Ten Films | Saturday Nights in October
Robots in the movies reach back, in one form or another, to the earliest years of cinema. In the era of industrialization, automatons and mechanical men (and women) became figures of automation out of control in silent comedy shorts and the tools of villains in the adventure serial The Master Mystery (1918) with Harry Houdini. But it was a visionary science fiction epic that transformed the robot into something greater than a gimmick.
Fritz Lang's visionary Metropolis (1927), the grandest, most ambitious science fiction film of its era, gave us the grandmother of great movie robots. Set in a fantastical world that could be an ancient Roman society in an industrial future, it presents a privileged class that lives in a glorious city of architectural marvels and aesthetic delights built by a virtual slave class of workers segregated in a literal underground society. When the saintly Maria (Brigitte Helm) begins preaching of a messiah to lead them out of bondage, the city's resident mad scientist creates a replica of Maria to twist her message: a robot as false messiah. In contrast to her serene performance as Maria, Helm’s robot incarnation channels John Barrymore’s Mr. Hyde by way of Dr. Caligari, all twisted and contorted and gnarled, her face twisted and her body arching and her hands becoming claws in her mania. She's a creature not of any human provenance and, in her original robotic form, became the face of the film in posters and promotional artwork. It was the most expensive film ever made in Germany to that time and was a financial disaster, which resulted in the studio cutting the sprawling film down by over 40 minutes. Yet its influence on filmmaking and popular culture is immeasurable, even in in its compromised version, and its restoration in 2010, which restored footage and reconstructed scenes unseen since its 1927 premiere, finally gave modern audiences the opportunity to experience the full scope of Lang's original vision.
Produced almost thirty years later, Forbidden Planet (1956) is almost as visionary and just as essential as a landmark of cinematic science fiction. In an era when such genre cinema was generally relegated to modest or low-budget productions, this was Hollywood's first lavish Technicolor science fiction film. It was the first feature to imagine humans traveling outside of our solar system and the first movie to, without credit, apply the three laws of robotics created by legendary science fiction author Isaac Asimov. That's a lot of firsts for one movie. It's also remarkably sophisticated, thanks to a story inspired by Shakespeare’s "The Tempest" and the imaginative production and sound design, from the alien planetscapes and delirious Technicolor palette to the spacey electronic score, more mood than melody and a startlingly effective soundscape for the film. And then, of course, there was Robby, a space age robot with a tank-like chassis, pneumatic arms, flashing lights, whirring antennae and a clear-domed head over what appears to be an electronic brain. In reality, it was a sophisticated suit controlled by an actor (and uncredited Frankie Darro) hidden inside the gray shell, but MGM promoted Robby as an actual working robot and even gave him his own screen credit. As filmmaker Joe Dante recalls, a generation of moviegoers "really believed that this was a robot that was a real character, like a person."
The second night of the series presents The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), the most thoughtful of the first contact films of the 1950s. British actor Michael Rennie makes a striking American film debut as Klaatu, the well-spoken stranger from outer space who lands his flying saucer in Washington D.C. to deliver a message to the world's leaders. Accompanying Klaatu is Gort, a towering, silent robot who serves as his bodyguard and shoots laser beams from his visor when the emissary is attacked. In contrast to the boxy-looking robots that proliferated in movies, comic books and popular culture, the enigmatic Gort is a sleek, smooth, silver sentinel, like a Golem made of metal that bends like rubber when it moves and strikes an imposing figure when he stands statue-like to guard the ship as Klaatu undertakes his mission. The costume was made of latex and worn by Lock Martin, a doorman at Grauman's Chinese Theater who stood over seven and a half feet tall. The lanky Martin was a frail man and could only wear the heavy suit for half an hour at a time. A lightweight replica of the suit doubled for the actor in scenes where Gort was still. Bernard Herrmann's distinctive score used electronic violins, an electric bass and a theremin to give the film an otherworldly quality. "Klaatu barada nikto!"
Old school western adventure gets a science fiction makeover in Westworld (1973), Michael Crichton's thriller of a Wild West amusement park gone out of control. This adult playground reimagines the old west as a rollicking movie fantasy come to life. Robots play the roles of sheriff, gunfighters and dance hall floozies, and Yul Brynner plays off his memorable role in The Magnificent Seven (1960) as the park's resident villain designed to lose every shootout. At least until the master control program malfunctions and the safeguards shut down, transforming the eternal loser into a Frankenstein robot in black hat and cowboy boots on a mission to gun down the greenhorn who last killed him. Crichton, a best-selling author who made his directorial debut on the film, admitted in interviews that he was inspired in part by the automatons at Disneyland, "a machine that has been made to look, talk and act like a person," and then blurred the line between man and machine. As the point of these robots was to pass for human, Brynner wore silver metallic contact lenses to help set him apart and give his gaze a steely intensity. Decades later, Crichton's premise was updated in a brilliant TV series of the same name.
Law enforcement gets mechanized in the third night of the festival. THX 1138 (1971), the debut feature from George Lucas, is a future shock drama from a galaxy far, far away from the splashy, special effects-driven Star Wars (1977). This science fiction allegory is set in a sterile, authoritarian future and a medically-sedated society where going straight is "criminal drug evasion" and meaningless, mindless consumerism has become the default recreational activity. Robert Duvall stars as a worker bee who helps construct the police robots that enforce his bleak existence before he is roused from his medicated stupor. Lucas borrows liberally from "1984" and Metropolis, among other inspirations, but it’s the vivid low-budget texture that makes the film so memorable, from the antiseptic honeycomb hallways of the hive to the dreary tunnels on the fringes of the futuristic underground society. The humanoid design of the police robots parody the familiar image of the motorcycle cop seen in movies and on TV in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with black leather uniforms and white helmets on a shiny silver mask of a face.
Robocop (1987) isn't a robot in the pure sense—he's "Part man, part machine, all cop" in the words of the film's poster—which in part is why he's so compelling in this savagely funny satire of modern capitalism in the era of Reaganomics. The American film debut of Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven is set in a near-future Detroit, where street crime overwhelms the city and the under-resourced police department has been privatized by a soulless corporation that plans to replace the human officers with armed and deadly robots. Under the science fiction premise and action spectacle is a barbed satire of corporate corruption, economic downsizing, the privatization of public services, and the militarization of law enforcement.
Peter Weller plays the good cop killed in the line of duty and turned into the corporate Frankenstein's monster, a cyborg haunted by memories of the man under the armor. Weller's face is almost completely covered by a shell of a helmet so he spent months working with a mime coach to develop a sinewy, graceful physical performance to define the character. The suit, however, didn't arrive until after production was underway and was heavier and more restrictive than anticipated. Verhoeven reluctantly shut production down for two days to work out a new approach with Weller and his movement coach, one that embraced the tank-like size and weight of the character. In essence, he transformed into an unstoppable force and an immovable object all in one. Meanwhile, Verhoeven pushed the violence to such cartoonish extremes that he repeatedly clashed with the MPAA to finally get an R-rating. The bloody overkill was later restored for an unrated director's cut on home video.
The series takes a comic turn with the fourth double feature. A spoof of James Bond thrillers and mad scientist movies, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965) is as sophisticated as one would expect from the folks who gave us the beach movies. Frankie Avalon and the bikini-clad beauties are dropped into a conspiracy by a modern Dr. Frankenstein (played by Vincent Price) in a dungeon lab worthy of the Edgar Allen Poe movies Price made with Roger Corman. But give the film credit for a snappy theme song by The Supremes and for inspiring the femme-bots of the Austin Powers movies.
In contrast, Making Mr. Right (1987) is a romantic comedy with a modern twist. Ann Magnuson is the PR expert hired by a misanthropic scientist (John Malkovich) to teach his new creation, a life-like android (also played by John Malkovich) with a childlike curiosity, how to act like a human being. It's not like he's getting any useful cues from the scientist. It's a classic screwball set-up: she's professional but messy and passionate in her private life, he's trusting, eager, and open to experience… and a robot. What's a girl to do? Director Susan Seidelman embraces the possibilities while having fun with her characters.
The festival ends with a pair of oddities. Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974) celebrated the 20th Anniversary of Godzilla (1954) with alien invaders, mad scientists, spies and secret agents, and a brand new nemesis: a towering robot replica unleashed by black-blooded apemen from outer space to remove the scaly one from their path to world domination. This bionic-zilla, initially disguised as the King of the Monsters, is almost as impressive as the Big G himself, a titanium clad robot equipped with ray beams, flame throwers and dozens of missiles. You could call Mechagodzilla the King of the Robot Monsters.
Wes Craven wanted to stretch beyond his horror roots with Deadly Friend (1986), a twist on the "Frankenstein" story with a suburban setting. A sweet teenage girl (Kristy Swanson) is brought back from the dead by a robotics engineer (Matthew Labyorteaux), and gets super strength and a thirst for revenge against those who tormented her in life in the process. Craven intended his follow-up to A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) to be a tragic tale of young love with a dark twist but under pressure from the studio, he and screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin added scenes of gore and a new ending that Craven himself disavows. Their careers survived, however. Craven made The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988) and launched a new, self-aware horror franchise with Scream (1996), and Bruce Joel Rubin went on to win the Oscar for his screenplay for Ghost (1990).
