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Released by: MGM Limited Edition Collection
Released on: December 6, 2011.
Director: Herbert L. Strock
Cast: Herbert Marshall, Constance Dowling
Year: 1953
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The Movie:
Produced by Ivan Tors and directed by Herbert L. Strock in 1953, Gog makes its home video debut (hard to believe it never hit VHS!) courtesy of MGM's Limited Edition Collection of MOD/DVD-R releases for catalogue titles.
When the film begins at a top secret military base where a couple of scientists have finally perfected their method of freeze drying cute little monkeys! Why would they want to do this? To use that same technology on people so that we can send them on really long trips into outer space on ship manned by robot pilots, that's why! Unfortunately for the aforementioned scientists, something goes horribly wrong and both he and she wind up accidently frozen to death, victims of their own progress.
Given the bizarre nature of the deaths, a government agent named David Sheppard (Richard Egan) is asked to investigate, which is just what he does with some help from team leader Dr. Van Ness (Herbert Marshall) and his former lover, Joanna (Constance Dowling). All signs points to someone having intentionally locked those poor dead scientists in the freeze chamber - but who? It turns out that it might have less to do with the human element on base than with the NOVAC supercomputer that runs the place and the two robot henchmen, GOG and MAGOG (and anyone who went to Sunday school knows that those names mean bad news!).
This has been a tough one to see until now, so how does it play out? Well, there's a lot to like about this movie, and most of that has to do with the set design and the robots themselves. Obviously the inspiration for the Daleks and playing with some interesting themes of 'man versus machine' long before 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Terminator came along, this is a very cool movie that takes place on some interesting looking and very colorful sets. Killer robots are pretty much always a good time at the movies and when our Biblically named antagonists are tearing up the screen the movie is essentially firing on all pistons.
Getting there, however, can be a bit of a chore. The opening sequence with the monkeys and the frozen scientists is all kinds of awesome and then from there things slow down quite a bit in the middle. We wind up with long stretches of talk without a whole lot happening to hold our interest. The cast all do a fine job with the material but the script really slows down for a good long while. Thankfully the ending is good enough to make this worth sitting through and even in those slower stretches the film has got more intelligence to it than your average low budget sci-fi picture, but yeah, there are definitely some pacing issues here even if ultimately the good outweighs the bad.
Video/Audio/Extras:
MGM's 1.33.1 fullframe transfer looks good and doesn't appear to be noticeably cropped. The colors look nice here and detail is solid which results in a picture that is clean and free of any serious print damage, even if some specks pop up here and there. Black levels are fine, there are no edge enhancement problems and the picture is pretty much free of compression artifacts as well.
The only audio option available is a Dolby Digital Mono track in English, there are no subtitles or dubbed options present. The dialogue is clean and easy to follow and the levels are nicely balanced meaning that you'll have no trouble understanding the performers underneath the score and sound effects.
Extras are limited to a static menu and chapter selection - that's it! No trailer, sadly and on a semi-related note, why does the cover art have nothing to do with the movie? The one sheets for this movie were awesome, the image you see above is not.
The Final Word:
Gog is not a great movie but it has some great moments that make it easy to look past the slower, talkier parts and enjoy the robot based mayhem that makes it as fun as it turns out to be. Some cool effects and fun performances work well alongside some great set design and make this one that fifties sci-fi buffs will appreciate, even if it's not likely to make anyone's favorites list.
