By Hank Reineke
There were passing
moments when watching this gorgeously curated Blu-ray of Phil Tucker’s cult 3-D
masterwork Robot Monster (1953) that
I mulled its reputation as cinema’s most fabled wreck was undeserved. Surely, I thought, I’ve cringingly sat
through worse sci-fi films produced before and since. But then some particularly awful line of dialogue
(delivered woodenly, of course), or a bizarre plot turn, or a not-so-special
effect, or an inexplicable episode of dinosaur wrangling would interrupt my
musings, causing a return to sober reality. Phil Tucker’s low-low-low
budget monster-piece is a crazed vision, to be sure. But acknowledging that, Robot Monster is most certainly not
one of the world’s worst films: it’s too entertaining to be dismissed as such. On the same token, it’s undeniably one of the
most desperate and unhinged cinematic artifacts lensed by an indie Hollywood film-outfit
of the ‘50s.
The sullied reputation of Robot Monster is the result, no doubt, due to the merciless
flailing of the production by the smirking Medved brothers - Michael and Harry –
who infamously skewered the film in their pop-culture, eminently readable and
caustic tomes The Fifty Worst Films of
All Time (1978) and The Golden Turkey
Awards (1980). Still the film’s space
helmet and gorilla-suit sporting “Ro-man” (as listed in the film’s end credits)
– has somehow managed to become as
visually iconic a totem of 1950s sci-fi as the gigantic robot Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still (2oth
Century Fox, 1951) or the Metaluna monster in This Island Earth (Universal-International, 1955).
As is so often the case, the backstory to the creation of
Robot Monster is perhaps more
interesting than the artifact produced. The
screenplay was written by Wyott “Barney” Ordung. The Californian was trying desperately to
break into the film business, initially as an acting student working
occasionally in walk-on roles, often uncredited. In a 1983 interview with the late film and
3-D historian Ray Zone, Ordung recalled it was in 1952 when he was approached
by Tucker – who he’d known casually from working on a previous picture – to write
the script for Robot Monster. Ordung recalled he was originally tasked to
play the role of the “Ro-Man” – at least in earliest test footage photography.
Ordung’s script for Robot
Monster would serve as his springboard into the world of professional
filmmaking. Following that film’s
release, the Californian would script the war film Combat Squad (1953) as well as another sci-fi guilty pleasure Target Earth (1954). Still (mercifully) unproduced is the script Ordung
wrote directly following the release of Robot
Monster. That prospective film was,
according to Sun Valley’s Valley Times,
to feature Ordung’s “3-D comedy” scenario based on “Mildred Seamster’s
Hollywood beauty salon.” The plot would
“deal with the varied individuals who patronize a beauty salon and their
interesting escapades.” Oy.
That film would not materialize, but it was of little
matter as Ordung would soon receive his first directing credit when Roger
Corman tapped him to helm Monster from
the Ocean Floor (1954). Though Ordung
had not previously helmed any sort of film production, it was an offer and
partnership of economic necessity. Corman agreed to allow Ordung to direct on the condition he contribute
$2,000 of his Robot Monster earnings
to the new film’s budget and work for “a piece of the picture.” Hey, a break’s a break.
First-time director Phil Tucker too was looking for his first
big break in the film industry and was of the mind that Robot Monster just might be the ticket. But his experience working on Robot Monster was, alas, bittersweet. Less than two months following the release of
that film, Tucker was found in Fairbanks, Alaska – of all places - shooting his
non-union follow-up epic: the seventy-five minute Venusian “science-fiction
thriller” Space Jockey – a film never
released and now thought lost. Tucker grudgingly
told a journalist in Fairbanks that with only Robot Monster to his credit, he had already soured on the politics
of Tinseltown.
“The movie industry is stifled in Hollywood,” he director
complained. “They tell you what to
write, how to produce it, when to direct it, who [to] put in it and when to try
to sell it. It’s a tight little island of rulers and it’s
a hard place in which to breathe free.” Tucker did confess he wasn’t trying to be a true auteur in any sense of the word: “I’m not trying to create
art. I’m trying to make money,” he
offered plainly.
The primary stumbling block to Tucker’s earning any
monies was New York-born Al Zimbalist, the executive producer and guiding hand
of Robot Monster. The movie was the first of the films Zimbalist
would oversee as producer – and occasionally as “writer,” though that was mostly
as concoctor of “original stories” and little more. Throughout the 1950s and a bit beyond,
Zimbalist delivered such bargain-basement fare as Cat-Women of the Moon (1953), Miss
Robin Crusoe (1953), King Dinosaur
(1955) and Monster from Green Hell
(1957) to the pleasures of a mostly undiscerning cinema-going audience. It was also Zimbalist who steered Robot Monster to go the then popular 3-D
filming route. It was an unusual decision
for an indie film to be shot on a shoestring budget.
It made some sense. Hollywood’s production of 3-D films was at its zenith in 1953. Box
Office would note in April of 1953 that no fewer than sixty-two films to
offer the 3-D treatment were either completed, in production or in the planning
stages. Practically every major studio
was readying a slate of 3-D cinematic fare: Columbia, Paramount, RKO Radio,
United Artists and Warner Bros. among them. By far, 20th Century Fox was leading the way with a scheduled
twenty-two 3-D films on the drawing
board. There were only a couple of
independents in the mix, having chosen to dip their toe in the 3-D pool. Al Zimbalist and Phil Tucker’s “newly
organized” Third Dimension Pictures was one of them.
The trades reported on March 21, 1953 that Zimbalist was to
employ a unique “Tru-Depth system of 3-D” photography for his in-the-works Robot Monster project. Then, a mere week
following the start of the film’s
production, Box Office noted that Robot Monster had completed shooting… though no release date had yet been set. Zimbalist was so pleased with the results of
the “Tru-Depth” system, that in April of ’53 the Hollywood maverick announced
the formation of his “Tru-Stereo Corporation.” The company would “make available a stereoscopic 3-D system to
independent producers.” “Tru-Stereo” would serve as an affordable,
budget-conscious alternative to the more expensive 3-D systems used by the
Hollywood majors.
In fact, there were no fewer than twenty-two competing 3-D systems being used by filmmakers by late
spring of 1953. (“Tru-Depth” had since been
rechristened as “Tru-Stereo.)” The
Tru-Stereo 3-D was proffered as being similar to the others: it too employed
two cameras to create the three-dimensional effect. But the system also boasted “an authentic
interlocking control which is said to insure against faulty
synchronization.” Robot Monster had also boastingly employed “a newly developed
stereophonic sound system devised by the Master-Tone Sound Corporation.”
The first casting notices for Robot Monster were announced in March of 1953. Handsome leading man George Nader was reportedly
hired to play the role of “Roy” following his appearance in the still
unreleased pic Miss Robin Crusoe. Nader’s performance in that film impressed
Zimbalist who worked on the same as associate producer. Roy’s love interest, Alice (Claudia Barrett)
hadn’t much big-screen experience, but had been steadily working on any number
of early television series. The film’s
egghead professor would be played by the long-working Ukrainian actor John
Mylong, his children, Johnny and Carla, by stage-kids Gregory Moffett and
Pamela Paulson, respectively.
The role of the professor’s wife went to Selena Royle, an
actress with a familiar face due to her long run as a dependable player at MGM. Royle was happy to get the role – any role –
as she had recently been blacklisted in the pages of Red Channels, “the American Legion’s list of 200 motion picture
workers suspected of communist leanings.” Her crime was the organizing and serving of free meals to the
un-and-under employed actors in and around New York City during the throes of
the Depression. Royle vowed to fight the
accusations, telling journalist her post-blacklist acting income had dropped
from six figures to a mere three figures by mid-summer of 1952. Robot
Monster would be one of her two final feature film appearances, Royle and
her husband choosing to immigrate to Mexico in 1957.
Another member of the Robot
Monster team tainted by alleged communist sympathies was soundtrack composer
Elmer Bernstein. Though subsequently
called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1955, in 1953
Bernstein was still managing better than most. He was, in his own terminology,
“graylisted,” suspected of left-wing taints but having no identifiable connection
to any domestic CP activities. But
offers to work had slackened off due to the commie-symp accusations made
against him. That was until May of 1953,
when Variety reported that Bernstein
had signed a “multiple picture” contract with the opportunistic Zimbalist.
Bernstein’s first assignment was to score Robot Monster. He would later tell author Rick Phalen he
received a paltry “$800 to compose, orchestrate and conduct” an eight-piece
ensemble for the film. “That was $800
for two month’s work,” he sighed to the writer. It was only after the Senate’s censure of Sen. Joseph McCarthy in
December of 1954 and the interventions of Cecil B. DeMille that Bernstein was
blessedly brought back into the mainstream, the latter sneaking him on the
payroll as orchestrator and conductor of The
Ten Commandments (1956).
The film’s plot in a nutshell? Well, the titular Robot Monster (aka “Ro-Man”) has been sent by his moon-based leader
to earth to wipe out the entirety of its population through the use of a
disintegration ray. He actually does a
pretty good job of it, choosing to rest a bit afterward in cave in California’s
Bronson Canyon. By the film’s start Ro-Man
is only eight earthlings short of completing his ambitious mission (Really only
six earthlings as the other two survivors never actually appear on film. They’re supposedly destroyed while trying to
make their way via rocket – via the film’s ghastly “special” effects - to the
safety of a so-called galactic garrison called the Space Platform).
Though Ro-man, in a conciliatory manner, promises a
“painless death” to the half-dozen earthbound remainders should they come out
of hiding, the six choose to fight on - however improbable their chance of
surviving. But the six catch a break
when Ro-Man suddenly gets all moony over shapely and pulchritudinous twenty-four-year
old Alice. As is so often in life,
Ro-man’s plans spiral downward due to his getting sidetracked in an unrequited May-December
romantic-relationship with the earth woman. That’s the film’s story, more or less.
Incredibly, Robot
Monster would actually enjoy a Hollywood premiere. The film was booked on June 24, 1953 at a
trio of Los Angeles-area cinemas: the
Hollywood Paramount, the Manchester and the Globe. It would be paired with the Sonny
Tufts-Barbara Payton H-Bomb “comedy” Run
for the Hills. Box Office indicated that a national release of Robot Monster was still “being
negotiated.” The earliest reviews
weren’t as savage as one might expect, but certainly mixed. Variety
was of the sensible opinion that the picture “comes off surprisingly well,
considering the extremely limited budget and schedule on which the film was
shot.”
It was also noted that the film’s “Tru-Stereo” 3-D
effects were sparse and tasteful – there is, in fact, surprising restrained use
of 3-D gimmicky evident in Robot Monster…
with the exception of an endless sea of soap bubbles floating from the
screen. The 3-D effects are pretty
impressive in their depth captures, though there are perhaps too many moments
of watching Ro-man walk in and out of his cave either to remote-contact his
leader, “The Great Guidance,” or to create mayhem for the stubborn human
survivors.
In their thumbs-down review “Astral Assassins Go
Berserk,” the Los Angeles Mirror suggested
Robot Monster had played before a
mostly “yawning audience.” But the Mirror critic was mildly impressed that
the film’s 3-D work – the first monochrome 3-D extravaganza shot by an
independent production company – which was surprisingly up-to-snuff due
considering its “$50,000” budget. (The
critic did gripe the aforementioned 3-D bubbles “aren’t always floating out to
the audience. Perhaps a technician
forgot to slip a switch in filming”). Though
a presumptive production cost of $50,000 was casually tossed about in that
review, the true budget of Robot Monster
is unclear. There are many references to
the film costing as ridiculously low as $16,000, with writer Ordung suggesting
the budget was closer to $45,000.
Despite the mixed reviews, in late July of 1953, Box Office reported Bob Savini, the
president of Astor Pictures, had “closed a deal” with Zimbalist to distribute Robot Monster across the continental
U.S, promising that “advertising, publicity, and exploitative accessories”
would be ready in three weeks’ time. Savini was so optimistic about the film’s success in turning a buck on
investment, he was also considering to option Zimbalist’s next science-fiction
project Cat-Women of the Moon, all set
to begin production in six weeks’ time.
Robot
Monster did certainly turn a profit on its relatively meagre
investment, but Hollywood’s short-lived if enthusiastic embrace of the 3-D
phenomenon was trailing off. Only a few
weeks’ following the film’s release, the Associated Press was already warning
that the 3-D craze was showing signs of weakening. To some Robot
Monster was partly guilty of hastening the system’s demise, one newspaper
lamenting the film’s “comic-book approach to science-fiction in 3-D” could very
well “help bury the medium before it gets off the ground.”
One similarly unimpressed cinemagoer even chose to take
the time to share his thoughts with Hollywood gossip columnist Sidney Skolsky. The unsettled fan complained that the 3-D gimmick
was ruining contemporary story-telling: “One thing that should be realized is
that every time they turn out a bad job now, a thing like Robot Monster for example, they are driving more people away.” When Robot
Monster belatedly arrived on England’s shores – where the 3-D novelty craze
had not really taken hold as it had in the U.S. – London’s Picturegoer completely dismissed the narrative of Robot Monster as completely
“preposterous.”
It wasn’t helpful to the box office take of Robot Monster that playing concurrent to
its U.S. release was Eugene Lourie’s The
Beast from 20,000 Fathoms - which featured the innovative and mind-bending
stop-motion special effects of Ray Harryhausen. There were dinosaur-like creatures sprinkled about in Robot Monster as well. But Zimbalist’s frugalness caused him to use
stock-footage culled from unconvincing imagery from early cinema. When shooting Valley of the Dragons in the UK in 1961, Zimbalist still held tight
to his belief that Harryhausen’s celebrated stop-motion photography was a mostly
unnecessary gimmick. He explained to the
New York Times that “iguanas, Gila
monsters and a special kind of Israeli reptile make wonderful monsters if used
on miniature sets with trick camera work.” It also wasn’t helpful that Republic Pictures unintentionally might have
siphoned off a few box-office dollars with their July 1953 release of the
similarly titled Robot Monster from Mars,
the seventh chapter of their new Commander
Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe serial
Though Zimbalist would go on to enjoy a semi-successful
ten+ year run in the film industry, director Tucker wasn’t as fortunate. In December of 1953, after presumably
returning to southern California from Alaska with his rough cut of Space Jockey, he checked himself into
Hollywood’s Knickerbocker Hotel… and wrote a bizarre suicide note which he curiously
sent off to the editor of the Los Angeles
Mirror. Among Tucker’s reasons for
choosing suicide was the fact Hollywood had not given him the opportunity to
“develop” as a filmmaker – but mostly that he “had not been paid for his work
and was not given his share of the profits” as stipulated in his Robot Monster contract.
There’s plenty of conjecture that Tucker’s suicide note
was little more than a poor and distasteful stunt, an attempt to get his name
circulating in Los Angeles-area newspapers. This was the feeling of screenwriter Ordung who mused Tucker’s note was likely
an act of career desperation: he believed his friend simply “wanted
publicity.” In his suicide note, Tucker
admitted he had not been a good business man: “Had I been, I would be alive now,”
he offered. This would all have been
very tragic and sad save for that fact Tucker was still very much alive. His ersatz farewell note made a second small mention
of Robot Monster, a film produced and
directed “at the very height of the 3-D craze.” But he went on to say he remained annoyed that he had not yet received
“my wages as director for that picture.”
If it was a publicity stunt as Ordung and others
suggested, Tucker’s “suicide” note was a professional backfire. Following, Robot Monster and the lensing of his lost “gem” Space Jockey, Tucker was relegated to
knocking out sleazy striptease films over a two-year span in the years
1953-1954 (Bagdad at Midnight, Dream
Follies and Tijuana after Midnight), before bouncing back with a
“mainstream” directing credit on The Cape
Canaveral Monsters in 1960. Tucker
would disappear almost completely from the film industry shortly thereafter,
though he surprisingly returned a decade-and-a-half later having managed positions
as a production manager on the Dino De Laurentiis version of King Kong (1976) and an editing
assignment on the morose Maxwell Smart flick The Nude Bomb (1980). Tucker
would pass on, age 58, in 1985, more than thirty-years on from his alleged
suicide. But Tucker’s Robot Monster lives on.
‘Tis true. If nearly
all of the major players of Robot Monster
are no longer among us, their gift to the entertainment world remains. In April of 1955, the film would get a new lease
on life on television when Atlantic Pictures, the TV subsidiary of Astor, would
include Robot Monster in their package
of film offerings. Such broadcasts would
introduce the film to a new audience – including such armchair critics as the
Medved’s who, through their ridiculing castigation, would accidentally propel
the film to eternal celebrity.
This Bayview Entertainment and 3-D Film Archive’s “70th
Anniversary Restoration in 3-D” of Robot
Monster is offered on the set in both a Blu-ray 3-D and Anaglyph 3-D, 2-D)
versions. (The set includes 3-D glasses and the discs are region-free.) The film is presented in its
original 1:37.1 aspect ratio with DTS-MA 2.0 audio. The 3-D effect captured on this set is
positively stunning. Pay no mind to the insert
sleeve’s warning that “Due to
deterioration of the original film elements, there are several instances where
frames are repeated in order to maintain stereoscopic synchronization between
the left and right sides.” This is
nice to know but, really, only anoraks would likely notice this if not
forewarned. Bob Furmanek, the president
and founder of the 3-D Film Archive, is the real hero here. This film has been lovingly and meticulously
restored by this peerless 3-D archivist who has successfully managed to allow
the shiniest of gold to radiate glowingly from this oft-mocked Golden Turkey.
This is also the time in my essay that I usually make note
of the Special Features contained within. In this case, such a task would be impossible without adding an
additional five hundred words to this already too-lengthy discourse. Suffice to say this set boasts over two hours of bonus features. There are, of course, the usual extras:
trailers and a commentary track, memorabilia galleries, restoration demos and
the like. But the set also features the
warm and welcome reminiscences of the film’s lone-surviving actor, Greg Moffett,
who humbly if sheepishly admits to his “not very extensive” memories of being
on set of Robot Monster and offers his
embarrassment of forever being associated with one of the worst films of
all-time.
There’s also an interesting representation of a full-length
period 3-D comic book published by New York City’s Harvey Comics back in 1953 –
I admit I was unaware such comics even existed. There’s additionally a lengthy but interesting 3-D slide presentation of
photographs offered courtesy of “Stereoscopic Anthropologist Hillary Hess as
well as comedian/singer/mimic/entertainer Slick Slavin’s Stardust in Your Eyes, the very same short that played prior to the
original screenings of Robot Monster
back in the day. There’s a large
assortment of additional features and shorts that range from ambitious and
educational to simple fan-boy toss-away tosh – but all segments offered have
been produced in good spirit with a sense of fun.
A real unexpected treat (for me) was the surprising
inclusion of a surviving 16mm kinescope featuring Bela Lugosi’s appearance on a
July 27, 1953 episode of television’s You
Asked for It. This extra is a
wonderful bonus for us monster kids. It’s
still too early in the year to declare this new edition of Robot Monster as the finest Blu-ray release of 2023, but it has
certainly set a high bar for any competitors. This is an essential addition to the library of fans of Silver-age
sci-fi, of Hollywood’s 3-D film era, or for people who enjoy watching bad
movies made by ambitious indie filmmakers. Filmmakers who might have lacked the skill sets and budget to make great films, but still managed to create
something special and enduring – if all for the wrong reasons.
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