Leofwine_draca TARGET EARTH sounds like an epic sci-fi movie on paper: see! Earth attacked by an army of killer robots with death rays! Sadly, as is usually the case with these things, the real story is far more prosaic, and a dearth of money means that this is a typically cheap and plodding sci-fi pic with more in common with ROBOT MONSTER than WAR OF THE WORLDS.Cult producer Herman Cohen delivers us a tale of a quartet of survivors trapped in a deserted city and at the mercy of a robot seemingly made out of cardboard boxes. A few scenes of military speak are interspersed with the main narrative, no doubt to pad out the running time a little. Whit Bissell plays in support.Nothing much happens here. There are a few cheesy death scenes and attempts at suspense that will disappoint all but the smallest child. Needless to say there are few effects. I like 1950s B-movies but this really doesn't have much going for it, although Robert Roark is fun as the human villain of the piece, Richard Denning is the likable everyman hero, and Kathleen Crowley certainly fills out a form-fitting sweater. What more could you want?

kapelusznik18 ***SPOILERS*** 1950's cold war hysteria movie where the bad guys are not the commies, Russian or Chinese, but robots from outer space who have taken over an unmanned US mid western city and are using it as their operational headquarters for the eventual takeover, violent takeover, of the United States. All we see of this invading force, due to budget restraints, is one bumbling robot who has trouble putting one foot in front of the other and looking like he or is it is in danger of keeling over and landing flat on it's face. Two of the people who for some reason weren't evacuated from the city, by the US Army and National Guard, traveling salesman Frank Brooks, Richard Denning, and attempted suicide victim Nora King, Kathleen Crowley, have to find a way to get back to the US Military who is surrounding the city before they get zapped by the slow moving robot with its death ray.If it wasn't for the comedic looking and acting robot, who comes across like a walking junkyard, the movie would have held our attention in how scary the situation that both Frank & Nora as well as later, the two other are are stranded in town, Vicki Harris & Jim Wilson, Virginia Grey & Richard Reeves, are in. The true tension in the film is when out of nowhere convicted murderer Davis, Robert Roark, shows up and holds the quintet hostage in him planning to use them as human shields, for "Robbie" the Robot, to zap as he makes his getaway through the city sewer system. Davis also has the hots for the cute and sexy Nora who wants her to take off, through the sewer system, with him while the robot finishes the reminding survivors off.***SPOILERS*** It's in the end that the US military and it's top nuclear scientist, Whit Bissell, who saves the day and the nation by finding out what makes the invading army of robots, we only see one in the entire film, tick and thus disable them with out blowing up the entire nation with a massive nuclear strike. As for Davis he overplays his hand by getting too confident in his ability to control the situation that he slips up badly and gets his neck rungs by a fatally wounded Wilson who by now, after he plugged Wilson's girlfriend Vicki,just about had all he could take from him.

JoeB131 The plot line is so simply you'll swear you've seen it before...People wake up to find that their city has been evacuated and is under siege by alien robot thingees (of which we never actually see more than one on screen at any given time.) While survivors try to keep one step ahead of the monsters, the Army is bravely trying to figure out how to defeat them.Can't say the movie was all that great. It was clearly done on a budget, with characters talking about what was going on rather than showing us things going on. (Something a modern film would never do.) The acting was fairly decent, but the threat just wasn't all that impressive.

oscar-35 I am a robot fan. I bought this film just for that. I had not seen this film in many many years and wanted to get a film of the EARLY 50's B/W era. After seeing the film again, I was struck that many of the plot elements were 'no budget' copies from 'The Day the Earth Stood Still'. They say, 'if you are going to steal, steal from the best'. The robot use was too limited and sparse. The two couples lost in the city were very one dimensional and boring. Only when the two 'Redshirt' characters showed up did the bland lead actors had to add some real drama to this story. The scientist and military scenes needed to be pumped up more and interlaced better in this film story line. I am really sorry to point out, one robot is not that menacing. This film could have been more with some fine tuning. On the back of the film box: A large city is ordered to be completely evacuated as an army of robots, believed to be from the planet Venus, organize a city-wide attack in search of planetary domination. As the army and a group of scientists seek means of destroying the robots, the few people left in the city run for their lives. Nora(Katheen Crowley) and Frank(Richard Denning, governor of Hawaii 5-0) are two strangers who happen to later meet Vickie(Virginia Grey) and Jim(Richard Reeves) having a private party in an abandoned café. The two couple manage to escape the robot patrols and take refuge in a large hotel. There they confront a new danger, in a psychopathic killer Dave(Robert Roark). Our hearty group of survivors must now dodge the alien robot threat while avoiding the earth-bound maniac killer. All the while, scientist are racing against time to save the Earth from annihilation.