Customer Reviews

Tobor the Great [VHS]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

TOBOR is one of the most delightful juvenile sci-fi B-movies of the 1950s, and one of the best movie robots of all time! Although TOBOR was closer related to the tin-can clanking robots in the old Republic movie serials of the 1940s than to more futuristic versions like Robby and R2-D2, he endeared himself to 1954 audiences of kids who loved to see a 7-foot-tall robot as a hero. The archetypal boy-and-his-robot movie, like Robby in The Invisible Boy (1957) this one works as sheer entertainment and no doubt inspired many young boys in the Fifties to grow up to be scientists. Billy Chapin as Gadge heads an all-star cast of sterling character actors during the cold war McCarthy era. Stephen Geray is tops as the villainous spy you love to hate, and was supported by top character heavies Peter Brocco and Henry Kulky. They were nicely counterbalanced with Taylor Holmes as TOBOR's inventor, Professor Nordstrom, and Charles Drake as a pre-NASA-era rocket scientist. Highly recommended! Great fun for all ages! Three cheers for TOBOR THE GREAT!

Tobor is Robot spelled backwards. Invented by a scientist (Taylor Holmes) for the space program, Tobor is befriended by the scientist's grandson, played by Billy Chapin (who appeared in the Christmas episode of Dragnet, the one in which someone stole a statue of Jesus from the church, and is the brother of Lauren Chapin, who played Kathy on Father Knows Best). But foreign spies are after Tobor to turn his technology to evil uses.

This is one of the best Robot movies for kids from the 1950s, though not quite as entertaining as the Disney movie The Invisible Boy, which featured Robby The Robot from Forbidden Planet. The name Tobor was used again for a robot in a more recent movie - Sharkboy and Lavagirl.

The cast includes some of the most familiar and prolific B-move character actors including Robert Shayne, who portrayed Inspector Henderson on the Superman TV series; William Schallert, best known as Patty Duke's dad on The Patty Duke Show, with 300 film & TV credits - and still appearing in films today, like Sweetzer (2006); and Lyle Talbot, who appeared in everything from The Clyde Mystery (1931) to Newhart, including Plan Nine From Outer Space, Batman and Robin, and 42nd Street.

My friend and fellow sci-fi fanatic have our own personal "wish lists" of films we've always wanted to see. Well, Tobor has topped my list for the past 20 years or so. It's almost never shown on t.v., and even the VHS tape of the film has been out-of-print for years. So it was with great enthusiasm that I greeted this long-overdue DVD release.

Unfortunately, like so many things that we build up in our minds to be great, the reality is that Tobor isn't really the "lost classic" I'd hoped it would be. Oh, it's hardly a bad film. The production values are first-rate, especially the expansive lab set wherein the title character is created. And I was impressed that there was some real SCIENCE in this science-fiction: The idea of using artificial beings to test the dangers of space travel is a fine idea.

Where Tobor misses the mark is with the ludicrous plot device of the robot creating an ESP-based link with its inventor's grandson, which then proves useful when the boy is kidnapped by criminals intent on stealing the mechanical man. It's as if the writers couldn't decide if their story was a kid's movie, or serious sci-fi. With about equal amounts of both, the result is not that satisfying.

But if you like 50's sci-fi, you may still find this a worthwhile purchase. It does retain much of the "gee whiz" innocence of the era, and I'm sure the nostalgia factor is high for anyone growing up during that time.

For a much better boy-and-his-robot picture, check out THE INVISIBLE BOY, available as a bonus feature with Forbidden Planet (Two-Disc Special Edition).

Truly one of the better of the 50's robots!! I feel sorry for the guy who created the awesome robot suit for this movie. What a waste. Miles better than the robot in Target Earth!! I think they tried to walk the line between kid movie and classic 50's sci-fi and that's what weakened it. Give the robot some lasers or somethin'!! Let's see him take out some US Army troops or a tank or sumthin'. Instead we see Tobor go off-roading by himself in a military Jeep and then stop the crooks by tearing the hood off their running car and reaches in for the distributor cap and pulls it off to stop the engine!! I did have some great laughs with this one and like I said earlier, the robot is great. See 'Tobor the Great' just to watch him drive the Jeep or to watch a guy wearing just the robot-suit boots go up a small spiral staircase(Tobor is 8.5 feet tall, never would have made it up that staircase!!) With a better script, some better actors, and shorten the name to 'Tobor', this could have been an all-time classic.

How can you go wrong when you spell robot backwards, chuckle. Definitely one of the Sci-Fi classics of the 50's and 60's that I remember watching on Saturday afternoons on the good old B&W TV set.

I bought this title because I remembered watching it on Chicago's WGN Series "Family Classics". Although the "special effects" are very dated, the story is, surprisingly, as enjoyable as I recalled from my childhood viewings. I would recommend it for fans of 50's & 60's Sci-Fi, as long as you watch it with an appropriate amount of appreciation for the tongue in check & try not to be too jaded by everthing we now see in the movies. I would be a great vehicle for a big-budget, digital effects remake, of course updated to modern times - perhaps the first "robot" guided mission to another planet.

Could this have been one of the influences that inspired Mitsuteru Yokoyama to create Tetsujin 28 Go, what we affectionately know as Gigantor? I believe it's possible, but it's not confirmed. While many people in the States know about the 1960s Fred Ladd Gigantor cartoons, and even fewer people know about the earlier Tetsujin episodes (recently reworked), there was a short-lived live action Tetsujin/Gigantor tv series in Japan. He was not the 20 to 60 foot tall robot, dedpending on how he's drawn to fit the scene from the cartoon, but somewhere in the 7 to 9 foot range. My knowledge of that series is limited to a one minute clip I saw on youtube years ago. Now here's where I make the loose connection first. Here Comes Tobor (a failed tv pilot) and the 1960s live action Gigantor seem very similar in their ideas and production values. The stronger connection is obvious. Both have a large robot. Both have a professor/inventor. Both have a boy affectionately attached to the robot. And both robots are controlled by those boys. I must confess though, I just ordered this movie sight unseen just based on the premise alone. I will update my review after I watch the movie. I hope you will forgive me. [I know there is someone out there that waits for my reviews then pounces on them with a negative vote. Well pounce away my friend, pounce away.]

If you love robots and sci fi adventure check this out. It gets more interesting as time goes by.

One of the worst sci fi robots of all time, but he makes a great pal for "Gadg", short for Gadget, the knickname of the grandson of Tobor's inventor. Seems that he is just as handy as Grandpa, and uses that skill to get into and out of trouble in this flick.

Worth seeing if you like the genre, but not sure it's worth owning.

Excellent 1950's B&W sci-fi. I haven't seen "TOBOR the GREAT" since I was a child. What a classic!