Tobor The Great (1954)
My first clue should have been the title. I don't mean the part about this dude being called Tobor. You don't need to be Harry Carey to know that Tobor is "robot" spelled backwards, plus the goofy old fart scientist that invented Tobor tells a bunch of reporters that he named it like that on purpose. I mean the part about this robot being Tobor The Great. That should have tipped me off that I was dealing with a children's movie right away.
Not that most of these 1950s sci-fi epics don't come off like kiddie flicks or something, but this one was made specifically with the eight year old boy in mind and aimed right at his Fess Parker coon-skin cap wearing skull. See, Tobor The Great is one of those titles that a little kid would use if he was writing some kind of story for school. It's simple and exclaims a child-like enthusiasm (and optimism considering what a lumbering piece of tin Tobor turns out to be) for the main character's abilities.
Look at some of the other titles from the fifties. Red Planet Mars, Invaders From Mars , Devil Girl From Mars - aside from their almost fetishistic obsession with the angry red planet, those are titles that are obviously designed by adults to appeal to adults (or at least retarded teens). There's hints of mystery, danger, and even sex!
With Tobor though, there is only the promise that this robot is going to be really cool. I didn't catch on to this gimmick right away though. I was sure it was going to be one of those deals where some dopey scientist makes a robot that goes on a rampage, steals babes, and tries to take over an abandoned mine or something. The movie though had its own agenda and managed to avoid all these cliches I was hoping for, while veering off in a completely different and equally stupid direction.
Things start off pretty standard with some boring guy, going on and on and on about this and that and I wasn't even sure what point he was trying to make, but I guess it related to space travel or something because the next thing I know, I'm at the super duper secret Civilian Interplanetary Flight Commission or whatever the acronym CIFC stood for.
This is probably the movie's equivalent of NASA because it launches rockets that crash and makes unsuspecting grunts participate in those heinous training machines where you get spun around until your nads are pressed up against your chin. I don't know why we do that when we have a perfectly able-bodied population of chimps and other cute primates that would gladly do it for us.
While this little test is going on, Dr. Ralph Harrison bursts in and we strain to remember him from his role as the sheriff in It Came From Outer Space, and he stops the test! He's upset that human life is being put at risk, when it is so obvious that all that needs to be done is build a slick robot like one of those robot dogs that nobody really wants for Christmas and launch those suckers in the exploding rockets.
He hollers and huffs and puffs and stomps into the commissioner's office and yells and screams about safety and this and that and quits the force! It all seemed a bit shrill and overblown to me. If you don't like how it's done, just don't show up for work. They'll eventually fire you and your blood pressure won't have to be elevated at all. 
Now unemployed, Harrison is throwing all his clothes in his suitcase and fielding calls from nosy reporters when all of a sudden a dude shows up at his door claiming to be a certain Professor Nordstrom. Nordstrom is somehow involved in the CIFC and he invites Harrison down to the hotel restaurant so that he can be overheard by enemy agents discussing his top secret plans to build a way cool robot.
Down at the restaurant, Nordstrom invites Harrison out to his place to check out his top secret project. Gilligan, a nosy reporter shows up and gets in their face about keeping secrets and they tell him that's it's groups like him and CNN that give aid and comfort to the enemy by blabbing all of Uncle Sam's secret stuff and why can't he and CNN be more like Fox News Channel and just report the good stuff the government wants us to know?
While all this is going on, there is a very suspicious character at the next booth. He's partly suspicious because he wears these little Nazi eyeglasses (like Toad wore in Raiders Of The Lost Ark) and he hasn't taken off his hat and coat (probably wearing one of those Nazi World Tour 1937-1945 concert tees), but chiefly because he keeps looking over at our heroes table and staring at them every chance he gets. Nordstrom tells Gilligan that he's invited to a shindig at his place in a few days where he's going to give the press the first look at the secret project.
Harrison comes back home with Nordstrom and it turns out that he has one of those sexy daughters all these mad scientists come equipped with. I rolled my eyes knowingly as Harrison took in that particular equation (find x so that x is the escape velocity of her girdle) and I steeled myself for the onslaught of rescuing and loving that was sure to follow this robot rampage.
Then her kid came out! It turns out that Janice had a husband that died in Korea and he left her with a child, a little boy about ten or so. This little brat is one of those fresh faced tykes that runs around with goo in his hair and says things like "gee willikers" all the time.
The worst part of all, and what set me on edge as to the true intent of this movie was that everyone called him by his nickname: Gadge. As in short for gadget. As in gadge me with a spoon. I slumped over in my chair as I realized that Gadge was probably going to get into some innocent mischief and get saved by the robot. I knew then that the prospect of Tobor stealing Janice (as promised on the film's original poster) was nil and my interest in the movie waned significantly.
This Gadge guy may be familiar to some of you with better taste than would normally watch a movie called Tobor The Great. See, Gadge is really Billy Chapin and he is probably best known for his role as John Harper in Night Of The Hunter as one of the kids menaced by Robert Mitchum's murderous preacher. Man, that was a good movie. Oh, I'm not going to kid you though, there was no giant robot or enemy spies or anything.
While Gadge is busy demonstrating his annoying precociousness by doing stuff like making a potato light up a light bulb, Nordstrom and Harrison hold a secret press conference where everyone is checked out to make sure they aren't enemy spies. This works for the twelve legitimate press guys, but somehow fails to work on the lone enemy spy.
The professors show off the robot and it's one of those big clunky things made out of silver metal that you would expect to see in a movie made in 1954. It has these lights that light up on its head to give it the appearance of a face with eyes and it comes equipped with something in its belly that looks like a venetian blind that can be opened up to look at all the electrodes, blinking lights and Philco radios inside of it.
It is explained that the robot has some type of ESP that can sense a person's emotions or something so that it knows when you're going to kiss it or attack it with an axe. I was never sure what the point of this press coverage was, because if you're going to keep something top secret, why would you invite about 12 reporters over to your house and tell them everything about the machine? Also, if you're going to have 12 reporters over to the house and tell them everything about the machine, why would you care if Fritz sneaked in to have a gander?
After the press conference is over, they're cleaning up and Harrison notices that there are thirteen chairs instead of twelve meaning that an intruder had sneaked into the conference. That's nice that he can count the chairs after everyone leaves, but can't remember to do a head count when everyone is there.
Later that night, Gadge sneaks down to play with Tobor and Tobor goes on a rampage until Gadge can figure out how the controls work. Everyone kind of giggles at the precious Gadge and all the damage he did, marvelling that the little stinker could figure out the controls at all. It would have been nice to have parents like that when I was playing catch with a tennis ball in the house and put it through a window a couple of times.
The rest of the movie is devoted to the efforts of the enemy agents trying to get their hands on the Tobor plans. This involves trying to sneak onto the professor's estate with a truck that has a ladder attached to it, getting run off the land by the defense system the professor has set up which includes the Home Alone-like gag of prerecorded gunshots, and a ruse involving a phony program at the planetarium. 
The old geezer and Gadge are taken prisoner and threatened for awhile before Tobor shows up (thanks to some ESP from Gadge and a trick pencil the professor uses) to save the day.
As the movie rolls along, the juvenile bent of everything becomes more apparent. This whole set up is some little boy's fantasy of how neat it would be to live with a grandfather who was a whacky inventor.
Par of the fantasy is that the kid is just as smart as his elders and just as brave. For instance, after running off the spies from their land, Gadge complains to Harrison that he shouldn't have pulled him aside because he would have shot the spy. Is it just childish bravado? Well, Gadge did have a rifle in his hand and everyone laughs at the end of things instead of being disturbed that their kid was ready to get involved in a gun battle with secret agents.
Then you have the situation where Gadge is being held captive. They rip off his shirt and hold a blow torch at his back threatening to give him a nice sunburn if grandpa doesn't give up the goods on Tobor. Is the kid scared? Hell no! He's yelling at Grandpa not to give them anything! That's not how a real kid would behave, but how a kid would like to believe he would act.
There's also the complete disappearance of Harrison, plot-wise, once Gadge shows up. You would think that Harrison, being the young stud would rescue the woman, fall in love with her and defeat either Tobor or the spies. He doesn't do anything, but hang around in the background and never does anything more serious with Janice then ask to sit by her. A boy's fantasy doesn't involve some hunky stranger rolling in and rolling his mama and saving the day, so Harrison doesn't get much action in any sense during the whole movie.
It all ends with Lassie, I mean Tobor, rescuing Timmy, I mean Gadge. Why? They have a special bond. What boy didn't want a dog (or a robot) that would be his best pal and help him out of trouble whenever he needed it?
Clearly, a kiddie take on the whole robot and spies genre, that fails beneath the weight of its juvenile leaning. No adult is going to find much enjoyment from watching this little know-it-all run around being phony tough. These fifties sci-fi movies are usually handicapped by their ridiculous premises to begin with, but when you throw in the ten year old mentality of this one, it becomes unbearable.
I don't think that kids today will find much to like about Gadge and his pet robot (both are way too square). Invaders From Mars was a much better take on the whole "kid caught up in sci-fi plot" deal, though that film dealt with much more dire circumstances. Tobor The Great is just the banal daydream of a pre-teen smart alec that not even children would tolerate.
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