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Movie Reviews of Tobor the GreatMovie Review: Definitely a kid's flick Summary: 2 Stars
Believe it or not, I saw this film when it was almost new. Yeah, that long ago. But I always remembered it as I thought the "robot spelled backward" thing was clever. So, after all these years, I needed to get it.
First, expect to see some familiar faces. Charles Drake played the sherrif in "It Came from Outer Space. He's the star of this one.
William Shallert was the bad guy in "Man from Planet X" and a diplomat of sorts in Star Trek's "The Trouble with Tribbles."
Henry Kulky went on to bigger roles (!) in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea after this gem.
And Lyle Talbot you may remember from some Ed Wood classics.
Taylor Holmes (Professor Nordstrom), probably NOT a familiar face, was among the least articulate of any actor I've ever heard. Anyway...
As to the robot costume, I never cease to be amazed as to how unimaginative we were back then. All robots were anthropoid. Later, in "2001: A Space Odyssey," the robot WAS the ship. THAT was creativity.
In short, I wish we'd have been more creative.
On the other hand, I'd love to have that costume for a party!
And there was a mixture of sci fi and the occult: Professor Nordstrom who'd created Tobor made him ESP sensitive. I could have done without that.
In any case, it was pretty far from realistic. In Nordstrom's house, he had a Tobor preview. The press and everyone there was to have security clearance to enter. Afterwards, Ralph Harrison (Drake) noticed that, golly gee, there were 13 chairs but only 12 had been invited.
Everyone had a security clearance, and no one noticed until they had all left that someone was there who shouldn't have been?
Then the bad guys decided to break into Nordstrom's house to get the secret of the robot. They just had to wait until it got dark. Then, when they were attempting entry, they made more noise than the 4th of July fireworks! Then Nordstrom, Drake and the others there--he had a staff member who kept on referring to "gadgetses" who had a kind of Sam Jaffe aura--treated catching them almost like it was a Halloween stunt.
And Tobor "him"self was more warm and cuddly than Lassie!
In any case, no, it wasn't a really well done script. I guess it may have seemed that way when, what, was I in a stroller?
Then every rocket scene was done with some stock V2 footage. V2? Couldn't they even have faked something better than that?
Well, like I said. It's a kid's flick. In that sense, it was a letdown after upwards of a half century.
Movie Review: Tobor is R-O-B-O-T spelled backwards Summary: 2 Stars
One of the worst sci fi robots of all time, but he makes a great pal for "Gadg", short for Gadget, the knickname of the grandson of Tobor's inventor. Seems that he is just as handy as Grandpa, and uses that skill to get into and out of trouble in this flick.
Worth seeing if you like the genre, but not sure it's worth owning.
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