Robot Monster (1953)

Now pay attention class! Mars is the fourth planet in our solar system. It is inhabited by obese people in gorilla suits with nylon stockings over their faces and diving helmets, complete with 2 wiggly antennae, plunked on their heads. They are bent on the total destruction of the human race!

What do you mean, that's not true!?? It was captured 'live' on film in 1953!!

At least, that's what writer/producer/director Phil Tucker wants us to believe.

You know you're in trouble when you see a German professor with his wife, 3 children, and dashing young research assistant on a picnic in barren California desert canyon. Little Johnny falls asleep after pigging out on sandwich and awakens to find everyone else asleep. So, off he trots to explore a dark, dingey cave all by himself where he discovers the Martian's hide-out.

Ro-Man (that's what the Martian calls himself... Robot... Man... get it?) contacts the Professor and his family via a televiewer screen and alerts him that the 6 people in his party are the last people left alive on Earth. (Gotta love those 'calcinator death rays'!) While the Prof tries to figure out how they magically avoided the 'death ray', Ro-Man shows him stock World War II footage of destroyed cities (complete with planes still flying overhead!) as proof. Then the 'Hu-Mans' ('Hu-Man'... 'Ro-Man'... get it?) are shown a rocketship flying through space (held by a giant hand in a black glove which unintentionally appears in one corner of the screen). Suddenly, the calcinator death ray blasts the rocket into a shower of talcum powder and Ro-Man warns the Professor that he is next!! Oooo! The excitement of it all!

Just to be sure he's got the plans straight, Ro-Man uses the televiewer to report to 'The Great One' back on Mars who, oddly enough, looks exactly like Ro-Man except for the violin bow he holds in his hand. (An obvious symbol of his superior rank!) The Great One sits behind an impressive console of dials, buttons and levers that really do nothing at all except to blow inexplicable bubbles whenever one is pushed, pulled or turned. By the time he gets back to the Professor, Ro-Man discovers that the Prof has developed a serum which counteracts the death ray. (Gilligan could have used this guy on his island!)

Frustrated that his plans are foiled, Ro-Man uses the simian qualities of his costume to best advantage as he hobbles into camp, strangles the Prof's youngest daughter, punches Roy (Remember him? The handsome assistant?) to death, then kidnaps Alice, the Professor's older, more voluptuous daughter. Ro-Man may be wearing a silly diving helmet, but he's got monkey blood in his veins, and it's boiling! He rips open Alice's blouse, but before he can get his paws on the goodies, Daddy contacts Ro-Man on the televiewer and orders his surrender.

A frustrated Ro-Man shouts, "Why do you call me at this time?" and gets back to business with a very patient Alice, who might as well be polishing her fingernails. Again, this film is rescued from becoming X-rated when The Great One butts in and chews out Ro-Man who, according to the plan, was supposed to surrender to the Professor so he could infiltrate the group and kill the girl. Annoyed, Ro-Man admits to The Great One that he's now bored with his job as world conquerer because he doesn't have any time for fun, and, with a leer toward the still-patient Alice, says he'd rather be like the Hu-Mans.

"You wish to be a Hu-Man?" shouts The Great One. "Good! You can die a Hu-Man!" He points his index finger and suddenly the screen is filled with 'cosmic U-rays' while the soundtrack snaps, crackles and pops. Just when you don't think you can't take it any more, the screen suddenly jumps to a fifteen-minute inexplicable and incoherent montage of dinosaurs fighting each other in tropical jungles, buffalo running down a hill (yup... that's what I said!), woolly mammoths stampeding, and even an erupting vlocano thrown in for good measure. Just as suddenly, it all stops and we find our happy group huddled around little Johnny who, apparently, fell down, bumped his head on a rock, and dreamed the whole movie! And they all head off for home.

But is this the end? Nope! Cut to the cave. Here comes Ro-Man, out of the cave and straight for the camera, waving his arms in what's supposed to be a scary gesture. When he blacks out the camera with his hairy, massive belly, the same scene is repeated... and repeated again! (In case we missed the message the first two times! What message, you ask? Don't ask me... I missed it.)

Fortunately, the words 'The End' appear and put us out of our misery.

I would be very surprised if you ever found a copy of this clunker on a video shelf. It does, however, pop up occasionally on television in those cult 'Bad Movie' programmes that are sometimes seen in the wee hours of the morning. It's actually worth a few extra pots of coffee to stay up and watch this 'laughathon'.

But let's give credit where credit is due. The actors did, for the most part, manage to complete the film with relatively 'straight' faces. (Then again, perhaps their acting abilities had not yet developed to the 'smile' level!) Whatever. You'll be laughing out loud, though. Trust me.

I dare you to keep from breaking up when you hear this heart-wrenching soliloquy delivered by the introspective gorilla-cum-Cousteau shipmate:

"To be like the hu-man! To laugh! Feel! Want! Why are these things not in the plan?... 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!"

Move over Hamlet!!

Tucker was a 26-year-old whiz-kid when he came up with the idea for 'Robot Monster'. He originally envisioned his creation as a kind of robot. (How Appropriate!) In an interview, Tucker said: "I talked to several guys that I knew who had robot suits, but it was just out-of-the-way, money-wise. I thought, 'Okay, I know George Barrows.' George's occupation was gorilla-suit man. When they needed a gorilla in a picture they called George, because he owned his own suit and got like forty bucks a day. I thought, 'I know George will work for me for nothing. I'll get a diving helmet, put it on him, and it'll work!'"

It didn't!

"I still do not believe," he continued, "that there is a soul alive who could have done as well for as little money as I was able to do. For the budget, and for the time, I felt I had achieved greatness."