Gog (1954)

User Rating:

5.2/10   

Director:

Herbert L. Strock

Writers:

Tom Taggart (writer)
Richard G. Taylor (additional dialogue)

Release Date:

June 1954 (USA)

Genre:

Sci-Fi

Tagline:

MECHANICAL FRANKENSTEIN (original print ad - all caps)

Plot:

A security agent investigates sabotage and murder at a secret underground laboratory, home of two experimental robots.

Plot Keywords:

Sabotage | Robot | 3 Dimensional | Cautionary Tale | Killer Robot

Cast

Richard Egan	...	David Sheppard
Constance Dowling	...	Joanna Merritt
Herbert Marshall	...	Dr. Van Ness
John Wengraf	...	Dr. Zeitman
Philip Van Zandt	...	Dr. Pierre Elzevir
Valerie Vernon	...	Mme. Elzevir
Stephen Roberts	...	Major Howard (as Steve Roberts)
Byron Kane	...	Dr. Carter
David Alpert	...	Dr. Peter Burden
Michael Fox	...	Dr. Hubertus
William Schallert	...	Engle
Marian Richman	...	Helen
Jean Dean	...	Marna Roberts (as Jeanne Dean)
Tom Daly	...	Senator
Alex Jackson	...	Vince

Runtime:

85 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (as Color Corp. of America) | Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Finland:K-8 | USA:Approved (PCA #16650) | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

George Air Force Base, Victorville, California, USA

Company:

Ivan Tors Productions

Trivia:

Herbert L. Strock got in trouble with the Director's Guild for combining his directing and editing credits.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Richard Egan's character first reports to the underground laboratory, his I.D. card is compared to his record they have on file. The two cards are placed on the glass plate of a large slide projector and projected on to a wall. You can see the technician move the cards but the image on the wall doesn't move. Then he removes Egan's card to return it to him but the image remains on the wall.

Quotes:

David Sheppard: [to Joanna who is in a hospital bed] The doctor says it isn't serious, just too much radiation.

Ivan Tors put the "Science" in Science Fiction

In my opinion this is one of the best films made by Ivan Tors. Tors created "Science Fiction Theater" for TV and made several SciFi films (like The Magnetic Monster) before this genre was really popular. He brought real science to the screen in plots that may seem dated today but afterall, it was 1954. In GOG, Tors brings in then brand new inventions such as jets, computers, robots, high frequency sound, cryogenics, sunlight as a weapon, electronic surveillance, atomic power and even man-made satellites (which would not become reality for 3 more years). To an audience unfamiliar with such things, it was exiting and scary. Especially scary when you were made to think such super weapons were under the control of a foreign power. The Korean War had just ended and the USSR was making aggressive comments about atomic war with us. This movie gave me nightmares for quite awhile.

-BullMoose