THE COLOSSUS OF NEW YORK

Pity poor Ross Martin. As one of the stars of Eugene Lourie's noir-tinged 1958 science fiction film, THE COLOSSUS OF NEW YORK, Martin has only about five minutes of screen time at the beginning of the film. For the rest of the picture, only his voice is heard. It's no wonder that he received fifth billing, even though his character, scientist Jeremy Spenser, is the focus of the narrative.

Jeremy, a brilliant young scientist and humanitarian, receives the "International Peace Prize" for his work at the beginning of the film. Returning to New York, he's tragically struck and killed by a truck while trying to retrieve his son Billy's (Charles Herbert), toy airplane. Jeremy's father, William (Otto Kruger), a skilled scientist himself, is determined to keep Jeremy's brain alive in order to benefit humanity. Jeremy was simply too great a genius to be lost to the world. William coerces his other son, Henry (John Baragrey) and Jeremy's friend, scientist Robert Carrington (Robert Hutton), to aid him in his quest to build a gigantic, robotic body in which to house Jeremy's brain.

The experiment works and everything looks good for awhile but you just know that things must go wrong eventually. Henry falls in love with Jeremy's widow, Anne (the very lovely Mala Powers) leading Jeremy to murder his brother in cold blood using heretofore unknown and unmentioned death rays from his eyes. Jeremy, now completely insane, decides to destroy humanity rather than work to save it and attacks a meeting at the United Nations where he slaughters several innocent people with his optical death rays. It's up to young Billy to throw the torso-mounted switch on the robot's body that will shut him off forever. And when the monster is dead, the movie is over. William, Anne and Robert somberly exit the United Nations with not a word said about the massacre which just took place and for which William and Robert share some degree of culpability.

THE COLOSSUS OF NEW YORK isn't a great science fiction film. The screenplay by Willis Goldbeck and Thelma Schnee, depends too heavily on other genre touchstones such as THE GOLEM (1920), FRANKENSTEIN (1931), and DONOVAN'S BRAIN (1953) to bring anything original or innovative to the formulaic proceedings. The cinematography is moody and atmospheric, lending a film noir atmosphere to some of the scenes, the design of Spenser's laboratory is unusual, the look of the robot, while visually striking, is enormously impractical (no attempt is made to hide the "screens" under the illuminated eyes which allowed stunt man Ed Wolff to see out of ) and the score, a solo piano arrangement by Van Cleave seems grossly out of place. It's far too jazzy and avant garde for such a pedestrian effort as this one.

The cast ranges from good to adequate. Martin is probably the best player here, despite his limited screen time. Otto Kruger is an actor that I've always found interesting and a pleasure to watch. Could be because he reminds me of our family physician from my childhood. Baragrey and Hutton are cliches, Mala Powers is fetching and young Charles Herbert is annoying. Director Eugene Lourie had a long career as both a production designer and director. As a genre director, he made the same film three times over beginning with THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS (1953), THE GIANT BEHEMOTH (1959) and GORGO (1961). As a production designer, he worked on such varied fare as CRACK IN THE WORLD (1965), KRAKATOA, EAST OF JAVA (1969) (for he which he won an Oscar for Best Special Effects) and Clint Eastwood's BRONCO BILLY (1980).

THE COLOSSUS OF NEW YORK was shot in two weeks under the auspices of producer William Alland who served in the same capacity on THE SPACE CHILDREN the same year. Both films were released by Paramount on a double bill. If you're a fan of 1950s science ficiton films, you should see COLOSSUS once but there's nothing here to recommend to non-genre fans.