ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

[orzel-w]

So, what about the plot point (discussed previously) that Timmie had found Robby disassembled in a storage closet (gathering dust) and tinkered him back together? Little boys aren't especially renowned for their dusting skills.

No need to formulate complicated explanations when a simple one will suffice.
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WayneO
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[Krel]

Poor Altaira. She loses her Father, her animals, and her planet. She then makes the journey to Earth, only to have her robot stolen. Not a good first impression.

David.

[Robert (Butch) Day]

Over at the CHFB on their Invisible Boy thread a member posted this picture:



I copied it and made it brighter and sharper…



A Robby toy! The poster over at CHFB never said what movie. Can anyone identify it? (i am not a member as I do not use tapatalk.)

Eadie gas done it again! looking at the Mexican lobby cards she noticed that Robby has TOES!


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Common Sense ISN'T Common

[Bud Brewster]

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That looks like Harry Belafonte from The World, the Flesh, and the Devil, a 1959 MGM release.

Concerning the poster, the artist correctly rendered the feature of Robby's feet that allows his "toes" to bend upward as he steps forward, although the poster version does elongate Robby's feet a bit. The actual feet on the Robby suit are made like this.


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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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Yep, I got out my DVD-R of The World, the Flesh, and the Devil and found that scene at about the 30 minute mark (or perhaps a bit early, because the TCM intro with Robert Osborn is on the beginning of the DVD-R).

Harry finds an abandoned apartment in post apocalyptic New York and wanders in on a cold and rainy day. We see Robby sitting on the counter for about ten seconds while Harry looks around the place and spots a fireplace.





The scene cuts to a very brief shot of Inger Stevens outside, huddled in a doorway across the street, shivering in the rain. Then the scene cuts back to Harry in the apartment as he gathers up newspapers and miscellaneous items for the fireplace.

Among the wadded-up papers he's holding is the rag doll we see in the above picture, laying in front of Robby. We can see the rag doll clearly when he starts arranging the things in the fireplace.

And Robby . . . is NOT on the counter anymore!





My God . . . did Harry burn Robby in the fireplace?
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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]

[Bud Brewster]

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Right, but why was the toy on the counter in the first shot and gone (along with the doll) just seconds later?

I realize that it might just be a continuity problem.

But the scene starts with Harry shivering and hugging himself when he first enters the apartment. The scene that shows him hastily gathering up material to make a fire and then placing the material in the fireplace and lighting it might have been one continuous shot.

The editor cut to Inger Stevens in the street, and he might have left out part of the complete scene, such as when Harry grabbed up the magazines, the newspapers, the rag doll, and the Robby toy to make a fire and get himself warm.

I'm just saying that even though it wouldn't seem logical for Harry to toss nonflammable items into the fireplace, like the Robby toy, he was acting hastily because he was cold, and he might have grabbed a few things he saw lying around just on impulse.

I wonder if there might have been a deleted scene in which Harry looked at the doll and the Robby toy and thought something like, "A little boy and girl lived here. Now all the children are dead. Damn . . . " and he threw both toys into the fireplace because they were painful reminders of the global tragedy.

If you've seen the movie you might remember that after Harry moved in, he had a department store mannequin in the apartment for days, which he talked to frequently. But eventually he got frustrated with the immovable smiling face and threw the mannequin off the balcony!

Tossing the doll and the Robbie toy into the fireplace for emotional reasons is a little like his emotional moment with the mannequin.

Hey, I think I'll post a version of this comment in the thread for The World, the Flesh, and the Robby Toy! (I mean, the Devil . . . )
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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]

Then, as today, studios kept examples of merchandising from their movies and TV shows. Maybe an exec SUIT didn't even want the toy there? OR they placed it as a reminder of the product (The Invisible Boy and/or Forbidden Planet)?

BY-the-way; Did you know that Forbidden Planet)'s director Fred McLeod Wilcox and Cyril Hume had written a treatment idea for a sequel to Forbidden Planet named Robot World that would have explored the reason the Krell built the "Great Machine" with so many safeguards and why they failed?

It never was made due to the failure of his last film I Passed for White (Allied Artists 1960). Very little info is on the film other than a mention in Wilcox's biography and a few sentences in The Wizard Of M-G-M.
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Common Sense ISN'T Common

[orzel-w]

This seems to me a case of over-analysis. The Robby toy's actual material of construction was probably not expected to be known by an audience watching a movie like The World, the Flesh, and the Devil, or for that matter, even what it was supposed to be, other than some kid's toy. If they even gave it a passing thought, they might easily have assumed it to be made of a flammable material like wood, as so many toys and models were back in those days, and certainly on the basis of it being used for making a fire.
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...or not...

WayneO
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[Bud Brewster]

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I posted a reply to Wayne's comment after the duplicate version he posted on The World, the Flesh, and the Devil thread, where I added a modified version of my own comment above so we can move the discussion over there.

Here's the link.

http://www.allsci-fi.com/viewtopic.php?t=1478&highlight=
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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]

[Bud Brewster]

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Good Lord, I just discovered that this thread does NOT have the fine poster for this movie!

Shame on me!



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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]