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.