I Cannot, Yet I Must - A Book About Robot Monster

Review by Steve D. Stones

Unlike so many of the films we review here at Plan 9 Crunch, Robot Monster is a film that immediately appealed to me. Its strong elements of surrealism, the monster's bizarre costume with a diving helmet, strange dinosaur stock footage and a story told from the point of view of a child in his dream, makes it an interesting film. Robot Monster is the film that director Phil Tucker will always be best remembered for. (Above art is by Steve D. Stones).

Author Anders Runestad's book - I Cannot, Yet I Must: The True Story of The Best Bad Monster Movie of All Time (published by Radiosonde Books - 2016) does not leave a stone unturned when it comes to all things Robot Monster. Everything you ever wanted to know about director Phil Tucker, writer Wyott Ordung and producer Al Zimbalist is covered in this book. Details about the life and careers of the main actors of Robot Monster is also covered.

The book discusses the stories surrounding Tucker's suicide attempt shortly after the premiere of Robot Monster in 1953. A letter written by Tucker at the Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel before his attempt is published in the book. Many believe his suicide attempt was a publicity stunt to keep his name in the headlines after the poor reception of Robot Monster. Tucker's son, Phil Jr., mentions that his father was too upbeat and full of  life to have tried to commit suicide. He believes his father enjoyed life too much to have wanted to commit suicide.

One particularly interesting section of the book contrasts the script of Robot Monster with what was actually filmed and put on the screen. For example, the script indicates that when Alice, played by actress Claudia Barrett, confronts Ro-Man in an attempt to save her family, she is supposed to be "as undressed as the law will allow," and tells him that she can only really love him if she can be allowed to know everything about him. Obviously this is one of many script details that is not in the finished film. Many other script omissions are also mentioned.

Tucker also had a relationship with beatnik comedian and satirist Lenny Bruce.  The two were involved in a film together in 1956 called Dance Hall Racket about a dance club being used as a front for diamond smugglers.

Tucker is said to have also been involved in Ed Wood's cult masterpiece - Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959). Tucker often gets compared to Wood by critics, but the distinct difference of the two men is that Tucker acknowledged that he was making bad films, and Wood felt that his films were great. Timothy Farrell, an actor employed by both Wood and Tucker, once told Wood biographer Rudolph Grey that Wood and Tucker both knew each other, but said they did not like each other.



It's unfortunate that Tucker's Wikipedia page does not list two of his lost films - Pachuco (1957) and Space Jockey (1953). Both films are discussed in great detail in the Anders book. Fans have long waited to see both films, particularly Space Jockey. Tucker claims it is his worst film, even in comparision to Robot Monster. Both films were made the same year.

Tucker eventually got fed up with the tough Hollywood system and stopped directing altogether. He spent the later part of his life as a film editor for films and TV shows because it provided steady income. He was working as a dishwasher in a restaurant at the time he directed Robot Monster.

Anders mentions that the Al Zimbalist-produced film - Cat Women of The Moon, also from 1953, is the perfect companion film to Robot Monster. He contrasts some of the similarities of the two films. Both films employed the music of Elmer Bernstein, a respected composer in Hollywood in the 1950s.

Rhino Video released a 3-D VHS print of both Robot Monster and Cat Women of The Moon with 3-D glasses in the mid-1990s. The 3-D treatment does not work, even with the glasses on, but nevertheless, these two videos are a treasure to have for Phil Tucker-Al Zimbalist fans. Happy reading. And watch the film in its entirety here.

Review: In Search of Lost Films -- by Phil Hall

Review by Steve D. Stones

In his recent book, In Search of Lost Films (published by Bear Manor Media), author Phil Hall gives an interesting analysis for why so many important films have been lost over time. Two reasons, with regard to the silent era, have to do with the easy destruction of nitrate (nitrocellulose) film catching fire and the fact that the artists who made these early films may have seen them simply as a disposable commodity to make money, with no desire to want to preserve the films as works of art for future audiences. 

As Hall points out, sculptures, paintings and manuscripts are usually the work of an individual artist. Films, however, are a collaborative process involving many individuals. This makes it all the more puzzling as to why great effort was not taken to preserve these old films. No art medium is permanent, unfortunately. Even in our internet, digital age, images are subject to being lost forever over time. 

The book contains sections on not only lost films, but also lost film careers and lost scenes from well known films.  Actress Theodosia Goodman, later known as Theda Bara, dreamed of being a big star on Broadway, but it never happened. Fox Studios cast her in her first role in The Stain in 1914. She disappeared for a short time, then starred in A Fool There Was (1915) where her name was marketed at Theda Bara. With this film, Bara established a strong sex appeal, and perhaps became cinema's first female "sex symbol." Today, only five of Bara's films have survived. 

Although many films of Lon Chaney are still with us today, Hall discusses Chaney's most sought after film - London After Midnight (1927) which was directed by Tod Browning and is considered lost. Some critics and film historians have suggested that the film may have been confusing, boring, and did not appeal to silent era audiences. Nevertheless, London After Midnight is considered one of the most sought after films in cinema history. What remained of the film is thought to have been burned in a fire in Vault #7 at MGM studios in 1967. 

Of particular interest to me was Hall's mention of two lost Phil Tucker films - Space Jockey (1953) and Pachucco (1956). In the world of "bad" cult movies, Tucker is best know for his delightful anti-masterpiece - Robot Monster (1953). Tucker states that Space Jockey was his worst film, but fans like myself would still love to see the film, but likely never will. Space Jockey was made prior to Robot Monster. Elmer Bernstein, a respected composer in Hollywood, and composer of the Robot Monster score, is said to have composed the music for Space Jockey. 

Ed Wood's gritty porn film Necromania (1971) is also mentioned in the book. Necromania was thought to have been lost, until a print was discovered at a yard sale in 1992. 

Speaking of Wood, some internet buzz in recent years has suggested that Wood may have had something to do with the gay porn film Him (1974), also discussed in Hall's book. The Medved brothers' 1980 book The Golden Turkey Awards mentions that Him is "the most unerotic concept in pornography." The Medveds mention Ed D. Louie as the director of Him, which may be a screen pseudonym for Ed Wood. This has never been confirmed. 

My view is - Why would Ed Wood make a gay porn film in the first place? He may have made heterosexual porn films, and he may have liked to dress in women's clothing, but that does not give any reasoning for him to journey into the gay porn genre. It's safe to say that Wood had nothing to do with the film - Him. 

Chapter six of Hall's book discusses sequences missing or taken out of known films, such as Greed (1925), The Wizard of Oz (1939), The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man (1943), and Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). 

Test audiences viewing Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man laughed at Bela Lugosi's spoken dialogue as the monster. His Hungarian accent will forever be associated with Dracula (1931), which may be one of many reasons why the test audience did not like Lugosi's sequences of spoken dialogue. Lugosi's talking sequences were removed from the film, trimming its length down considerably.

Stanley Kubrick's Cold War parody - Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb had a scene cut from the film in the War Room. The scene is said to be a Mack Sennett style, slapstick comedy sequence in which dignitaries at the war room table throw cream filled pies at each other. Studio executives were skeptical of the scene, and requested that it be shot in one take. Kubrick later eliminated the pie fight scene from the film. 

Hall ends the book on a positive note in saying there is always great hope that lost films of great cinematic and artistic significance will be rediscovered somewhere, whether it's in someone's basement, a lost Hollywood vault, or perhaps at a yard sale. Rediscovering old, lost films is a very fluid situation, as Hall points out, but there is always hope that more and more films will be discovered in the future. 

In the meantime, we can only hope that a print of London After Midnight will show up one day. I'm still waiting for a print of Andy Milligan's lost film - The Naked Witch (1967) to turn up.  Happy reading! 

Robot Monster - A Great 'Bad' Movie

By Steve D. Stones

Just how bad is Robot Monster (aka Monster From Mars - 1953)? If you consider that the entire story of the film is mostly from the point of view of a child's dream, it's really not that bad of a movie. Reviews of the film were so bad that director Phil Tucker is said to have attempted suicide. The Elmer Bernstein score eventually gets as annoying and redundant as the score by Hoyt Curtain for Ed Wood's "Jail Bait (1953)" - another great "bad movie."

Little Johnny enters a cave to play spaceman with his younger sister when he encounters two archaeologists looking for evidence of a past civilization. The two archaeologists are invited to a picnic by Johnny's mother and sister.

After waking from a short sleep during the picnic, Johnny discovers that one of the archaeologists is now his father - a man old enough to be his great-grandfather, and that the world has been wiped out by a Ro-Man - an alien in a silly gorilla suit with a diver's helmet and TV antenna on top.  Ro-Man hides in the same cave where the two archaeologists were conducting their search at the beginning of the film. He keeps communication with his leader from another planet on a cheap looking television transmission set.

It turns out that Johnny and his family are the only survivors of Ro-man's annihilation - which is a total of six people. Ro-man's leader orders him to destroy the remaining six with a "calcinator ray," but he can't seem to get it right. He constantly fiddles with his communication device in the cave as he threatens the family. He even watches stock footage of dinosaurs fighting - a scene likely appropriated from the 1925 silent film - The Lost World.

The family discovers a serum that protects them from Ro-man's death ray. Little Johnny is the first to survive with the serum after he encounters Ro-man and calls him a "pooped out pin wheel." This has to be one of the funniest scenes in the film, next to Ro-man trying to make a date with Johnny's older sister - Alice.

Rhino Video issued a VHS 3-D print of Robot Monster with two 3-D glasses in the early 1990s. This print is difficult to watch because the 3-D treatment of the film actually does not work.  A 3-D print of Cat Women of The Moon (1953) was also issued by Rhino Video with just as poor results.

Wearing the 3-D glasses for either film simply does not work. However, for the serious collector of B-movies, like myself, it is still fun to have the VHS copy of both Robot Monster and Cat Women of The Moon with the glasses.  The artwork on the box of both videos is worth the price of admission. Happy viewing!

Robot Monster: Attack of RO-MAN!!!

Robot Monster, 1953, Astor Films, most prints run about an hour. Directed by Phil Tucker. Starring George Nader, Claudia Barrett, John Mylong, George Barrows. Schlock-Meter rating: 7 stars out of 10.

See Robot Monster! The plot: A gorilla with a diving mask (or it may be a goldfish bowl?) calls himself Ro-Man, from a planet that may be the moon. He's hanging out in a cave in Bronson Canyon near Los Angeles with a bubble machine and a TV communicator where he talks to The Great One. Apparently Ro-Man has killed everyone on earth except a scientist, his family, and the scientist's assistant (Nader). He did this with a calcinator death ray. We are shown badly edited stop-animation of small-scale dinosaurs fighting (over and over) to explain the earth's demise.

Try as it might, Robot Monster can't kill the plucky six humans left in the earth that are camped a few hundred yards away. Finally, Ro-Man gets the hots for the scientist's attractive daughter, who just married Nader! The Great One kills Ro-Man as punishment for his lust and destroys the world. More stock footage. It turns out to have all been a dream of a little boy. Or was it? Ro-Man is seen lumbering toward the camera three times in a row. The film was first shot in 3-D.

Robot Monster is so bad that it is funny. This film is tagged as a horror, but it's so non-scary that I wonder if director Tucker may have been making a kiddie matinee film. The acting is atrocious. The German professor's (Mylong) accent is bogus. Ro-Man looks ridiculous waddling through the countryside (HE DESTROYED THE WORLD?). The stock footage doesn't match and often makes no sense. But, it's funny, and that makes it worth a rental.

Here's some dialogue, the scene where Ro-Man, consumed with a lust for the daughter, bellows out his emotions: "Yes, to be like the hu-man. To laugh. Feel. Want. Why are these things not in the plan?" Sheer idiocy. But this cult film is fun, and goes well with a party after midnight. I also like the part where Nader complain that his girlfriend (Barrett) is so bossy she should be milked!

The late director Tucker was a fixture among Grade Z films. Besides Robot Monster, he also directed Dance Hall Racket (with Lenny Bruce!) and Cape Canaveral Monsters. Rumor has it Tucker worked a lot with Edward D. Wood, Jr., but he was always mum when asked about that part of his life.

-- Doug Gibson

ROBOT MONSTER: Hu-Mans Rule the Earth!!

By Steve D. Stones

Despite the fact that most film critics place Robot Monster in the top
five “worst movies of all time,” I rather enjoy this film and find it to
be entertaining. I first bought a video copy of this film in the
mid-1990s released by Rhino Video, which came with two pairs of 3-D
glasses. My Rhino Video copy of Cat Women of The Moon also came with
the glasses. Apparently the film had been released in the 1950s in some
theaters as a 3-D film. This was a gimmick used by film producers to get
moviegoers away from their television sets at home and back into the
movie theaters. Don’t be fooled by the 3-D copy of the film. The effect
does not work and actually gives me a headache every time I put on the
glasses to watch the film. Nevertheless, as a collector, I treasure any
extra items that come with DVD and VHS copies of films I collect.

The plot of the film is told from the perspective of little Johnny,
played by Gregory Moffett. Johnny and his sister are playing spaceman
near the Bronson caves (a location that seems to appear in about 99
percent of all cult sci-fi films of the 1950s). Here they meet two
archeologists working in the caves. Johnny asks his mother and older
sister if the two archeologists can join them in a family picnic. After
the picnic, the group takes a nap on the picnic blanket.


Soon, Johnny wakes up from his nap and discovers that dopey looking
aliens resembling gorillas with a scuba helmet for a head have wiped out
the earth’s population. The leader is Ro-Man, played by George Barrows
in a gorilla suit, who communicates with his boss, The Great Guidance,
through mirror on a child’s dresser. Apparently The Great Guidance has
wiped out the human race with a “calcinator ray” from a distant planet.
The alternative title for this film is: Monster From Mars, so we have to
assume that Ro-Man and The Great Guidance are from Mars.

Although Ro-Man is supposed to be of a higher intelligence and possesses
greater technology than we Hu-Mans, his cave consists of a ridiculous
bubble machine that blows bubbles everywhere when he communicates with The Great Guidance. Some critics have suggested that the bubble machine used in this film is the same one used for the Lawrence Welk TV Show, but I don’t think anyone has officially confirmed this for certain. Some have also suggested that the co-producer-director, Phil Tucker, attempted suicide shortly after the premiere of the film.

The Rhino Video copy of this film contains some strange additions that
are not seen in other prints of the film. For example, when Ro-Man
kidnaps Alice, played by Claudia Barrett, he ties her up and rips her
blouse open. The Rhino print has a black censor bar that appears across
her chest as Ro-Man rips her blouse. The Image Entertainment and
Sinister Cinema prints of this film do not contain the black censor bar
across her chest. There is no reason to include the black censor bar
because nothing explicit is shown in the original print. Why it was
added by Rhino Video is anyone’s guess.

Another strange addition is when Ro-Man is communicating with Johnny’s
family through the mirror communicator. When Alice steps up to the
communicator to talk to Ro-Man, suddenly we can hear someone say in a
quiet voice: “Hmmm, perhaps I should try to make a date with the girl?”
This line of dialogue is not heard in the Sinister Cinema and Image
Entertainment prints of the film. Die-hard collectors like myself always
savor little details like this that vary from one print to another.

If you are able to find any Rhino Video copies of Robot Monster for sale
with the 3-D glasses, I would suggest that you purchase a copy,
especially if you are a serious collector. If not, the Image
Entertainment and Sinister Cinema copies are also worth having. These
two copies do not contain the 3-D effect and glasses, however. The
Image Entertainment DVD does have a theatrical trailer of the film. Happy viewing!!!