Saturday, October 8, 2011

ROBOT MONSTER





George Barrows as the Supreme Guidance !

This is how RO-MAN's helmet appears in "Phanom from Space "

Help ! You gotta be pretty horned up, not to notice that standing behind you ! Bob Burns and friend, from Robot Monster, the Special Edition ! Modern gorilla man Tom Woodruff, getting "bubbled" by Joe Dante, from"Looney Toons, Back In Action "!

Wow, what can you say about this "classic" that hasn't been said already. For a long time this flick has been fodder for the Golden Turkey Awards, Mystery Science Theatre, and countless blogs and websites who are perfectly content on ripping it to shreds.







The budget constraints are legendary as this production was so tight on it's budget that the couldn't afford to build, ( or even rent) a suitable robot costume. Enter George Barrows, who with his gorilla suit provided the "Monster" part of the title. Now came the hard part, the "Robot" part of the equation.

The helmet, which is now part of our old friend Bob Burns' collection, has an interesting side note, the same helmet was also used in the film "Phantom from Space". Both films were released in 1953, and the primary difference in appearance is the fact that they used it facing opposite directions ! "Phantom" had the little air tanks in front, While "Robot Monster" had them in back.

The face plate ( hole) for robot monster was enlarged to be a rather large circle, where in "Phantom it had only a narrow side-ways oval shape . Add a set of 50's television antennae and voila' , Robot Monster !

George Barrows turns in one of his greatest performances as RO-MAN, evil invader. Rather than surrounding himself in a cloud of awesome evil, he instead surrounds himself with a cloud of happy bubbles! ( brought to you courtesy of N.A.Fischer Chemical Products, "Billion Bubble Machine ! ) And yes, the bubble thingee actually got screen credit !

The story is a rather dismal post apocalyptic , invasion story. The entire population of the Earth (except for 5 people) have been wiped out by RO-MAN, and his mysterious ray device. The 5 survivors are hiding is a basement to a house that had been blasted apart. With no roof over them, they still manage to hide from RO-MAN, even though the are like less than a mile from each other. RO-MAN's boss, THE SUPREME GUIDANCE, orders RO-MAN to finish off those pesky HU-MANS once and for all.

After launching brutal attacks with fearsome giant reptiles (stock footage from old dinosaur movies) to no avail ,RO-MAN then decides to take matters into his own hands and proceeds to throttle the life out of any one of our heroes he is lucky enough to find alone. Even the little boy ! What a dirty S.O.B.!

As fate would have it, the plan runs into a snag when RO-MAN is ordered to dispatch the one thing that is like Kryptonite to all gorillas, and gorilla robot invaders. The hot chick !

See : RO-MAN fall in love! - See RO-MAN tie her up and tear her blouse off ! - See RO_MAN get his ass handed to him by the SUPREME GUIDANCE !

WOW! What a movie !

The Character of RO-MAN has been performed not only by George Barrows, but also by Bob Burns in "Robot Monster the special edition ", and most recently by modern gorilla man Tom Woodruff in Joe Dante's "Looney Tunes Back in Action".

Where will fate take RO-MAN next ? No one knows for sure !

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