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It’s about a maladjusted robot. He wears clunky footwear, a slick cape, and burns people alive with lasers. And it’s damn near brilliant. You see, the brain inside the robot used to belong to a Nobel Prize winning scientist and, well, I’m getting ahead of myself aren’t I? Obviously, the geek inside of me is ecstatic that Olive Films is releasing a spanking brand new print of The Colossus of New York in High Definition. And you – yes, you – should be excited about it, too.
Let’s back up a bit.
Originally filmed for a penny-pinching Paramount Pictures, The Colossus of New York has survived the test of time with a little help from the genius behind It Came From Outer Space, The Creature From The Black Lagoon, and The Deadly Mantis. That man is William Alland and he excelled at striking the right chords with B-movies and audiences alike – recently primed for the burgeoning world of Science Fiction thanks to the Roswell Crash and microwaves - with motion pictures that could startle big time on a dime-sized budget.
The Colossus of New York takes its large robotic hands and Hulk-smashes The Golem with Frankenstein and gives us the precursor to Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands. Seriously. Directed by Eugène Lourié (The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms), the picture is a remarkable Titan of the science fiction community with its concerns over automation and the fate of the human race at the hands of technology. Both puzzling and completely fascinating with its fairy tale approach to some hard hitting human/robot issues, Lourié’s picture is a delight to rediscover.
Jeremy Spensser (Ross Martin) has just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in Botany. That fact alone won’t stop oncoming traffic, though. In front of his entire family – including his young son Billy (Charles Herbert) – Jeremy is mowed down by a truck and killed almost immediately. Jeremy’s father (Otto Kruger), a brilliant surgeon, requests his son’s body be delivered immediately to his lab.
Yes, lab.
With the almost unwilling help from his other son (John Baragrey), William is able to remove his dead son’s brain and transplant it into a giant, but cold robotic body. Slowly, the robot begins to speak and understand and, while wrestling with his isolation and knowledge of his death, he begins to develop powers of mind control and, eventually, takes his anger out against his wife (Mala Powers) and friend (Robert Hutton) at the United Nations. Humans be damned.
It’s a slight variation on the theme found in Frankenstein. Instead of being pissed because he has been abandoned by his creator, this robot becomes angry because he cannot connect with the life he once knew and is frustrated by his creator’s lies and half-truths. His anger manifests itself with mind control abilities and in steely death rays shooting out from within his robotic eyes that simply make people disappear. Be gone, United Nations. Be gone.
The Colossus of New York is big slice of science fiction mood and history and, while it takes itself a bit too seriously at times, rises above the droll with fantastic set pieces and a futuristic robotic design that – more than a little bit – resembles Robocop. Yes, the monster movie mentality is there and, with its unwillingness to die or let the robot live beyond a mere 75 minutes, reduces the robot to nothing more than a towering malfunctioning war machine by the end of the picture.
Did you hear that? A war machine … in the United Nations … killing people … a war machine that was once a man … a man honored for his achievements in science with … with … the Nobel Peace Prize …
And for that reason, The Colossus of New York will continue to tower over the test of time.
MPAA Rating: This title has not been rated by the MPAA.
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