Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
TOBOR IS ROBOT SPELLED BACKWARDS!, July 12, 2000
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!
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best kids robot b-movies., October 15, 2006
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.
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11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
...and Robot is Tobor spelled backwards, too!!!l, March 2, 2001
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.
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