Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This
Speaker 1: is Rob Lamb and look who it is. Look who's back.
Speaker 1: It's none other than Joe McCormick. Oh, it feels good
Speaker 1: to be back, man. Yeah, great to have you back.
Speaker 1: What is what is life like now? Can you? Can
Speaker 1: you want to share anything with the viewers? You were
Speaker 1: you're now Joe McCormick, the dad. It's true, I've I
Speaker 1: have entered dad dum. Uh. My wife and I had
Speaker 1: a baby girl back in October. So I've been on
Speaker 1: parental leave for I don't even know how long. At
Speaker 1: this point, it just seems like, you know, a lifetime
Speaker 1: in the blink of an eye at once. Uh. And yeah,
Speaker 1: so so our our daughter is uh a wonderful little creature.
Speaker 1: She's she's chirping and she's making goblin noises. It's beautiful.
Speaker 1: But duty calls after my hiatus. Here I am back
Speaker 1: on Mike. Well again, congrats, was so glad? Uh? Everything
Speaker 1: is that working out so well? And uh And certainly
Speaker 1: we've heard from a number of listeners who were in
Speaker 1: very much cheering you on. But also we're excited for
Speaker 1: you coming back. And and one thing that Seth and
Speaker 1: I talked about too while you were out. We're like, well,
Speaker 1: some people might have started listening to the show just
Speaker 1: uh five weeks ago, and if that is the case, uh,
Speaker 1: they have just been told about the coming of Joe,
Speaker 1: that the Joe is coming, Joe shall return to us,
Speaker 1: and lo and behold, Joe has returned here. On an
Speaker 1: episode of Weird House Cinema, I come covered and spit
Speaker 1: up and bearing really boring stories. If you, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you noticed this about becoming a parent that uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you spend all your day taking care of
Speaker 1: this child and it's incredibly meaningful to you, but it
Speaker 1: really does not amount too much that you can tell
Speaker 1: anyone else. There aren't There aren't really especially notable anecdotes
Speaker 1: or occurrences. It's just like, well she looked at me
Speaker 1: or like you know, oh yeah, I was holding her
Speaker 1: and then she spit up, and then I don't know,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's it's the most wonderful thing ever,
Speaker 1: but it just doesn't really make for a good story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff like that, but but uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, but in a way. It's it's amazing you
Speaker 1: have such self awareness about it, because I certainly remember
Speaker 1: just being amazed by all these little things and then
Speaker 1: talking about them, but also being sort of a crazy person,
Speaker 1: uh in the new days of parenthood, and therefore not
Speaker 1: really being able to tell or read the room about
Speaker 1: how much anyone wants to hear about all of this.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I've already done that. I think now I've
Speaker 1: sort of reached a point of clarity of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stop boring people telling stories about how she
Speaker 1: looked at me. But I am excited to see where
Speaker 1: this takes future episodes of especially stuff to blow your
Speaker 1: mind core episodes, because it does bring new insights. It
Speaker 1: makes you rethink things about human nature, about certainly about
Speaker 1: learning and development of the human being. It really turns
Speaker 1: a lot of our preconceived notions and expectations of humanity
Speaker 1: on its head in a in an often delightful way. Absolutely, listeners,
Speaker 1: you may expect years to come of Baby Looked at
Speaker 1: You themed episodes. Well, I don't know how sleep deprived
Speaker 1: you are at the moment, Joe, but are are you
Speaker 1: ready to discuss a cinematic classic from nineteen fifty four
Speaker 1: titled Tobor the Great. Oh am I Boy, Tobor is
Speaker 1: just running through my veins right now. To Boor the
Speaker 1: Great nineteen fifty four science fiction thrill ride, a film
Speaker 1: about an emotionally volatile, psychic robot and the boy who
Speaker 1: became his friend. Uh So, this movie got me thinking
Speaker 1: about how a lot of science fiction movies have a
Speaker 1: robot in them, but tob Or the Great comes from
Speaker 1: an era when the fact that there is a robot
Speaker 1: is plot enough in itself. And by the way, if
Speaker 1: you have any concerns that the characters in this movie
Speaker 1: will not say Tobor enough, let us put your fears
Speaker 1: to rest. You will hear talk of Tobor, you will
Speaker 1: see Tobor with your eyes, and by the end, you
Speaker 1: will believe in Tobor. One of the interesting things about
Speaker 1: this is, uh when you think about classic nineteen fifties robots,
Speaker 1: you often think about Robbie the Robot from nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: six is Forbidden Planet, which we were actually talking about
Speaker 1: covering on Weird House at some point. But this this
Speaker 1: predates Robbie the Robot. Um so, or, at least it
Speaker 1: predates Robbie the Robot's appearance and Forbidden Planet. We have
Speaker 1: to remember that Robbie the Robot is essentially a robot actor.
Speaker 1: On Internet movie database, Robbie the Robot has his own
Speaker 1: profile as if he is like a dog actor or
Speaker 1: a human actor. I gotta say, as much as I
Speaker 1: love Tobor, if I'm being serious, Toboar does not really
Speaker 1: achieve the heights of Robbie the Robot in terms of
Speaker 1: feeling and dramatic intensity. At the same time, I feel
Speaker 1: like Tobar is a pretty good robot design. He has
Speaker 1: an interesting face that that that reads a little differently
Speaker 1: compared to some of the cheaper, big robot costumes of
Speaker 1: this time period in the decade to follow. I watched
Speaker 1: it with Rachel and she kept reading Tobar's eyes as
Speaker 1: a light up nineteen fifties bullet bra It does kind
Speaker 1: of look like, um, like the front of a buick
Speaker 1: or something in ways. But Yeah, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of interesting chrome in this film. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of gadgetry. I was really admiring the the use
Speaker 1: of of of clear plastic or acrylic panels. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of custom metal work in this film, so um,
Speaker 1: I'd say, in general, when we were first looking into
Speaker 1: this film, I'm noticing some people talking about it kind
Speaker 1: of kind of putting it down as if this this
Speaker 1: is just kind of a cheap affair, And yeah, this
Speaker 1: is this is not a huge budget film. This is
Speaker 1: this is not a classic of fifty sci fi perhaps,
Speaker 1: but I feel like it's really well and I feel
Speaker 1: like it holds up pretty well. And uh, more thought
Speaker 1: went into it, and more work went into it than
Speaker 1: you might think would be required for a film of
Speaker 1: this caliber. Yes, it is by no mean it's not
Speaker 1: Forbidden Planet. But it is a rolic and good time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's essentially a kids movie. So Rob, were you
Speaker 1: saying we I didn't even realize this was the case,
Speaker 1: But were you saying, we have a tradition of doing
Speaker 1: robot movies around the holidays? It is December now, I
Speaker 1: guess essentially, I mean, this is only the third Christmas
Speaker 1: of Weird House Cinema. But yeah, we've done We did
Speaker 1: robot Jocks around Christmas. Yeah, we did the Super informn
Speaker 1: around Christmas one year. And I would say that sort
Speaker 1: accounts because any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from inframan. Yes,
Speaker 1: great point, and we also kind of steer towards doing
Speaker 1: films that feel like something you'd find under the Christmas tree. Yes,
Speaker 1: and you know, Rob, when I pitched this movie to
Speaker 1: you for my return episode of Weird House, I promised
Speaker 1: that there would be a very subtle holiday tie in,
Speaker 1: seeing as we have in December now. And while I'm
Speaker 1: sad to report that to Boar the Great is not
Speaker 1: in itself a Christmas robot. Before I found out about
Speaker 1: this movie, I already had an association with the word Toboor,
Speaker 1: which was this is Tobar Toborg the telesonic robot. Batteries
Speaker 1: not included. He's under your control with a click from
Speaker 1: the tele usonic commander two circle to proceed forward two circles,
Speaker 1: or to pick up the support module and return all
Speaker 1: on your command to Boars robot spelled backwards. Tobar the
Speaker 1: telesonic robot from Shopper, Rob, did you know this commercial before?
Speaker 1: I love the eerie music and it it sounds almost
Speaker 1: like it's a little bit h it's a little bit menacing. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is really cool. I I certainly didn't
Speaker 1: watch this one as a kid. I would have It's
Speaker 1: a little too old for me to have any genuine
Speaker 1: nostalgia for well, the original place I encountered this commercial
Speaker 1: was within one of the breaks in the copy I
Speaker 1: saw of the Star Wars Holiday Special. Uh gotta love
Speaker 1: the commercials in whatever tape you've seen of the holiday special,
Speaker 1: you know, alongside the classics like the Ladies Garment Workers Union,
Speaker 1: and they're awesome theme song, which I every time I
Speaker 1: watched the holiday special, I'm singing the Garment Workers song
Speaker 1: for days afterwards. Um like it's even catchier than the
Speaker 1: Starship song. But as far as I can tell, Tobor
Speaker 1: the tell usnic Robot is unrelated to Tobor the Great.
Speaker 1: It's just evidence that, uh, you know, spectacular minds think alike,
Speaker 1: and at least two different creative geniuses across the past
Speaker 1: century noticed that Tobars Robots spelled backwards. That's gold. Now
Speaker 1: I have another question before we start talking about castor
Speaker 1: plot or anything, which is, why do you think it
Speaker 1: was called Tobe Or the Great. It's a name that
Speaker 1: it invites comparisons, like I've been walking around calling him
Speaker 1: tobor Magnus or tobor Augustus. The Great is an epithet
Speaker 1: often describing a military conqueror or a supposedly beloved autocratic despot.
Speaker 1: But at least within the run time of the film,
Speaker 1: Tobor neither conquers territory nor become becomes a king or emperor.
Speaker 1: So in what sense is he the Great? I mean,
Speaker 1: he's a great friend, and I guess, but to Boor
Speaker 1: the Great Friend, that doesn't That makes it sound like
Speaker 1: it's a movie about a dog. Um And maybe Tobor
Speaker 1: itself kind of sounds like a movie about a dog.
Speaker 1: Maybe Tobor the Great, I don't know. That could be
Speaker 1: a movie about a dog too, could be like a
Speaker 1: uh some sort of a great breed of dog. Right. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe it's recasting the idea of greatness, like it's better
Speaker 1: to be a good friend than it is to be
Speaker 1: a military conqueror, I think. But yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Strange choice because Tobar's range of action in this movie
Speaker 1: is actually rather limited. He mostly hangs out in one
Speaker 1: house and then goes to a different building at the end. Yeah,
Speaker 1: his movements are difficult to watch. I kept expecting there's
Speaker 1: a terrifying scene where Tobar the Great climbs a spiral
Speaker 1: wrought iron staircase, and um, I was legitimately on the
Speaker 1: edge of my seat because of all this poor actor
Speaker 1: is gonna fall. I like, this just looks very dangerous.
Speaker 1: They are close ups on his feet. Yeah, the feet
Speaker 1: of this costumer also like weird stilts of some sort,
Speaker 1: so it looks extra extra shaky. It's like it's like
Speaker 1: a movie with a close up where somebody's like eating
Speaker 1: off of a knife and they're showing you close ups
Speaker 1: of their mouth. Yes, I I can't wait to discuss
Speaker 1: some of the action scenes with Tobar that occurred later
Speaker 1: in the film. So I guess we should do an
Speaker 1: elevator pitch, which is a doddering old professor creates an emotional,
Speaker 1: telepathic robot in order to violt dangerous space missions. This
Speaker 1: robot is named Tobor and he's a friend to all children,
Speaker 1: But nefarious Soviet spies want to steal the secret of
Speaker 1: Tobor in order to unleash evil and destruction upon the
Speaker 1: human race. Will the Red Menace seize control of Tobar's mind?
Speaker 1: Or will the love of a child keep Tobor on
Speaker 1: the path of righteousness? All right, let's hear that audio
Speaker 1: from the trailer Tobar the most amazing, the most fantastic
Speaker 1: creation of man's mind. Oh he looks alone, or Tobor
Speaker 1: can live where no human can breathe, and the airless
Speaker 1: atmosphere of outer space and the nation first to Cocker
Speaker 1: space controls the world. Electronic scientists have designed a practical
Speaker 1: space ship. Atomic power makes space travel possible, needing only
Speaker 1: the most valuable of all secret scientific achievements, space conquering
Speaker 1: giants that man can control to war is alive or
Speaker 1: even though much work remains before he's completed, he has
Speaker 1: already a sentient being, a necessary adjunct to the recording
Speaker 1: of all experiences human space crews made later encounter. Since
Speaker 1: we cannot get into see Nordstrom's secrets for ourselves, we
Speaker 1: must induce him to come out and tell them to us.
Speaker 1: They have no news of Professor Oster motor Boy, not
Speaker 1: as they Lost Angeles Police Department or the FBI. I
Speaker 1: take as you want the formy life of my extra
Speaker 1: century transmission method. Green, Don't you do you do it? Please?
Speaker 1: Talking to Green stalk alright, you win to bar, bringing
Speaker 1: you chills you've never known before. Tobor, the lost human
Speaker 1: houter space man ever seen on Earth be sure to
Speaker 1: see tow boar. Alright, sounds exciting, sounds pretty great. Uh. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're wanting to watch this film as well, and
Speaker 1: you're wondering where you can get it, uh, basically the
Speaker 1: main place to find it is is if you want
Speaker 1: to physical media. There's a seen Keno Lorbert Studio Classics
Speaker 1: Blu ray released to the film. This is remastered. You
Speaker 1: can also find various uh versions of it online. Is
Speaker 1: an older film, Um, there's one in particular we're looking
Speaker 1: at that had some some unofficial remastering and colorization of
Speaker 1: the film, which is normally not the sort of thing
Speaker 1: I'd go for, But I don't know, with a film
Speaker 1: like this, I feel like it kind of benefits from
Speaker 1: that sort of treatment. I agree. I I don't know
Speaker 1: who did this colorization, and I'm not gonna say that
Speaker 1: it looks amazing, but it's the right way to watch it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's weird, it's uncanny at times, which I like
Speaker 1: an uncanny sheen and a film like this. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: let's start talking about who was involved in the creation
Speaker 1: of this picture. So let's start at the top. The
Speaker 1: director was Lee Sholom, also known as Lee Rolem Sholm
Speaker 1: for cranking him out, and he did. He did really
Speaker 1: crank him out. He directed various adventures shows and series
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties, including episodes of The of Tarzan
Speaker 1: and Superman Adventures. He actually did fourteen episodes of the
Speaker 1: early nineteen fifties Adventures of Superman. He's credited as a
Speaker 1: director on the TV series chriswell Predicts. Oh yeah, from
Speaker 1: that connecting to Plan nine from Outer Space, you may
Speaker 1: recall the opening of that film is a Criswell Predicts
Speaker 1: segment where they had this TV psychic on talking about
Speaker 1: how future events such as these will affect you in
Speaker 1: the future. Yeah, so uh shole them seems to have
Speaker 1: been involved in that. He did a lot of TV
Speaker 1: late in his career. Two other films of note include
Speaker 1: the nineteen seven movie Pharaoh's Curse, which is gonna imagine
Speaker 1: is some sort of an Egyptian curse film. But he
Speaker 1: also did nineteen sixty seven's Catalina Caper, which was an
Speaker 1: MST three K selection. Oh I remember that One Man
Speaker 1: to Board the Great would have made a fantastic Mystery
Speaker 1: Science Theater episode. I wish that had happened. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a there's a lot, a lot of riff on
Speaker 1: in this one. So and yeah, if anyone out there
Speaker 1: connected with MST or riff tracks is listening, by any chance,
Speaker 1: put this one on your radar if it's not already
Speaker 1: all right. The screenplay for this one, uh. Screenplay credit
Speaker 1: goes to Philip McDonald, who lived nineteen o one through eight,
Speaker 1: Scottish screenwriter and detective novelists, probably best known for adapting
Speaker 1: the novel Rebecca for Alfred Hitchcock's film adaptation int He
Speaker 1: also was one of multiple uncredited adaptation writers on James
Speaker 1: Whales The Bride of Frankenstein from thirty five. So I'm
Speaker 1: not really sure. I'm not not I'm not super clear
Speaker 1: on exactly like what the the chain of custody happens
Speaker 1: to be with that particular screenplay. Huh. He was also
Speaker 1: one of the screenwriters on The Body Snatcher starring Boris
Speaker 1: Karloff and Bella Lagosi, and he also wrote for Alfred
Speaker 1: Hitchcock Presents and Thriller. I have mixed feelings about the
Speaker 1: screenplay in this movie. I mean, on one hand, I
Speaker 1: would say it's uh. I mean, it's very of its
Speaker 1: time and it doesn't really like wow you in terms
Speaker 1: of character depth or anything, but it has a certain
Speaker 1: kind of, uh, kind of I don't know, sparky efficiency
Speaker 1: to it. Yeah. I mean if especially if I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about this film and comparing it to some of those
Speaker 1: various serials that came out back in the day in
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties action of inter cereals, some of those
Speaker 1: are really dreadful and it's a real bore to watch,
Speaker 1: even if they have fascinating elements to it. I feel
Speaker 1: like this movie it moves along and it has its
Speaker 1: techno babble as you might expect, but for the most
Speaker 1: part it's techno babble that you can and your head too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like it didn't feel as us as much of a
Speaker 1: skull scratcher as some technobabble tends to be. And I
Speaker 1: don't know, I had had kind of a sense of
Speaker 1: humor at times. So I feel like the script is
Speaker 1: um is better than you might expect and better than
Speaker 1: would be required. Yeah, I agree, it is. I mean,
Speaker 1: it does have lots of unintentionally funny stuff in it,
Speaker 1: but it also it works, It works on its own terms. Also,
Speaker 1: A story credit goes to Carl Dudley, who was also
Speaker 1: the executive producer who lived nineteen ten through ye producer
Speaker 1: and director of a lot of documentary shorts mostly so
Speaker 1: maybe this is where we get the title. Maybe Dudley
Speaker 1: was like, Hey, I've got an idea for a film.
Speaker 1: You spell Robot backwards, you got to bar Let's call
Speaker 1: it Tobar the Great, give me a script. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think this was also the era of people blowing
Speaker 1: your mind with a vampire named Alucard and stuff like that. Yep, yep, alright,
Speaker 1: let's get into the human cast here. Our star is
Speaker 1: the actor Charles Drake playing Dr Ralph Harrison, one of
Speaker 1: one of our classic fifties rectangles just just love him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is Dr Harrison. Is tall, he's loud, he smokes,
Speaker 1: and he can land a punch. So pretty much just
Speaker 1: your standard hero stuff for a picture like this. This
Speaker 1: is all that was required of of of a male
Speaker 1: hero during this time period. So Charles Drake was active
Speaker 1: from the late nineteen thirties through the early nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: His biggest films were probably Conflict starring Humphrey Bogart, nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties Harvey starring Jimmy Stewart, in Night the Swimmers starring
Speaker 1: Burt Lancaster. Oh in also N seven The Valley of
Speaker 1: the Dolls. Oh okay. He also popped up in an
Speaker 1: episode of the original Star Trek. I haven't seen the
Speaker 1: episode in question, I don't think, but you can find
Speaker 1: images of him in like a Star Trek captain's uniform. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, slouched shot style in the captain's chair and uh.
Speaker 1: And he was also in nineteen fifty threes that Came
Speaker 1: from Outer Space. Now, this one is weird because the
Speaker 1: main two characters I would say that two adult characters
Speaker 1: are Harrison here played by Drake, and uh, this other guy, Dr.
Speaker 1: Nordstrom or Professor Nordstrom, who will get to in a second.
Speaker 1: And I would think the normal dynamic you would do
Speaker 1: in this movie is you'd have Nordstrom as the egghead professor,
Speaker 1: and then you'd have a sort of square military man
Speaker 1: to be his his younger man of action counterpart. But
Speaker 1: instead of making a military man, they make him another scientist.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if he really reads as a scientist.
Speaker 1: His scientific credentials almost seem like an afterthought here. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he reads far more like a military man. Again, he's
Speaker 1: he's tall, loud, smokes in again Lanta punch. That's and
Speaker 1: that those are his main skill sets. We don't see
Speaker 1: him really doing much in the way of research. Okay,
Speaker 1: but we should get to the real egg head of
Speaker 1: the movie, Professor Nordstrom, played by Taylor Holmes, who lived
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy eight to nineteen fifty nine. Taylor home Was was
Speaker 1: was an actor of stage and screen who appeared in
Speaker 1: a ton of Broadway plays. Had a film career that
Speaker 1: began in the silent era and in the realm of talkies.
Speaker 1: Uh it looks like he did a bunch of crime
Speaker 1: and war films, but also some romantic and screwball comedies.
Speaker 1: The main titles that jumped out at me from his
Speaker 1: sound era list were Let's See. He was in Gentleman
Speaker 1: Prefer Blonds in nineteen fifty three, which is a classic
Speaker 1: Howard Hawks comedy starring Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe. He
Speaker 1: also did some small voice roles in a couple of
Speaker 1: Disney animated films of the fifties, including Lady in the
Speaker 1: Tramp and Sleeping Beauty. He was also in a film
Speaker 1: noir I've never seen called Quicksand, but it caught my
Speaker 1: eye because of the synopsis. It apparently stars Mickey Rooney
Speaker 1: as an innocent auto mechanic who falls for a film
Speaker 1: fatale played by Gene Cagney, and as a result, he
Speaker 1: must turn to a life of crime and he ends
Speaker 1: up embroiled in a blackmail scheme with Peter Laurie who
Speaker 1: plays a penny arcade proprietor named Drama Shag, and Taylor
Speaker 1: Holmes is in there somewhere. I think he plays a lawyer.
Speaker 1: Oh well, this sounds great. I don't know if I'm
Speaker 1: a Mickey Rooney lover, but I am a Peter Laurie lover,
Speaker 1: and seeing Mickey Rooney at turned to a life of
Speaker 1: crime does sound hilarious. Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm I'm on board.
Speaker 1: I would. I was looking into this actor a little bit.
Speaker 1: I think this maybe his only performance in a sci
Speaker 1: fi or horror film. It's possibly I'm I'm missing something there,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it seems like he's he's more of the
Speaker 1: comedy comedy noir sort of a area. But yeah, he
Speaker 1: plays uh Grandpa Nordstrom in this uh Grandpa the Scientist,
Speaker 1: and he's pretty delightful. It's that kind of kind of
Speaker 1: role that I think could otherwise be very dry and uninteresting,
Speaker 1: but he gives a little peppt old Grandpa here. Well,
Speaker 1: he brings a very stagy energy to the role. You
Speaker 1: like you can tell this is a guy who did
Speaker 1: not begin on screen, but begin on stage, So he
Speaker 1: like rejects and he does a very uh, he does
Speaker 1: a very stagy kind of voice. And this relates actually
Speaker 1: to a second unexpected holiday tie in for me personally
Speaker 1: with Toebor the Great. So the whole time I was
Speaker 1: watching this movie, I kept thinking that the actor playing
Speaker 1: Professor Nordstrom seemed oddly familiar, particularly his voice, which is
Speaker 1: strange in a way that I associate with some actors
Speaker 1: who began on stage or in silent film and made
Speaker 1: the transition to talkies later in their career. And I
Speaker 1: was thinking, where did I recognize him from, and beyond that,
Speaker 1: why am I weirdly associating Taylor Holmes voice with Vincent Price,
Speaker 1: even though he sounds nothing like Vincent Price. Well, the
Speaker 1: answer came to me when echoing through my mind, I
Speaker 1: began to hear Professor Nordstrom saying chrish mash bam bag
Speaker 1: and bingo, I give you the nineteen forty nine, made
Speaker 1: for TV Charles Dickens adaptation The Christmas Carol. Yes you
Speaker 1: heard me right, not a Christmas Carol like the novel
Speaker 1: is called, but the Christmas Carol for some reason. Sponsored
Speaker 1: by the Magnavox company, it stars Taylor Holmes in a
Speaker 1: world historically hammy performance as Ebeneezer Scrooge. They also spell
Speaker 1: Ebeneezer wrong in this version with two ease, unlike the novel,
Speaker 1: and it has Vincent Price as the narrator, so it
Speaker 1: like opens on Vincent Price sitting on a couch reading
Speaker 1: a book, and he's like everyone loves Chiles Dickens and
Speaker 1: then starts to tell the story. And uh, I don't
Speaker 1: know if we maybe we can get a little sample
Speaker 1: of what Taylor Holmes as Scrooge sounds like. Humbug watch
Speaker 1: Chrishmas to you, but a time for finding yourself a
Speaker 1: year older, but not an hour richer. Every idiot that
Speaker 1: goes about with Merry Christmas should be boiled in Jon pudding.
Speaker 1: That's pretty great. And you're you're you're missing the visual
Speaker 1: here of him and some of these things like you know,
Speaker 1: squirming on his his his lounge chair as he witnesses
Speaker 1: Marley's ghost before him. Yeah, it's good. This adaptation, by
Speaker 1: the way, is less than thirty minutes long, so they've
Speaker 1: really packed the story and it does not take a look.
Speaker 1: Maybe we should feature this for like a holiday special
Speaker 1: on Weird House or something that's great. I mean that
Speaker 1: may be beating out Disney Christmas Carroll, which I've long
Speaker 1: admired for nicely compressing a Christmas Carroll into a short
Speaker 1: show that can be watched in one setting. I mean,
Speaker 1: I i gotta say, I'm a sucker for a Christmas Carol.
Speaker 1: I love it. It's a classic. It it still gets me.
Speaker 1: I love hmupp at Christmas Carroll. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: care if you judge me for that. I'm I'm I'm
Speaker 1: all on board. But this version is uh, it's not
Speaker 1: the best, but it is worth seeing for its own charms.
Speaker 1: But anyway, this Ebeneezer Scrooge here is also our professor
Speaker 1: for the film. He is the creator of Tobor all right. Now,
Speaker 1: we also have the character of Janice Roberts played by
Speaker 1: Karen Booth, who of nineteen sixteen through two thousand and
Speaker 1: three an American actor who also appeared in the Unfinished Dance,
Speaker 1: as well as various action western and our films of
Speaker 1: the day. How would you describe this character? She's she's there,
Speaker 1: she asked questions. Yes. With a lot of nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: sci fi movies, the female characters kind of get a
Speaker 1: raw deal and uh. Janice Roberts plays Professor Nordstrom's daughter,
Speaker 1: who is the beautiful mother of our annoying child character Gade,
Speaker 1: who will get two in a minute. But she I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean she she gets introduced and she
Speaker 1: she mostly kind of asks questions. She's she's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, could Tobor hurt someone? Or she's like, you know,
Speaker 1: why would anyone want to steal the secret of Tobor?
Speaker 1: Or At one point, uh, the child gets invited to
Speaker 1: a show at a science museum, I think, and he
Speaker 1: can bring anybody with him, and it's and he's like, well,
Speaker 1: I would take you, mom, but you probably wouldn't understand it.
Speaker 1: And she's like, oh yeah, there's a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: like that, or or she's asking like, well, how do
Speaker 1: the security systems at Grandpa's housework? Or something that. Like,
Speaker 1: she asked a lot of questions where you would have
Speaker 1: think this would have come up at some point in
Speaker 1: the past. Um. So, yeah, she doesn't have a tremendous
Speaker 1: amount of agency in this film. She does have a
Speaker 1: tremendous scene of shaking hands with toe Boar, which is
Speaker 1: especially funny when you see what toe bars hands look like.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm glad she wasn't mangled by this. All right,
Speaker 1: Well you meant we mentioned that she was. She's the
Speaker 1: mother of Gadge Gadges, the nickname Gadgetes and gadget right right, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: the nickname for the character Brian Roberts. Brian Roberts is
Speaker 1: played by Billy Chapin, who lived nine through child actor,
Speaker 1: probably best known for his role as young John Harper
Speaker 1: in the nine thriller than Night of the Hunter starring
Speaker 1: Robert Mitchum. Oh man, what a classic A love Knight
Speaker 1: of the Hunter? That is that is a like the
Speaker 1: pinnacle of cinematic menace. Robert Mitcham in that movie is
Speaker 1: evil incarnate love it. Yeah. Yeah, Even if you haven't
Speaker 1: seen the film in full, there's a very good chance
Speaker 1: you've seen stills or clips with Robert Mitchum's a villainous character,
Speaker 1: kind of stalking and intimidating this that these two children
Speaker 1: as this young boy and this younger girl. And yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's Billy. That's our that's our actor. He's most
Speaker 1: well known for that. But then we also have to borh.
Speaker 1: I think I recall Billy Chapin being good in Night
Speaker 1: of the Hunter, so I I think, uh he, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say, I think he's very annoying and tobor, but
Speaker 1: I think it's not his fault. I mean, that's that's
Speaker 1: how the character has written. He's just saying he's thrown
Speaker 1: out ge willakers all all over the place. Yeah. He
Speaker 1: was one of three child actors. His siblings were child
Speaker 1: actors as well, Michael and also Lauren Lauren of Father
Speaker 1: Knows Best. Um, Yeah, they they all were actors. Billy
Speaker 1: did a lot of TV works and film work and
Speaker 1: stage work up into the late nineteen fifties, including Dragnet
Speaker 1: and Leave It to Beaver, and he apparently started acting
Speaker 1: as a toddler and appeared on Broadway as a toddler.
Speaker 1: So pretty impressive. Wow, all right, we we do have
Speaker 1: our villains in this film, and our villains are of course,
Speaker 1: Uh do they ever actually say their soviets or Russians,
Speaker 1: or it's just so. I don't think they ever say
Speaker 1: Russian or Soviet, but it's that's obviously implied. It's clearly
Speaker 1: what they're going. It's the fifties, and they have Russian
Speaker 1: sounding accents, or at least Eastern European sounding accents, and
Speaker 1: they they're implied to represent a quote different form of
Speaker 1: government and so forth. When you look at films room
Speaker 1: from this time period, especially if you have an actor
Speaker 1: who either is of Eastern European origins or can can
Speaker 1: can can use the such an accent, inevitably they're going
Speaker 1: to be playing villains. They're playing uh uh some sort
Speaker 1: of a menace or a threat. Uh. With some rare
Speaker 1: exceptions here and there, but yes, our villain here is
Speaker 1: the man with rimless glasses. I don't think he has
Speaker 1: any other name. That's how he's credited, played by the
Speaker 1: actor Stephen Gary, who of nineteen o four through nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three. Uh. This is our our lead enemy agent
Speaker 1: who's trying to get his hands on some towbar technology.
Speaker 1: UM I thought, I thought this was a very fun performance.
Speaker 1: Gary was born in Austria, Hungary, though his birth city
Speaker 1: um z Hoorld is now part of Ukraine um but
Speaker 1: he was a prolific actor who played a lot of
Speaker 1: European villains, though sometimes he played more of a comic role.
Speaker 1: He did they did a number of comic roles as well.
Speaker 1: He appeared in All About a Eve, Gentleman, Preferred Bonds, Spellbound,
Speaker 1: as well as nineteen forty three's Phantom of the Opera,
Speaker 1: just to name a few you and to a much
Speaker 1: lesser extent, he also appears in Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's
Speaker 1: Daughter from nineteen sixty six. He also starred in the
Speaker 1: noir film So Dark the Night, from which I haven't seen,
Speaker 1: but apparently he's the lead in that. So, like I said,
Speaker 1: there are some exceptions here and there um of for
Speaker 1: fractors of like gear Ay, So I'm kind of interested.
Speaker 1: After seeing him in this, which is surely not the
Speaker 1: ultimate showcase of his skills, I'm very interested to see
Speaker 1: his some of his other work. I mean, his performance
Speaker 1: in this is for most of the film is limited
Speaker 1: to like sneaking around in the background, kind of looking
Speaker 1: sketchy and and peering over things at people. But then
Speaker 1: at the end when he when he has to be
Speaker 1: truly menacing, like he he captures some hostages. He's good. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was a little afraid of him, he reminded. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is I'm being reminded in the wrong direction here.
Speaker 1: But while the villainous uh s S agent in rages
Speaker 1: the Lost Arc played by Ronald Lacey, for the most part,
Speaker 1: we tend to associate that character as being a Peter
Speaker 1: laure S character. But I was reminded of of of
Speaker 1: ron Lacey's performance watching Stephen Gary in this film. Absolutely
Speaker 1: me too, same thing. It's similar glasses and similar mannerisms. Yeah. Now, um,
Speaker 1: there's another actor worth mentioning here, and that's Peter Brocko
Speaker 1: who lived three through and he plays this is uncredited,
Speaker 1: but he plays Dr Gustaff, who is the the doctor
Speaker 1: that's hanging out with the enemy agents. So he's like
Speaker 1: a foreign scientist who can't wait to get his hands
Speaker 1: on this advanced American robot technology. Yeah, he's there too,
Speaker 1: I think do due diligence on the ground. They're there
Speaker 1: to try to steal the secrets of Tobor, and he
Speaker 1: is there to check and make sure that they're getting
Speaker 1: the secrets of Tobor. Correct. Yeah, and uh Broco here
Speaker 1: is interesting because he's he has a very distinctive look
Speaker 1: um character actor, very gaunt looking face, so you can
Speaker 1: easily imagine he's the sort of guy that maybe got
Speaker 1: picked out of the lineup uh to get thrown into
Speaker 1: films and bit parts here and there, but ultimately ends
Speaker 1: up popping up in quite a few films. He was
Speaker 1: very active from the early nineteen thirties through the early
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, did a lot of smaller roles in TV work,
Speaker 1: including spots in the original Twilight Zone, the original Outer Limits, Thriller,
Speaker 1: Star trek Night, Gallery, and more, but he also pops
Speaker 1: up in some pretty well known films. He plays character
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixties Spartacus, He's in seventy ones Johnny Got
Speaker 1: His Gun, He's in seventy threes Papion, and he has
Speaker 1: a fairly memorable performance in ninety one Flew Over the
Speaker 1: Cuckoo's Nest. Is he a guy who like never talked
Speaker 1: or like only said one thing or something? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: believe so. I think he may be in a wheelch
Speaker 1: He's an older guy by that at that point, as
Speaker 1: a as a beard, but you can still see that
Speaker 1: the gaunt face he always had this kind of gaunt,
Speaker 1: kind of skeletal appearance. That again, uh, a great touch
Speaker 1: for a character actor to have, because whether it's a
Speaker 1: bigger part or a smaller part, your labat to wind
Speaker 1: up on screen. Finally, the music on this one. There's
Speaker 1: not much to say about the music here, but it
Speaker 1: is by Howard Jackson, who lived nine hundred through nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty six, a composer credited with some four hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy seven works on IMDb, including nineteen thirty six is Mr.
Speaker 1: Deeds Goes to Town? Okay, all right, well let's get
Speaker 1: into the plot of tob Or. The Great begins with
Speaker 1: some nice flash Gordon style titles. You know, it's like, uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know what you call this thing where it
Speaker 1: looks like paintbrush strokes. It's got the little jagged edges. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like it's painted on the side of a circus tent. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: roadside attraction, that's what I would call it. But then
Speaker 1: when you go into a movie, Okay, it's nineteen fifty four,
Speaker 1: how are you going to start this thrill ride? We
Speaker 1: gotta get lectured while being shown a bunch of stock footage.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, robust stock footage intro in this one, lots
Speaker 1: of shots of science and war going on. Uh. So
Speaker 1: it begins it says, this is a story of the future,
Speaker 1: but not the very distant future. And then it shows
Speaker 1: a nuclear explosion. They were really always really quick to
Speaker 1: bust out on an atomic explosion in films like this. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: so it is a story that might have taken place
Speaker 1: the day after tomorrow, like all stories of the future. However,
Speaker 1: it's beginnings lie far back in the past. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then it shows some clouds that look like they are
Speaker 1: ready to start speaking to Moses. It's just shafts of
Speaker 1: light punching through the cloud tops. And then the narration
Speaker 1: goes on as far back as the first man on
Speaker 1: Earth to gaze at the stars and wonder someday how
Speaker 1: he might travel to them, travel through space. And then
Speaker 1: of course we see space. They love that, just some
Speaker 1: stars on a black background. So it would seem immediately
Speaker 1: like this is gonna be a movie that's taking place
Speaker 1: in space. But no. Back to a shot of the
Speaker 1: earth ball. You see like Earth suspended in the voy aid,
Speaker 1: and then the narration goes on in the years after
Speaker 1: the Second World War. Two basic patterns began to influence
Speaker 1: the growing science of space travel. Rockets or guided missiles
Speaker 1: grew larger and larger, and then we see a rocket takeoff.
Speaker 1: And then atomic power plants grew smaller and smaller. And
Speaker 1: here we are treated to some obvious stock footage of
Speaker 1: a of a submarine being launched. I guess this isn't
Speaker 1: supposed to be a nuclear submarine being launched, like down
Speaker 1: a jetty into the water. You can see in the
Speaker 1: foreground there's a there's a general dynamics plaque. But I
Speaker 1: wonder what this what event this is actually from? Yeah? This? Um,
Speaker 1: I feel like you shouldn't You shouldn't depend on this
Speaker 1: film even in the nineteen fifties to learn about like
Speaker 1: the history of technology in the twentieth century. But you
Speaker 1: might accidentally learn something if you were watching this, I
Speaker 1: don't know, at the theater back in the day as
Speaker 1: a child. Uh, none of this feels completely off the ball. Sure,
Speaker 1: so they're saying, yeah, atomic power plants are getting smaller, smaller,
Speaker 1: compact enough to be contained in a submarine and finally
Speaker 1: in a rocket ship. Immediately, by special order of the President,
Speaker 1: a new agency was formed, the c I f C
Speaker 1: Civil Interplanetary Flight Commission. So with almost unlimited funds voted
Speaker 1: by Congress, and then what are you going to get?
Speaker 1: Of course a shot of the Capitol Building? And why not?
Speaker 1: This commission began its task research in new fissionable materials,
Speaker 1: more research and non fissionable metallic alloys to make rocket
Speaker 1: tubes that would not be melted like wax by their
Speaker 1: own atomic blasts. Sometimes mishaps occurred, men paid for them
Speaker 1: with their lives, and then we see a rocket crash.
Speaker 1: But the work went on, experiments in celestial navigation, astrophysics, aerodynamics,
Speaker 1: until finally only one obstacle remained that, it turned out,
Speaker 1: was the oldest obstacle in the history of mankind, the
Speaker 1: human factor. The human factor. Uh so we begin the
Speaker 1: action of the film concentrating on the human factor. What's
Speaker 1: so bad about the human factor? Well, we're observing a
Speaker 1: bunch of scientists performing a centerfuge test on a guy
Speaker 1: in a flight suit, subjecting him to t G forces
Speaker 1: that make his face into a profound deputy droopy, while
Speaker 1: various cold hearted pipe smoking scientists look on. And this
Speaker 1: this experiment continues in its cruelty until our hero Dr.
Speaker 1: Ralph Harrison this is Charles Drake. He barges into the
Speaker 1: room and he orders the experiment halted at once. And
Speaker 1: by the way, I thought this was interesting choice. The
Speaker 1: guy they have picked out to be the astronaut in
Speaker 1: the the G forces test here is not like a
Speaker 1: young test pilot in peak physical condition. I'd say he
Speaker 1: looks like a roughly fifty eight year old Maleman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he reminds me very strongly of my grandfather, my childhood
Speaker 1: memories of my grandfather. Does not look like this guy
Speaker 1: needs to be in a centrifuge, and also is probably
Speaker 1: not best the best candidate for making rash decisions about
Speaker 1: whether humans should be involved in space travel at all.
Speaker 1: At the same time, though, this whole thing about the
Speaker 1: human factor, I mean, this is kind of insightful, and
Speaker 1: this is something we've come Yeah, we come back to
Speaker 1: on the show, but on it's unsuffable in your mind
Speaker 1: before discussing space travel, is that. Yeah, in a lot
Speaker 1: of cases you wind up with the question is this
Speaker 1: worth trying to send a human being uh out into
Speaker 1: the void with the You know, our bodies are have
Speaker 1: evolved to thrive not only on Earth, but within a
Speaker 1: very specific layer of the Earth's uh surface, within a
Speaker 1: very specific layer of the Earth's atmosphere, and um, sometimes
Speaker 1: it just makes more sense to send something that is
Speaker 1: not human out there to do our work amid the stars.
Speaker 1: And this is sort of one of the discoveries of
Speaker 1: the movie, like we haven't gotten there yet. At the
Speaker 1: at the outset, it's basically like, well, you're either going
Speaker 1: to have humans going into space or you're not going
Speaker 1: to explore space at all. Yeah, now, Harrison, uh come.
Speaker 1: So after he stops the experiment, he gets up in
Speaker 1: the face of these these white lab coats uh, and
Speaker 1: he says, under other forms of government, men are killed
Speaker 1: or crippled every day in experiments like this. Well, I
Speaker 1: won't stand by and see men slaughter become policy. Here
Speaker 1: and then this guy with a pipe hanging out his
Speaker 1: mouth says, I resent that these men are volunteers. They
Speaker 1: know what they signed up for. Uh. So begins the
Speaker 1: philosophical conflict. And it seems the situation of this film
Speaker 1: is that the consensus of scientists is that we must
Speaker 1: liquefy all astronauts in the name of progress, and Dr
Speaker 1: Harrison challenges the status quo with a bold new agenda
Speaker 1: proclaiming that astronauts should not be slaughtered. But in so
Speaker 1: doing he he fiercely butts heads with a bunch of
Speaker 1: sadistic pipe guys. And and that's where we are when
Speaker 1: the movie begins. So Dr Harrison tries to run his
Speaker 1: gripe up the chain. He tries to go to the
Speaker 1: commissioner of the agency, and he's like, I won't stay
Speaker 1: and by while we do these cruel experiments and and
Speaker 1: and punish men's bodies in this way. Uh So he's
Speaker 1: going to tender his resignation. But while he is doing that,
Speaker 1: he is overheard by a shadowy figure behind a frosted
Speaker 1: glass doorway. And later this guy who's listening in comes
Speaker 1: to find Harrison at his home, and when he does,
Speaker 1: he is dressed like the judge from who framed Roger Rabbit.
Speaker 1: I was really this was a scene too, very early
Speaker 1: in the film where I was kind of taken aback
Speaker 1: by just how old most of the actors I was
Speaker 1: saying on screen. Where because not only the the test
Speaker 1: pilot guy, but yeah, the uh the guy he goes
Speaker 1: to the boss is pretty old looking. And then here
Speaker 1: comes Grandpa, who of course is has rather aged himself,
Speaker 1: but it's true. Yeah, but I guess you know, the
Speaker 1: fifties we were we're hard on the body. Um, so
Speaker 1: some of these people may look older than they actually were.
Speaker 1: I don't know. But anyway, Yeah, So he's visited by
Speaker 1: Professor Nordstrom here, who introduces himself, and it turned is
Speaker 1: out they share a common dissident belief that astronauts should
Speaker 1: not be killed. And Nordstrom says, you know, before we
Speaker 1: prepare the men for the conditions in extraterrestrial space, we've
Speaker 1: got to know what those conditions are. No, not guess,
Speaker 1: and Harrison agrees, but unfortunately, there's just no way to
Speaker 1: do it right. In order to find out what the
Speaker 1: conditions in space are, you've got to send human pilots
Speaker 1: up there in spacecraft to check. And Nordstrom is like, nope,
Speaker 1: I have a better solution. Join me and we can
Speaker 1: work on this together. So it seems like they're gonna
Speaker 1: team up there, they're going to figure out how to
Speaker 1: do it. And after this, we see a scene in
Speaker 1: what appears to be an airport restaurant, but it is
Speaker 1: incredibly swanky and spacious. I've never seen an airport restaurant
Speaker 1: like this. Yeah, not like this. This is a different
Speaker 1: age of air travel. Um, this is where but this
Speaker 1: looks yeah, that's kind of place where you'd go to
Speaker 1: get your your steak dinner. You're half a dozen oysters
Speaker 1: and a few martinis before boarding your rickety flight. But
Speaker 1: but already, this whole, this whole business with the explaining
Speaker 1: why we need to have humanoid robots, I feel like
Speaker 1: I've got to I've got to go back to the
Speaker 1: screenwriter on this one. I gotta go back to uh uh,
Speaker 1: to Philip McDonald, because this really feels like the producer
Speaker 1: Dudley coming and say it, all right, I need a
Speaker 1: picture in which we have a robot befriending a child. Um,
Speaker 1: and he comes up with a rather entertaining and almost
Speaker 1: really thought provoking way of getting there, instead of just
Speaker 1: having something like traditionally stupid and action serial happening like
Speaker 1: oh Grandpa's just Grandpa's a scientist and oh he happens
Speaker 1: to have a robot. Well, no, why does he have
Speaker 1: a robot? Uh? This film bothers to answer those questions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he could have invented him as a robot butler. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like a lot that would be more in keeping with
Speaker 1: with certainly the action serial motif like in The Phantom
Speaker 1: Creeps for example, starring Belle's Leghosie, the mad scientist, and
Speaker 1: that has an evil humanoid robot. But just because it
Speaker 1: seems like just because like that's just what you do.
Speaker 1: If you're a sci fi man scientists, you're gonna have
Speaker 1: a various gadgets laying around the house, including the humanoid robot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: why not? But instead this addresses a real issue. And
Speaker 1: of course, you know, almost all of our space missions
Speaker 1: now are in fact uncrewed. They are performed by robots,
Speaker 1: though in a different way than this movie imagines. This
Speaker 1: movie imagines uh spacecraft with like cockpits that are piloted
Speaker 1: by humans and have steering wheels basically, and you would
Speaker 1: get a humanoid robot to sit in the cockpit and
Speaker 1: and guide the spacecraft instead of just the spacecraft itself
Speaker 1: being a robot. Yeah, though, you could imagine an update
Speaker 1: of this where if you had something that was I
Speaker 1: guess less like a metallic human and more like essentially
Speaker 1: more like some sort of a cloned bio androids, sort
Speaker 1: of a situation where you could have something that could
Speaker 1: be in the place of a human space traveler not
Speaker 1: only to handle the equipment, but also to test like
Speaker 1: how dangerous the environment is to the human body or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and in a way, I think that's sort of what
Speaker 1: they're getting at. I mean it sounds like the purpose
Speaker 1: of TOBAR. I mean, we haven't even gotten to this
Speaker 1: reveal in the plot yet. We're getting ahead of the plot.
Speaker 1: But the purpose of TOBAR, I think is supposed to
Speaker 1: be to fly missions to test what space is like
Speaker 1: and figure out what the hazards are so that we
Speaker 1: can know that in advance of sending humans. But okay,
Speaker 1: we gotta get back into the do things more in
Speaker 1: order here? Okay, So Nord s Truman Harrison. They're sitting
Speaker 1: in the swanky airport restaurant. They're discussing their plans, and
Speaker 1: the big thing is that this project is top secret.
Speaker 1: Nobody can know about it until it is perfected. Uh. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: we've got a sketchy looking guy in a fedora and
Speaker 1: rimless glasses watching on from the table behind them. And
Speaker 1: then they are joined at their table by Gilligan, the
Speaker 1: science editor of Transglobal News Services. And I appreciate that
Speaker 1: this film takes a firm and consistent stand against the
Speaker 1: free press. The journalists in this movie are represented as nasty, opportunistic,
Speaker 1: and disloyal to their country, just just rats to the core.
Speaker 1: And Harrison, when Gillian sits down to talk to them,
Speaker 1: you know, he wants the scoop. Of course, He's like,
Speaker 1: what have you been working on? And Harrison just reems
Speaker 1: Gilligan because journalists reported publicly on secret atomic tests and
Speaker 1: things like that. Uh, and so I think it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be a great relief. Later when we see a
Speaker 1: journalist gets smacked by Tobor during a demonstration. But but Giligan,
Speaker 1: he's just like, hey, you're in the business of smashing Adams.
Speaker 1: I'm in the business of selling newspapers. If Uncle Sam
Speaker 1: doesn't know how to keep his secrets, that's his own
Speaker 1: tough luck. And Harrison to be to be clear, uncle
Speaker 1: Sam here in there and the form of these two
Speaker 1: characters are discussing top secret materials at just a random
Speaker 1: airport restaurant within earshot of enemy agents and and the press,
Speaker 1: which uh you know is is is one of the
Speaker 1: more realistic things about this film. I guess, oh yeah, so.
Speaker 1: But Harrison of course doesn't like him at all. He's like, uh,
Speaker 1: He's like, I guess it doesn't matter how much aid
Speaker 1: and comfort you give our enemies or how many of
Speaker 1: our side get killed. Uh. So I think we get
Speaker 1: some pretty firmly conservative politics going on in in this film.
Speaker 1: It is not happy about journalists reporting on on on
Speaker 1: top secret research. But anyway, so Gilligan gets invited to
Speaker 1: a demonstration of nord Nordstrom's new project, of course, along
Speaker 1: with all the other science journalists, which he's not happy about.
Speaker 1: He's like, I wanted an exclusive and Nordstrom's like, nope,
Speaker 1: we're gonna show you all at the same time. Uh.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, the man in rimless glasses is looking on
Speaker 1: with keen interest. Oh yeah, yeah, Stephen Gary here so good.
Speaker 1: This is This is the first scene where I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh man, this is is totally though. This is totally
Speaker 1: the bad guy from Raiders. Give me that intrigue, all right.
Speaker 1: So then we move on to the Nordstrom estate, where
Speaker 1: frankly most of the rest of the movie will take place.
Speaker 1: It's like a compound that's surrounded by an electric fence. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's got all these gadgets for defense that we
Speaker 1: see in action later. But when everybody's coming in there.
Speaker 1: Harrison arrives and Professor Grandpa here introduces Dr. Harrison to
Speaker 1: his daughter Janice, who he says runs this household with
Speaker 1: a rod of iron. But it doesn't seem like it.
Speaker 1: When do we see her running anything with a rod
Speaker 1: of iron? Yeah, she's very polite, very very pleasant. It's
Speaker 1: almost like and then we see them, you know, Harrison
Speaker 1: and Janis standing together in a frame. And while it's
Speaker 1: basically like Grandpa is like, all right, now you two
Speaker 1: go fall in love? Uh, that never happens, as I
Speaker 1: recall in the film, but it seems like it's it's
Speaker 1: almost like you have to at least imply it, right, Like,
Speaker 1: how else would you shoot this scene unless you're going
Speaker 1: to imply that they were falling in love with each other?
Speaker 1: Why would you have a have a male character and
Speaker 1: a female character on the screen at the same time
Speaker 1: otherwise Yeah? Uh. But then we also meet the grandson, Brian,
Speaker 1: a gadge who is a sort of Wesley Crusher esque
Speaker 1: boy genius who knows everything about everything. He's just a
Speaker 1: g whiz g wilkers with science and machines. Oh and
Speaker 1: they also have I think a German butler named Carl,
Speaker 1: and Carl is a real Debbie downer when when Carl
Speaker 1: meets Harrison, he's talking about Gadget and he goes, the
Speaker 1: boy is an imp of Satan, but what a brain.
Speaker 1: He'll be greater than his grandfather. But inside we see
Speaker 1: gadgets genius. He he shows off by demonstrating that he
Speaker 1: has figured out how to open Professor Nordstrom's bat cave,
Speaker 1: which is a very involved process that goes on way
Speaker 1: too long, involving a bookcase and like touching different parts
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah. Yeah, though that they did put in
Speaker 1: a lot of work to create something that was a
Speaker 1: little different than the standard uh tip a book open
Speaker 1: a secret chamber sort of scenario. Yeah yeah. Instead it's
Speaker 1: like you've got three different things and you got to
Speaker 1: do them in different orders and all that. Uh. And
Speaker 1: so Gadge is congratulated on his his cleverness for opening
Speaker 1: up the laboratory, but he is not allowed to come
Speaker 1: down and see it, and he's he's honors that he's
Speaker 1: a good boy and that he will not just go
Speaker 1: down the strange spiral staircase to Grandpa's dungeon. But as
Speaker 1: we find out, he's not above spying on Grandpa's dungeon
Speaker 1: right with a listening device that he like ropes through
Speaker 1: the floor. Uh. And then for some reason, there's a
Speaker 1: scene where Gedge talks to a grandfather clock like they've
Speaker 1: got an Alexa basically, Yeah, that was interesting. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: basically an alexis sort of situation. He like the clock
Speaker 1: still has a clock face, so he could look at
Speaker 1: it and it would tell him what time it is,
Speaker 1: but instead he says, like, clock, tell me what time
Speaker 1: it is, and it replies with an automated voice which
Speaker 1: sounds like Taylor Homes, by the way. So it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's one thar day. This is great, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is this is prophetic. This is exactly where we
Speaker 1: are now. So anyway, we're heading up to the big demonstration,
Speaker 1: the big reveal what is it Professor Nordstrom has been
Speaker 1: working on, by the way, So we've been talking about Tobar,
Speaker 1: but the movie has given no hint of Tobar or
Speaker 1: robots at all so far. Uh. So cars start arriving,
Speaker 1: the journalists are showing up to see this demonstration at
Speaker 1: Nordstrom's compound, and Carl stands guard at the gate with
Speaker 1: a shotgun. Uh. Seems kind of extreme, and he does
Speaker 1: it kind of papers please routine for all the approaching vehicles,
Speaker 1: and then we see one of the vehicles. Hey, wait
Speaker 1: a second, that's not a journalist. That's that creepy guy
Speaker 1: from the airport with the roomless glasses, and he's smoking
Speaker 1: a pipe. And now here I wanted to do a
Speaker 1: brief pipe digression. I think it's interesting that several characters
Speaker 1: in this movie smoke pipes, and they are all villains
Speaker 1: of one sort or another. Got the creepy communist spy,
Speaker 1: and then you've got the cold hearted scientists from earlier
Speaker 1: who wanted to murder the mailman with g forces. So
Speaker 1: is there a reason for this? Was pipe smoking associated
Speaker 1: with cold hearted treachery in nineteen fifty four? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, nowadays I think of pipe smoking, I think
Speaker 1: of like Sherlock Holmes or something yum. But at the time, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you think back on our various heroes. A lot of
Speaker 1: the times they're they're smoking, certainly, but they're smoking cigarettes. Um,
Speaker 1: I guess, And maybe I guess you have characters smoking
Speaker 1: cigars as well. But yeah, it would be interesting to
Speaker 1: read like a breakdown of like the cinematic language of
Speaker 1: tobacco choices in nineteen fifties cinema, like, because there does
Speaker 1: seem to be a division here. You got your pipe smokers,
Speaker 1: your your your cigarette smokers, and I guess that's all
Speaker 1: we really see. We don't see anybody trooping around with
Speaker 1: cigars or a hookah or anything. Yeah, it almost seems like,
Speaker 1: you know, the the cigarettes are I got this cigarette
Speaker 1: habit when I was in the war, and you know,
Speaker 1: that's like a that's like an honorable, manly kind of
Speaker 1: way to smoke. But the pipe smokers are these kind
Speaker 1: of untrustworthy intellectuals, and I think that maybe there's an
Speaker 1: intellectual air to it, which despite our our hero being
Speaker 1: a scientist, uh, he has more of that that Machies
Speaker 1: mo to him, more of that soldier mentality. So it
Speaker 1: makes sense that he's just he's smokingting cigarettes. Yeah. Well, anyway,
Speaker 1: so we move on to the demonstration where we're down
Speaker 1: in Nordstrom's secret layer and all the journalists are gathered
Speaker 1: in attendance. Again, just a dreadful flock of rectangular men
Speaker 1: in gray suits, including Gilligan, the unpatriotic journalists from earlier
Speaker 1: uh and the suspicious man in glasses. They're all down here,
Speaker 1: and Nordstrom explains that they are in a wine cellar,
Speaker 1: but it looks more like one of the sets from
Speaker 1: Prince Prospero's Castle and The Mask of the Red Death.
Speaker 1: It's like a giant room with stonework walls and twenty
Speaker 1: ft high ceilings. Yeah, like it was maybe once an
Speaker 1: actual dungeon and then was repurposed into a wine cellar
Speaker 1: and then repurposed into a secret laboratory. It was not
Speaker 1: secret anymore because you just invited the Free Press and
Speaker 1: some in the agents there. But I guess, I guess
Speaker 1: Gadge already kind of spoiled it for everyone, so why not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So anyway, they say it's chosen because it is ideal
Speaker 1: for security and to protect our delicate equipment from surface vibrations. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's also got a stage and a bunch of
Speaker 1: light up gizmos. And Nordstrom's presentation restates the problem we've
Speaker 1: become acquainted with already, So we need to send spaceships
Speaker 1: into space. But space may well kill the pilots. But
Speaker 1: in order for us to find out how space will
Speaker 1: kill the pilots, we've got to send pilots up there
Speaker 1: in spaceships. So it's a catch twenty two. So is
Speaker 1: there any way we can beat this? Well, Nordstrom says
Speaker 1: he's going to prove all the critics wrong, and in
Speaker 1: order to do so, he unveils a large electronic device
Speaker 1: with a pistol grip, and he presses a button on
Speaker 1: the on this device to unveil his creation, and out
Speaker 1: of a gigantic tube comes what is this? Why? Why?
Speaker 1: It's like a man with arms and legs and a head,
Speaker 1: but it's made of metal. It's a mechanical man, a
Speaker 1: mechanical man with an ornate head so large that he
Speaker 1: will surely topple over. Yeah. Yeah, Tobor is top heavy.
Speaker 1: I gotta say, yeah, way too top heavy for a
Speaker 1: bipedal machine. It seems like he should be. It should
Speaker 1: have played it more like a gorilla suit. But then
Speaker 1: again they would just the actor would fall over. The
Speaker 1: spy by the way, the creep and the glasses is
Speaker 1: positively drooling while he watches. He's like biting his pipe.
Speaker 1: And again, this guy should have been played by Peter Laurie.
Speaker 1: I mean, I like the guy they have, but that
Speaker 1: would have pushed it over the edge. Well, it would
Speaker 1: have pushed the budget over the edge. I bet they
Speaker 1: couldn't get Laurie at this time. So anyway, Nordstrom says, well, gentlemen,
Speaker 1: meet Tobor. Then he explains that Tobor is robot spelt backwards. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's but it is the cheeky way of doing it.
Speaker 1: He's he's not. He's a little like, yeah, I know
Speaker 1: this is lame, but hey, it's it's robot spelled backage. Which, again,
Speaker 1: it really feels like the screenwriter making his his EPs
Speaker 1: idea work in the film. Yeah, the boss said it's
Speaker 1: got to be called Tobar, so this is it's he
Speaker 1: like lamp shades the idea that he named it Tobar.
Speaker 1: By the way, the remote control we get to, I
Speaker 1: just I love this is the film that loves its gadgets,
Speaker 1: and I love how the the cool little like gun
Speaker 1: remote control for Tobor itself is contained within like a
Speaker 1: clear like acrylic or plastic bread box. And then that
Speaker 1: bread box on a pedestal has its own specifically tailored
Speaker 1: dust cover that goes over it when it's not They
Speaker 1: spared no expense. Yeah, so Gil again, the journalist is like, hey,
Speaker 1: is this just another movie Frankenstein, That's what he says,
Speaker 1: and Nordstrom says no. And in fact, Tobor is not
Speaker 1: even a robot. He's an quote electronic simulacrum of a man.
Speaker 1: And I was thinking, how does that make it not
Speaker 1: a robot? Doesn't that just describe a particular type of robot? Again,
Speaker 1: this feels maybe like the screenwriter rebelling a little go
Speaker 1: By the way, if we go by Baudriard's definition of
Speaker 1: of simulachrome, it would be a copy or imitation of
Speaker 1: a thing that no longer exists or never existed in
Speaker 1: the first place. So too on that. Maybe Tobor is
Speaker 1: designed to stand in for man once man no longer exists.
Speaker 1: I like it. I like it, okay, But here's the
Speaker 1: rundown on Tobor. So he's an electronic simulacrum of a
Speaker 1: man who will be able to safely pilot ships into
Speaker 1: outer space to document the spine tingling cosmic hazards that
Speaker 1: dwell there without putting a human being at risk. And
Speaker 1: he is currently controlled by this little ray gun device
Speaker 1: with the pistol grip, but that's only a temporary measure.
Speaker 1: The range will not be good enough with this thing
Speaker 1: to control him once he goes to space. Eventually, Tobor
Speaker 1: is going to be controlled entirely by means of a
Speaker 1: system with longer range, which is eat SP. That's right,
Speaker 1: You narrow minded journalists might not even believe in psychic
Speaker 1: powers to lepid the extrasensory perception. But not only are
Speaker 1: they real, they are the protocol for interfacing with my
Speaker 1: new mechanical superman. Take that I did not know. I
Speaker 1: was not prepared for the psychic robot part. No, especially
Speaker 1: after they had initially whipped out the control mechanism. You're
Speaker 1: just imagining this sort of your typical kind of clunky
Speaker 1: commanding the robot with buttons and maybe some vocal commands.
Speaker 1: But no, this machine will be powered. We're not powered,
Speaker 1: but controlled by the human brain. You think it, and
Speaker 1: Tobar does it. In fact, they say that Tobor is
Speaker 1: already a sentient being, and they say he can feel
Speaker 1: emotions and he will react by psychically sensing the emotions
Speaker 1: of others. Uh. And there's a hilarious couple of demonstrations
Speaker 1: they do of this. The first one is they called
Speaker 1: Janison to demonstrate to War's powers. Basically, the Professor is like,
Speaker 1: I come end you to love Tobar, and you know
Speaker 1: she's they're like approached Tobar and feel friendliness to him,
Speaker 1: feel it in your heart. And she says, I'll try,
Speaker 1: but what do you know? She does seem to start
Speaker 1: falling for Tobar, Like she comes up, she feels the friendliness,
Speaker 1: and she says, why he does seem almost kind, doesn't he?
Speaker 1: And we get a close up of Tobor's face lighting
Speaker 1: up with his his like conical bright light you know,
Speaker 1: high beam eyes, and then he's kind of mouth is
Speaker 1: his mouth is supposed to look kind of smiley. It's
Speaker 1: like a V shaped and in an upturned way. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I got more of a skull out
Speaker 1: of looking at his face, but there there is an
Speaker 1: abstraction to it, for sure. Yum. Speaking of of which,
Speaker 1: the eyes glow and I forget that the quote, but
Speaker 1: there's even a little bit of techno babble in there
Speaker 1: where the screenwriter basically off handedly explains why the eyes glow,
Speaker 1: which I thought was a nice touch, Like he really
Speaker 1: did everything he could to make this work, even though
Speaker 1: the the mate intended audience seems to be children. Yeah yeah, um,
Speaker 1: so Toboor telepathically senses Janesis feelings, the feelings of fake
Speaker 1: friendship that she has just conjured up and reacts by
Speaker 1: shaking hands with her. Except Toboar does not have a
Speaker 1: hand so much as a plate with three wiggling steel
Speaker 1: tipped meat spikes on it, So he shakes her hand
Speaker 1: with his meat spikes, and luckily she was not crushed. Yes, uh,
Speaker 1: then we let's do another experiment. So the journalists are
Speaker 1: still skeptical. I think Gilligan's like, hey, could you do
Speaker 1: that with somebody who's not, you know, a member of
Speaker 1: your family. This could be a pre arranged trick. Uh.
Speaker 1: So Professor Grandpa is like, hey, Gilligan, do you suppose
Speaker 1: you could contrive to feel enmity towards Tobor? And Gilligan
Speaker 1: can absolutely contrive this, He's an expert at contriving, so
Speaker 1: so for good measure, the Professor has the journalist grab
Speaker 1: a fire axe and walk around behind in Tobar's back,
Speaker 1: and then he tells him, you know, really get those
Speaker 1: enmity juices flowing feel hatred for Tobar, and I guess
Speaker 1: he's just He gets so into the part that the
Speaker 1: journalist starts to like Rear back with the acts almost
Speaker 1: like he's gonna hit to a war. But Tobar Ah,
Speaker 1: he lays the SmackDown, lays down the law with a
Speaker 1: righteous backhand and knocks the journalist on his Uh, I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, on his butt, you know. He kind
Speaker 1: of knocks him over forward. Yeah, and he he seems
Speaker 1: more like his ego is bruised by this. He's not hurt.
Speaker 1: If this were RoboCop, things would have gone at a
Speaker 1: little bit differently, but but now he's he's mostly just
Speaker 1: put in his place, and everyone kind of snickers at
Speaker 1: the at the journalist who who now has to to
Speaker 1: sit down and kind of maybe rub his his back
Speaker 1: a little bit. Oh my god, I did not realize it,
Speaker 1: but you're right. This is the precedent for the ED
Speaker 1: two oh nine scene in the boardroom. It's like point
Speaker 1: the gun at tobar. It's just a glitch. I'm very
Speaker 1: disappoin inted Tonu dick y. No one has to run
Speaker 1: out in the scene and yell for them to behave yourselves. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh So, Anyway, Nordstrom explains that Tobor feels all human emotions,
Speaker 1: so he's got friendliness. But then they specify he also
Speaker 1: feels fear and anger and will act out of self
Speaker 1: preservation instinct. So good design. That exactly what you want
Speaker 1: in a robot. Yeah, I hope this is what they're
Speaker 1: working on in those you know, the Google labs right
Speaker 1: now or whatever, making robots feel genuine anger. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: coming back to the basic principle behind Tobor is if
Speaker 1: you if you are sending a similacrum of a human
Speaker 1: being into space to test what humans can to see
Speaker 1: what humans can actually take. I mean, a part of
Speaker 1: the risks are going to be certainly physical, but there's
Speaker 1: also going to be the emotional ramifications of long term
Speaker 1: space travel, especially, so it makes sense that you would
Speaker 1: want your tobar capable of feeling uh these emotions as well,
Speaker 1: I suppose. So who am I to question um? And
Speaker 1: by the way, I think I should mention this happens
Speaker 1: a couple of times throughout the movie when people are like,
Speaker 1: so this robot of yours, the professor will cut them
Speaker 1: off and insist that they call him Tobor, for if
Speaker 1: they do not, Tobor may become resentful. But so okay,
Speaker 1: everybody's impressed, obviously, but his Toebo are ready for action.
Speaker 1: Will not quite yet because they're there are a couple
Speaker 1: of last things they need to finish. One of them
Speaker 1: is the long range transmitting device to control him with
Speaker 1: your psychic powers. Oh and then Gilligan he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: can we look inside Tobar and see his innards? And
Speaker 1: the professor says, I don't mind if Tobar doesn't. And
Speaker 1: then there's actually, I thought a rather good shot where
Speaker 1: they like flip open the shutters on Tobor's chest and
Speaker 1: you can see the machinery inside him. And then you're
Speaker 1: peering through Tobor seeing between the slats and you see
Speaker 1: the man in rimless glass us is on the other
Speaker 1: side of Tobar peering inside. Oh yeah, this is a great,
Speaker 1: great scene and again just shows the love and attention
Speaker 1: that went into creating all the various gadgets and gizmos
Speaker 1: in this film. Yeah. Oh, and we mentioned so Gadge
Speaker 1: has been by the way, the kid Gadge has been
Speaker 1: listening in this whole time with a some kind of
Speaker 1: spying device that he dropped through a vent in the floor.
Speaker 1: And he's he's like, I gotta see Tobar. I just
Speaker 1: gotta so all the all the journalists leave. Oh and
Speaker 1: keeping with the theme. While the reporters are leaving, Harrison
Speaker 1: corners gill again and he's he's basically like, hey, when
Speaker 1: you publish your article about this, I want to ask
Speaker 1: that you report only the facts, not a bunch of
Speaker 1: lies and wild speculation. And Gilligan says, he's like, no,
Speaker 1: can do uh. You know, I don't tell you how
Speaker 1: to do your job. It's such just such a stark
Speaker 1: contrast to various pictures where the journalists are portrayed as
Speaker 1: as if not the heroes, at least in a more
Speaker 1: neutral line. Yeah. Yeah, uh So. Meanwhile, of course we
Speaker 1: get Gadge. He's going to he's got a sea Tobar,
Speaker 1: So he goes down to the lab, gets up to
Speaker 1: some lab mischief, and he ends up activating and controlling
Speaker 1: Tobar and whoops, he doesn't exactly know how to do
Speaker 1: it at first, because he accidentally drives Tobor up the
Speaker 1: stairs out of the lab into the house. That's not
Speaker 1: good to boy is not supposed to be up on
Speaker 1: the furniture, but Tobar is. He's rolling all around, he's
Speaker 1: knocking over lamps, he punches a harp at one point
Speaker 1: and causes a whole ruckus but then I think eventually
Speaker 1: Gadge sort of gets the hang of the control device
Speaker 1: and then walks Tobar back downstairs and puts him back
Speaker 1: in his tube. And at the end of this, after
Speaker 1: all the destruction, Janice is like, my son, Gadge, he
Speaker 1: is bad, bad, bad. But the professor says, no, no,
Speaker 1: don't you see he has an intuitive grasp of Tobor.
Speaker 1: Look how quickly he mastered Tobar. So we already see
Speaker 1: the seeds beginning of of a of a deep connection
Speaker 1: between Tobar and his friend, this child, Gadge. But anyway,
Speaker 1: Harrison and Nordstrom figure out, wait a minute, there was
Speaker 1: somebody extra here. There was a spy because there were
Speaker 1: too many chairs in the room. And they get upset
Speaker 1: about this obviously, And but then Janice is like, what's
Speaker 1: the big deal? Who were regarding against? And Harrison says, well,
Speaker 1: we built the basic emotional patterns for a constructive mission
Speaker 1: into Tobor. Just think what would happen if someone else,
Speaker 1: a potential enemy, built destructive patterns into a few thousand
Speaker 1: like him. I mean, in a way, this is rather brilliant.
Speaker 1: It's like Tobor is a machine and his disposition is
Speaker 1: a reflection of the disposition of those around him. Uh.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like technology itself. Um, he's as
Speaker 1: much of a weapon as the as the wills of
Speaker 1: those in his presence. And perhaps this kind of comes
Speaker 1: back to why a small boy has the strongest connection
Speaker 1: with Tobor, because his connection is pure. He's not this
Speaker 1: complex array of false emotions and false pretenses pretending to
Speaker 1: be angry or pretending to love like this is a
Speaker 1: young boy. He feels all of these things with a
Speaker 1: with an absolute purity. Uh, and that that impulse goes
Speaker 1: right into the brain of of of the robot here. Yes,
Speaker 1: his innocence is a benediction on the soul of Tobor. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so we got these spies, and so we're
Speaker 1: gonna follow the creepy man in rimless glasses. He drives off,
Speaker 1: he switches out his license plate just like James Bond uh,
Speaker 1: and he goes to rendezvous with his co conspirators, which
Speaker 1: include a couple of kind of Doughey guys like this
Speaker 1: Doughey auto mechanic who uh looks sort of like a
Speaker 1: cross between the Skipper from Gilligan's Island and Buddy Hackett
Speaker 1: and uh. They they hang out at a place called
Speaker 1: the Last Chance Garage, so it is an auto garage
Speaker 1: that is the headquarters of the communist infiltration unit in
Speaker 1: the United States. Meanwhile, Harrison and Nordstrom keep working on Toboor.
Speaker 1: They're trying to perfect things like his manual dexterity and
Speaker 1: his long range transmitter. Uh oh. And one of the
Speaker 1: items on our list is quote reaction to space hazard.
Speaker 1: But in one scene I thought was very funny was
Speaker 1: the scene where they get Tobor to improve his manual
Speaker 1: dexterity by typing on a typewriter and they like it's impossible.
Speaker 1: They show his hands doing it, and his hands, they're like,
Speaker 1: he could not press an individual key. They're way too big.
Speaker 1: But somehow he's managing to type anyway. Uh And and
Speaker 1: he produces a kind of all work and no play
Speaker 1: makes Toboor dull boy type sheet. It's just a repeated
Speaker 1: line over and over in all caps that says Tobor
Speaker 1: is robot spelled backwards. They also tried to train Tobor
Speaker 1: to fly a spaceship, so he's doing a pilot simulator
Speaker 1: program dodging white hot meteorites, and this test proves too
Speaker 1: much for Tobor. It's it's too stressful and the and
Speaker 1: it makes Tobor go berserk and he starts roaming around
Speaker 1: trying to hurt everyone until Harrison disarms him by lowering
Speaker 1: his antenna. And you can tell Gadge feel is very betrayed.
Speaker 1: But uh, they assure him. They say, easy, Gadge, Tobar
Speaker 1: can't hurt us now. Uh. And the professor concludes that
Speaker 1: Tobar suffered what in humans we would call a nervous breakdown,
Speaker 1: but they say now that his circuits have cooled off.
Speaker 1: When Tobor wakes back up, he feels terrible remorse for
Speaker 1: his actions and he goes to give Gadge a big
Speaker 1: hug and we can see the bonds of friendship forming
Speaker 1: already from this. The adults deduced that Tobor has concerned
Speaker 1: for the young, and they say that he has mastered
Speaker 1: quote human love. Oh and at some point in here,
Speaker 1: they also create a miniature controller for Tobar, designed to
Speaker 1: look like a pen. I don't recall why they do this,
Speaker 1: but it proves pivotal in the in the climax, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does become important later. All the no gadget introduced
Speaker 1: in the film uh, fails to have payoff later on.
Speaker 1: But then later this night the communist saboteurs attack the
Speaker 1: Grandpa compound. How would you describe the sequence? This is
Speaker 1: a strange action sequence in the middle of the movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is another sequence where a lesser film would have
Speaker 1: just had them like cut through the fence or do
Speaker 1: something like that, even though it's an electrified fence. But no,
Speaker 1: they basically come with siege equipment that they've customed built
Speaker 1: out of a what it looks like it maybe a
Speaker 1: tow truck and and some some ladders and so forth.
Speaker 1: Like it looks it doesn't look cheap. It looks like
Speaker 1: they really thought this out. And whoever the loving minds
Speaker 1: behind all the the gadgets in this film happened to
Speaker 1: be they came up with something believable, something that uh, no,
Speaker 1: petty criminals were putting together. No, this is a crew
Speaker 1: with international expertise and international funding. They've got growne to
Speaker 1: the wolf's head. It's like, uh, you know, they're they're
Speaker 1: coming up with like a truck and that's got a
Speaker 1: whole thing. Yeah, but of course they are thwarted by
Speaker 1: all kinds of high tech traps and guns like I
Speaker 1: think Gadge runs out with a gadget is armed. By
Speaker 1: the way, this is a child with a gun, uh,
Speaker 1: And he goes out with a gun and other people
Speaker 1: get guns. But also I think they scare them off
Speaker 1: with sound effects from a movie. They say, like this
Speaker 1: from the Sands of Ebo Jima. They're playing like gunfire
Speaker 1: sound effects, and the spies get spooked and they run
Speaker 1: away back over the fence. By the way, the main
Speaker 1: heavy on the bad guy side is played by an
Speaker 1: actor by the name of Henry Kolke who lived nineteen
Speaker 1: eleven through uh. Apparently a former professional wrestler, which totally
Speaker 1: makes sense when you see him. He's a real like
Speaker 1: stocky plug of a guy, and I think it becomes
Speaker 1: very obvious later on when the fight scenes start happening. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: And he has a great fight scene with Tobor Yeah
Speaker 1: because I'll describe it when we get to it. But
Speaker 1: it's great. Okay, Okay. So back at the hideout, the
Speaker 1: spies are are not happy the main guy, the guy
Speaker 1: in the rimless glasses. Our employers will not tolerate any
Speaker 1: more failures on your part or mine, so they come
Speaker 1: up with a plan. They're gonna kidnap Professor Nordstrman Gadge.
Speaker 1: And the way they do this is by tricking them
Speaker 1: into attending a fake event at a science museum, like
Speaker 1: send out invitations like come to come to this science thing,
Speaker 1: and when they show up, it's just spies there to
Speaker 1: kidnap them. I felt personally threatened by this as someone
Speaker 1: who has responded to invites from science museums before. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then the and it's weird how mostly this movie
Speaker 1: is very tame. It's you know, it's not getting really gritty,
Speaker 1: except in the weird part where they when they've got
Speaker 1: the professor and Gadge held hostage and they start threatening
Speaker 1: the professor by saying they're gonna burn Gadge with a blowtorch,
Speaker 1: and we see the blowtorch and yes, and you totally
Speaker 1: buy the threat, uh that is of these individuals like
Speaker 1: this is it gets a little little creepy and scary
Speaker 1: and you're like, yeah, Grandpa, I think you just need
Speaker 1: to tell them how the robot works, because these guys
Speaker 1: are not playing around. Got to divulge the secret of Gadge. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: back at the house, they've got all these Oh at first,
Speaker 1: I thought they had. They're like all these generals at
Speaker 1: the house. Uh, And I thought what they called in
Speaker 1: the Joint chiefs of Staff to like find Gadge after
Speaker 1: he was kidnapped. But no, they're here for a demonstration
Speaker 1: of Tobar, not because of the kidnapping. But it just
Speaker 1: so happens now that they're here and h. Harrison and
Speaker 1: everybody finds out about the kidnapping, now they and their
Speaker 1: military police escorts can help out with the rescue efforts.
Speaker 1: They initiate a search. Meanwhile, the professor pulls a smart
Speaker 1: trick to summon help. So so what's his trick? Well,
Speaker 1: he claims that in order to divulge the secrets of Tobar,
Speaker 1: he needs both his hearing aid and his pencil. The pencil,
Speaker 1: as we established, this is a pen or pencil shaped
Speaker 1: device that allows him to somehow control Tobar. I was
Speaker 1: a little um fogging exactly how this is working. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're not super clear on that. But also his quote
Speaker 1: hearing aid is like a headset that is able to
Speaker 1: transmit his psy kick, his his esp to Toebar. I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like a psychic amplifier so that he can beam
Speaker 1: his thoughts directly into Tobar and control him. And I
Speaker 1: guess nobody on this crew of villains has seen a
Speaker 1: hearing aid or hearing apparatus before, so they're just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this magneto looking X man gadget is totally the sort
Speaker 1: of thing you put on your head to h to
Speaker 1: hear better. Okay, Cerebro, Yes, so this works. It's Summon's towboard.
Speaker 1: Toeboar breaks free in front of all the generals. He
Speaker 1: walks right through a window. Everybody is extremely alarmed by this.
Speaker 1: Tobar clatters out through the front lawn. He walks through
Speaker 1: the gate. I think he like electrifies the gate with
Speaker 1: his hands and then it falls over. He smacks a
Speaker 1: military police guard. Nice and man, things really start popping
Speaker 1: off here because Tobar gets into an army jeep and
Speaker 1: drives it. Yes, I can't tell you how many times
Speaker 1: we rewound the toboard riving scenes. This This is the
Speaker 1: highlight of the film. Oh yeah, yeah, Tobar is on
Speaker 1: on full rampage at this point, and it's a delight
Speaker 1: to watch. Oh, it's so good. So Toebar is nearly there,
Speaker 1: you know, he's he's going for the rescue. But then oh,
Speaker 1: at the last minute, the spy figures out the game.
Speaker 1: He realizes what's going on, and he takes the Professor's
Speaker 1: pencil and he breaks it, and then we see Tobar.
Speaker 1: He's walking towards the place where where he's walking toward
Speaker 1: the garage, but then he just stops and he falls
Speaker 1: limp because the control device is broken. And then they're
Speaker 1: threatening Gadge with the blowtorch and it's like, what's gonna
Speaker 1: happen now? Maybe only the power of love can revive Tobar.
Speaker 1: And then there's a scene where I don't know how
Speaker 1: to explain it other than the Gadge praised to Tobor. Yes,
Speaker 1: he praised the Tobar. Like again, he has this connection
Speaker 1: with the robot. His purity of thought, his his mind
Speaker 1: is unclouded like all the grown up brains around him.
Speaker 1: So he alone, none but the pure of heart can
Speaker 1: actually connect mind to mind with Tobor and reanimate him
Speaker 1: and bring him the rest of the way in for
Speaker 1: the the victory and the rescue. And he does it.
Speaker 1: It works. A child's love brings Tobar back to back
Speaker 1: to life. It reanimates tobar circuits even without the amplification devices.
Speaker 1: Just pure love, energy, straight from the child's skull. And
Speaker 1: so then Tobor arrives on scene and he is ready
Speaker 1: to fight. Fight. Fight. Now the fight scene is interesting
Speaker 1: because now um O, our main hero, human hero shows
Speaker 1: up as well. Right for the Harrison shows up and
Speaker 1: throws some punches too. Yeah, and you this is where
Speaker 1: you begin to see why, because again, this robot costume
Speaker 1: looks amazing, and they did so much more with it
Speaker 1: than you would expect them to be able to do.
Speaker 1: But asking for a scene of fisticuffs with this thing,
Speaker 1: it really you can tell they were asking too much.
Speaker 1: So they're like, Okay, we gotta bring our hero in
Speaker 1: for just some normal human on human combat. And then
Speaker 1: when it comes to making it look like Tobar can
Speaker 1: actually fight, well, they have to turn to Henry Kolki,
Speaker 1: a k a. Bomber Kolkovich, the former pro wrestler who's
Speaker 1: playing the main heavy. He gets the main fight scene
Speaker 1: with Tobar, and it's very very evident that Tobor, the
Speaker 1: actor in the Tobar suit, is barely able to move,
Speaker 1: barely able to sort of throw his limbs around. But Kolki,
Speaker 1: with his wrestling background, he knows how to bump. So
Speaker 1: he now he knows how to make every little like
Speaker 1: bare movement of Tobar look like it's really connecting and
Speaker 1: connecting with him and knocking him on his rump. So
Speaker 1: great job here by Kolki making making the robot looks strong, fantastic.
Speaker 1: There's one part with a really brutal crotch two head
Speaker 1: strike on the Soviet buddy Hackett. And then they go
Speaker 1: outside and it's Toboar versus the spy in a car
Speaker 1: and oh it's fantastic, and Toboard defeats the Red Menace.
Speaker 1: Now is this the wonderful strongman cliche scene where he's
Speaker 1: picking up part of the car and keeping the bad
Speaker 1: guy from driving off? I love that? Yeah? Yeah? Or
Speaker 1: I think he like lifts the hood off the car,
Speaker 1: I think, and he's carrying up the engine too. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: Tobor rips the hood off and he pulls out the
Speaker 1: spark plugs or something. And then so after all the
Speaker 1: all the bad guys have been defeated, we see Tobar.
Speaker 1: He picks up Gadge and he like carries him off
Speaker 1: into the sunset. They're going to be friends forever. It's
Speaker 1: it's very touching, uh, but it's also an interesting contrast
Speaker 1: to the movie posters, or many of the movie posters
Speaker 1: for Toeboar are the great which show Tobar carrying a
Speaker 1: beautiful woman, which of course is the standard monster or
Speaker 1: monster costume guerrilla costume trope of the day. They just
Speaker 1: that that's how you sold pictures, is you want to
Speaker 1: make people think that a woman will be carried by
Speaker 1: your monster or robot at some point, and so that's
Speaker 1: what they do on the poster. Yes, monster must always
Speaker 1: have an unconscious woman in his arms, but no, that's
Speaker 1: a complete lie. Never happens in the movie, not even close. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh So, with the enemies defeated, to board can now
Speaker 1: resume his function of being shot up in a rocket
Speaker 1: to die in space. That's right. He apparently boards a
Speaker 1: V two and uh and via stock footage, takes off,
Speaker 1: goes right up into space and we see we see
Speaker 1: Professor Grandpa and Gadge standing there looking up as the
Speaker 1: rocket ascends through the atmosphere. And then we we zoom
Speaker 1: in on Gadget's face and Gadge says goodbye Tobar and
Speaker 1: good luck, And that's a it's a solid ending to
Speaker 1: what I thought was a really solid adventure film. I
Speaker 1: was again thinking of this is kind of a film
Speaker 1: version of an action cereal from the day. I was
Speaker 1: prepared for any level of tedium here, but it moves
Speaker 1: right along the The acting is pretty solid though, the
Speaker 1: writing is is far better than it needs to be,
Speaker 1: and all the gadgets look great. Yeah. And you know,
Speaker 1: every time they're talking about Tobar, I just I couldn't
Speaker 1: get enough. Yeah, Tobor is great in this well done, Tobar.
Speaker 1: I take back what I said earlier. Now Toeboard the
Speaker 1: Great makes complete sense now that we've talked it through. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Tobar the Great, Toboor the the Savior, Toboar the Ascendant,
Speaker 1: Tobor Magnus, Tobar Augustus, Toboor the Magnificent. All right, well, Joe,
Speaker 1: it's been great to have you back back in the
Speaker 1: weird House again. Uh so glad you're able to uh
Speaker 1: to talk about Toboar the Great with me here and
Speaker 1: wonderful pick. Yeah, man, it's fun to be back. All right. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll go ahead and close this one out, but we'd
Speaker 1: love to hear from everyone out there. Were you familiar
Speaker 1: with Tobor the Great previously? Do you have a history
Speaker 1: with Toboor the Great, well, right in, we would love
Speaker 1: to hear from you, or if you're exploring this movie
Speaker 1: for the first time, like like we did. Uh we
Speaker 1: we would also love to hear from you, like again,
Speaker 1: there's a lot to discuss in this picture. Uh far
Speaker 1: far better than I think some have have given it
Speaker 1: credit for. So yeah, right in, we'd love to hear
Speaker 1: from you. Reminder that Weird House Cinema is our Friday
Speaker 1: episode and the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed
Speaker 1: were primarily a science podcast with core episodes that published
Speaker 1: on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Friday's we set aside
Speaker 1: most serious concerns and just talk about a weird film.
Speaker 1: If you want to see all the films we've discussed
Speaker 1: on the show thus far and sometimes got a peek
Speaker 1: ahead into the future, go on over to letterbox dot com.
Speaker 1: That's l E T T E R B o x
Speaker 1: D dot com. That's a fun movie website where folks
Speaker 1: chronicle the films they're they're viewed or planned to view,
Speaker 1: and create various lists. But we have an account there
Speaker 1: called weird House, and we have a list of all
Speaker 1: the films we've discussed, so you can check them out.
Speaker 1: Huge things as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 1: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 1: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to
Speaker 1: say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
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