I remember seeing this oddball sci-fi flick years ago…does anybody know if a DVD version is available? AMAZON doesn’t have it.
I taped my copy off TNT. Try the IMDB, but I suspect it isn’t commercially available. If you check the back pages of weird cinema magazines you might find privayely dubbed copies.
I may have seen this movie years ago but I’m not sure. Does the climax involve a giant energy-sucking robot looming ominously over Los Angeles? I read the IMDB plot outline but that particular scene and the fact that the robots needed to suck massive amounts of electricity was not discussed. Maybe I’m getting it mixed up with another 50’s sci-fi movie with giant robots.
In the movie “Gog” and “Magog” were a pair of utility robots at an underground nuclear installation (that included a human centrifuge, for some reason). (If you’re not familiar with the names, shame on you – go get your Bible Concordance.) They start to act weird and begin sabotaging the plant, and ultimately it comes to a hand-to-waldo battle. But it turns out that a foreign plane has been beaming false instructions to it(It’s never explicitly stated, but it’s obviously a damned Roosky.) They blow up the plane. Robots stop acting crazy.
Gog and Magog look kinda like early-model Daleks. If the movie were being made today they’d make them a lot more impressive. As it is, they’re about 4 feet tall and not terrifically threatening-looking. The most lethal thing about them is an inexplicable flame thrower on the front (I certainly want a flame thrower on my utility robot. But I want someone else to have responsibility for keeping the naphtha tank filled.)
The movie is connected to another film that involves the same agency (The Magnetic Monster, I think. ) It was shot in then-expensive glorious color.
I checked the IMDB listing – I forgot that this was a 3D film. I’d heard that somewhere (although I’ve never seen it that way). That explains the flame-throwers (cinematically, at least) and the multiple robot arms. And why they really needed those crazy twisty corridors, and why the centrifuge car came so damned close. I didn’t realize that the color print onlt recently became available. (When I saw the film on TV as a kid, we had a black and white set.)
And it does look as if I was right about The Magnetic Monster being set in the same setting. It dates from 1953, with much the same team. An interesting film, if you can find it.
Neither of these has a cover on the IMDB, which indicates to me that neither is commercially available. But I’ll bet you can find bootleg copies.
As for Kronos, noted above, that does seem to be available on DVD. (I know that it’s on VHS). It’s definitely worth seeing. The plot is pretty dumb and the resolution comes out of thin air. But all the critics agree that the boxy mindless power-suckinh robot is one of the more offbeat alien menaces on 1950s cinema. And , even though you wouldn’t think it would be the case, the art directors manage to make that featureless box of a robot look absolutely gorgeous. It looks impressive and huge and menacing, and its downfall is a visual treat. The art directors, writers and producers made Forbidden Planet !!
Too bad it’s only in black and white. This film would’ve been a killer in color.