboard and would blow over in a stiff breeze.  Then we start to concentrate on the group dynamics of the survivors with the predictable romances and melodrama.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CG5-bEGOKM

Trailer