d-millhoff I was expecting 1950's cold war schlock, and that's what I got.But there were some other unexpected details.While they got atomic physics wrong and clearly didn't understand the concept of orbital mechanics, they otherwise did an above-average job of sticking to real science. Way above average for its genre.The robots LOOKED LIKE functional robots, not even remotely human-shaped. And in an early scene, you see the computer operator removing and examining something from a rack, that looks a LOT like a PCI card with some sort of memory module on it (very reminiscent of the "hard drive sled" in my old Mac Pro). And a pretty ingenious solar optical system with very-convincing parabolic mirrors.Not bad!

Robert J. Maxwell Richard Egan is a civilian scientist and security expert called in to investigate queer goings on at a military experimental station in the desert. The CO of the station is Herbert Marshall. The requisite scientific assistant is Constance Dowling.It's all very confusing at first. Two scientists freeze and unfreeze a monkey then are themselves frozen by a mysterious force that locks them in the chamber and manipulates the controls. The monkey had been already removed, so not to worry. He's okay.The first thing that comes to mind while watching this inexpensive SF flick, aside from "What the hell is going on?", is that the design of the station is very precisely laid out for us, so much so that it makes us wonder if Michael Crighton might have ripped it off for "The Andromeda Strain." There are two multi-armed robots (pronounced "ROW-butts") that grind around the room and do dated tricks like twisting knobs while the observers stand around and gawk at them. Their names are Gog and Magog, nebulous figures from the Old Testament. Each is more animated than one or two of the supporting cast.About half the movie is exposition that isn't blended too well into the narrative. "This is the monitoring chamber, where the molecules are broken down. Over here, for instance, isotopes." I suppose with all the borrowed electronic junk around -- the clicks, beeps, and blinking lights -- it might as well be shown on screen, though it may have nothing to do with the story.Man, do things go wrong. One device after another goes berserk. Death follows death. And long past the point at which the whole establishment should have been shut down and fumigated, Herbert Marshall is saying things like, "We'd better tighten security," and, "We'll work in pairs from now on." The villains of the piece are Gog and Magog, who are being ordered to do naughty things by a rocket ship overhead.I've always found Richard Egan to be a likable actor but not a magnetic one. Herbert Marshall does well enough by the role of leader, especially considering the booze he was pounding at the time. And nobody could deny that Constance Dowling is attractive in an idiosyncratic way and that, in her tight jump suit, she cuts a splendid figure for a scientist.

junk-monkey This film has three acts. In the first two scientists are killed by a mysterious unseen hand and an undercover security officer arrives to investigate. This part isn't too badly done, the scientist and his assistant are frozen to death. Frozen so cold in fact that their bodies shatter when they fall over which, because of budgetary constraints, they do off-screen. For act two the security officer and his undercover girlfriend security agent take us on a guided tour of the base, meeting a mixed bag of identical scientist types who lecture at great length their experiments, show us short clips of stock footage by way of illustration, and then explain and why they could not have been the mysterious killer and, to tell you the truth, the film almost grinds to a halt with tedium. This procession of (not too outlandish)ideas may have been pure "Gosh-wow! The future is going to be so Cooool!" at the time it was made but it all looks dated and plodding now.Act Three. Action! - slowly segueing into hilarious ineptitude. More people get bumped off! The chemist who was analysing some mysterious 'atomic powder' found in a suspect device is poisoned by a pot plant so radioactive that simply putting a glass dome over it cuts most of the clicking of the hero's Geiger counter. The acrobats in their anti-gravity vests made of a 'new alloy of aluminium' are spun to death in their space-suits. The head of base security is somethinged to death by sound waves "Get out! Sound waves at this intensity can kill!" Actually I'm not really sure WHAT happens to him, his shirt sort of explodes while he is trying to cut the cables to a set of electric tuning forks and then he falls over.(Just why he is trying to cut the cables to a set of electric tuning forks is not really clear either, but as he was such a terrible actor I was just willing him to die by this point so I wouldn't have to look at him any more and didn't care about the details). More action! A robot goes on the rampage in the computer room. "Can you use a flame thrower?" asks its creator in an impenetrably thick German accent while keeping it at bay with a short stick, "Yes!" cries our hero. "Melt him down! It'z the only vay to stop him!" Then, in the heat of the moment, the scientist's accent goes into hyper-drive and I have absolutely NO idea what he says next. I have played that section of the movie over and over again and it still sounds like: "Time bext zoim - in demzoim down ze hall - hurry up!" but whatever he does say our hero understands and he rushes off - that or he'd figured the odds had just turned against him. Killer robot AND insane babbling German scientist? Stuff it, I'm off. But no! He returns with the flame thrower. Unfortunately the mad German scientist has tripped over a claw hammer lying in the middle off the floor and been strungled* to death by the robot. Suddenly the alarm sounds! "The reactor!" The other killer berserk robot is in the reactor room removing the control rod. That's right. THE control rod. This atomic pile has a control room with a little lidded wooden box mounted on the wall. Open the lid and you can pull out THE control rod which starts a carbon arc (like you used to find in old projectors) and throws the hilariously inept 'Atomic Indicator' dangerously into the dark beige. Our heroes arrive set fire to the robot and replace the rod. Whew! Saved! But! What's this? Coming through the door is killer robot number one who has busted out of the other lab!!! - and the heroes' flame thrower is out of gas! But, just when things look really bad... (for the heroes I mean, the movie has been looking really bad for ages) ...in through the doors bursts aged, venerable, head scientist, Herbert Marshall waving ANOTHER flame thrower (every nuclear power plant should have at least two). Unfortunately his flame thrower doesn't work so well. Just when... etc. The stock footage of USAF planes we saw taking off earlier shoot down a mysterious fibre-glass aircraft which has been flying about overhead eavesdropping on the supercomputer and hijacking it to commit the murders.Now there's a really daft idea. I mean can you imagine anyone trying to take over someone else's computer from a distance. Absurd it could never happen Buy Viaaaagraaaa! <1/22???>?"?"?IN??~???? ????????????$3999? ale ntino??????? $990*Strungled v. To simulate the act of strangulation by clutching the stranglator to your own throat, while pretending to struggle to be free. An act commonly seen performed in any cheap movie containing a giant octopus.

BullMoose In my opinion this is one of the best films made by Ivan Tors. Tors created "Science Fiction Theater" for TV and made several SciFi films (like The Magnetic Monster) before this genre was really popular. He brought real science to the screen in plots that may seem dated today but afterall, it was 1954. In GOG, Tors brings in then brand new inventions such as jets, computers, robots, high frequency sound, cryogenics, sunlight as a weapon, electronic surveillance, atomic power and even man-made satellites (which would not become reality for 3 more years). To an audience unfamiliar with such things, it was exiting and scary. Especially scary when you were made to think such super weapons were under the control of a foreign power. The Korean War had just ended and the USSR was making aggressive comments about atomic war with us. This movie gave me nightmares for quite awhile.-BullMoose