Gog |
 View Movie
USA • 1954 • 83m •
  • Directed by: Herbert L. Strock. • Starring: Richard Egan, Constance Dowling, Herbert Marshall, John Wengraf, Philip Van Zandt, Valerie Vernon, Stephen Roberts, Byron Kane, David Alpert, Michael Fox, William Schallert, Marian Richman, Jean Dean. • Music by: Harry Sukman.     Scientists working on induced hibernation for space travel are killed, apparently by machines acting independently. Security agent Sheppard arrives at the secret underground space research base to investigate possible sabotage. He finds that the whole base is coordinated by supercomputer NOVAC and its robots Gog and Magog; and a strange aircraft is detected high overhead.
|
Trailers:
| Length: | Languages: | Subtitles: |
Review:
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! <122???>?"?"?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.
Review by junk-monkey from the Internet Movie Database.
Movie Database