ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

This was one of the few really good movies shown on the Big Movie Shocker (the Atlanta late show in the 1960s with host Bestoink Dooley), and I really enjoy it.

I wonder why the foreign countries got posters that were so much better than the American versions. The US one for Kronos is awful!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Robert (Butch) Day]

I wonder if she's related to George Orwell?

He is best remembered for 1984 but I prefer his Keep the Aspidistra Flying — a great crtique to today's capitalism.
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Common Sense ISN'T Common

[Bud Brewster]

I'm missing the connection, Butch. A giant robot and a famous author. Connect the dots for me please.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[orzel-w]

Ditto.
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...or not...

WayneO
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[Robert (Butch) Day]

Sorry.

In Keep the Aspidistra Flying, the physical size of the population differs as a function of their social-economic status. The rulers were 12 feet high!
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Common Sense ISN'T Common

[orzel-w]

That's gotta be one obscure reference. The Wikipedia entry for that book doesn't even mention anything about differing heights.
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...or not...

WayneO
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[Bud Brewster]

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I thought a ruler was only 12 inches!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

Always liked Kronos. The premise was interesting by having aliens utilize their ginormous robot to drain all electrical energy from Earth. Much more realistic to buy into than aliens swooping in with their saucers & firing death rays.

I believe I read somewhere that the budget got drastically slashed.We can only imagine what K would have looked like with a decent budget. Still, what they achieved considering the limitations was not bad.

Remake, reboot, revive.

[orzel-w]

I'm leery of rebooting robot-centric movies anymore. They always seem to end up as transformers now.
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...or not...

WayneO
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[Robert (Butch) Day]

Well, 'Electro' (to use the name that crazy professor gave it) is a KIND of Transformer — It could fold itself into a cube.
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Common Sense ISN'T Common

[Rick]

I wrote this about a year and a half back, but my love for it has only grown since then.

It's actually been on my mind lately, so I may have to give it another spin.

I wouldn't claim it as one of the best of the '50s, but it's certainly one of the most fun of that decade.

I've lately been catching up with movies which I've seen only once or twice and, often, movies I haven't seen in decades. Today, though, I watched KRONOS, which I've seen at least 9 or 10 times before and which I last watched no more than four or five years ago.

Checking my old records, I see that I first saw KRONOS on the 4 pm movie in October of 1962. That same month, of course, saw the Cuban Missile Crisis and, on a more positive note, Johnny Carson assuming the host chair on The Tonight Show.

I love KRONOS, and I always have. Looking at it from an entertainment viewpoint and not worrying too much about the science -- it seems smart. The science may not pass reasonable inspection, but on casual viewing, it almost all seems sensible and acceptable. Far-fetched, yes, but not just plucked from fantasy-land. It seems like smart stuff is being said and, mostly, done.

It's also very ambitious. Not just a walking tree, or a teenage monster, or soapsuds creatures. Here we have a massive, ambulatory robot from space, lumbering across the countryside, soaking up power plants and H-bombs. Many of the effects don't look exactly real, but they all look great. Probably Rabin, Block and DeWitt's masterpiece. Stunningly fake much of it, but they promised us a big ol' robot and that's exactly what they gave us. And, real-looking or fakey-fake, Kronos is one beautiful beast.

It's funny to see, amidst all the super-science, just how low-tech the TV news broadcasts are. They play part of a recorded conversation -- recorded not on video, not on film, not even on audio tape. No, it's been recorded on a massive record, which the technician uses by, you know, dropping the needle onto the disc.

This is another '50s film which uses H-bomb stock footage, this time as if it's happening right now. Nowadays, you couldn't get away with this sort of thing. With YouTube and thousands of TV channels, everybody's already seen everything. In the '50s, there were only newsreels and evening news broadcasts, so these images were, while not unseen, not that familiar.

Also interesting that they're not too worried about an asteroid hitting earth because it will miss populated areas. Nowadays we know that if an asteroid crashes anywhere on earth, we're all likely sunk.

In that same unlikely vein, it's fun how they watch the ultimate explosive destruction of Kronos from a vantage point where it can be observed with the naked eye. When it blows up real good, there's not even a suggestion of a shockwave, even of a breeze blowing by.

And, truthfully, Jeff Morrow's explanation of how they could defeat Kronos had me scratching my head. Maybe it passed muster with me as a 12 year old, but now, even trying my best to not get too picky, I found myself thinking, "What? What the hell are you talking about?"

A few days back I watched BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS. That one is fun despite its shortcomings, often because of its shortcomings. KRONOS though is fun as entertaining, exciting, if somewhat juvenile science-fiction. Much as I loved it on afternoon TV when I was 12, I dearly wish I could have seen it at about the same time at a Saturday matinee down at the local bijou. I'm sure that viewing --KRONOS on the big screen -- would have permanently burned itself into my brain.
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Man need not kneel before the angels,
Nor lie in death forever,
But for the weakness of his feeble will.

[Bud Brewster]

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Thanks for sharing your Kronos story with All Sci-Fi, Rick!

When I discovered that our Kronos thread was just a small thing I started after the previous board crashed and wiped out the good one we had, I knew your fond memories were just what this thread needed.

And the old thread had some nice pictures, so I'll just add a gallery of shots and hope it inspires a few more of our members to chime in.
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I don't know who created this, but it's gorgeous!





And a member of the CHFB offered this bit of art deco magnificence which no home should be without — the Kronos table lamp. It's beautiful, but it tends to suck up electricity . . .





_____________________ Kronos (1957) Trailer


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[alltare]

[Bud Brewster]

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I saw this movie on Atlanta's Friday late show, The Big Movie Shocker, in the early 1960s. I guess I wasn't overly impressed with it then because I was a bit older than the prime age for being dazzled by a sci-fi movie, and also because I saw it on an old television instead of a big movie screen.

But I'm certain I would have been very impressed with it if I'd seen it in 1957 when I was young and wide-eyed and just nine years old. That would have been one very enjoyable night at the good old Roosevelt Drive-In, where I saw movies like The Fly and Earth vs the Flying Saucers.

When I was a kid I liked to imagine that the Roosevelt was a magical place.

Even in the daytime!




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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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Kronos and She Devil are very different kinds of science fiction movies, but their both very good. I can imagine a pretty exciting evening in 1957 when I was nine years old if I had been taken to a drive-in for the double feature shown below.





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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)