Tobor The Great

Starring: Charles Drake, Karin Booth, Billy Chapin, et al.

An emotional robot with ESP rescues its creators and a boy from communist spies.

• Format: DVD
• UPC: 031398232834
• Release Date: January 1
• Rating: Unrated (Not Rated)
• Publisher: Lions Gate Home Ent.
• Director: Lee Sholem
• Starring: Charles Drake, Karin Booth, Billy Chapin, Taylor Holmes, Steven Geray, Henry Kulky, Hal Baylor, Alan Reynolds, Peter Brocco, Norman Field
• Runtime: 1 hour, 17 minutes
• Number of Disks: 1
• Other Video Info: bw
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

Tobor is no Robbie, but still saves the day with ESP.

This is a fun little sci-fi movie from 1954. We see all the good guys and the bad guys at the height of the commie scare. Humankind is planning to go into space. However, we do not know what to expect. So, an independent scientist and an ex-official of the government space project band together to find a better way to explore space before sacrificing human life. It looks like their experiment can have nefarious applications if placed in the wrong hands. We know the story as we've seen it played out many times. However, this one is well done and allows us to kibitz as the characters do not "stay in the car." Don't look to me to give away the story, as it is fun to see how it evolves. Another advantage of this film is the 1954 era, where we see the technology (especially cars from the inside out) of the time and take a small sojourn to Griffith Observatory, better known as Griffith Park Observatory, Griffith Park - 4730 Crystal Springs Drive, Los Angeles, California, USA. Unfortunately, they only show a small part of the façade had a dark spot on the inside of the Observatory. This would've been a perfect opportunity to show Foucault's Pendulum, a large pendulum that is free to swing in any direction. As it swings back and forth, the Earth rotates beneath it, so its perpendicular plane of swing rotates in relation to the Earth's surface. Devised by J.-B.-L. Foucault in 1851, provided the first laboratory demonstration that the Earth spins on its axis. A Foucault pendulum always rotates clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. I was in the observatory in 1954 and was very impressed by this pendulum. Much of the rest of the film is shown at Iverson Ranch - 1 Iverson Lane, Chatsworth, Los Angeles, California, USA, where many of our favorite films were made.