THE ELECTRONIC MONSTER (1958)

THE ELECTRONIC MONSTER (1958)

Tagline: The most fiendish weapon ever created to dominate the will of a woman!

(Sci-Fi, Thriller, Mind Control) [G]

Note: This movie never got an MPAA rating, but it definitely would have been a [G]. This movie came out under the title ESCAPEMENT. Some may have seen it in theaters under the title THE DREAM MACHINE. 

I feel like a guy whose opened an innocent-looking package and had it explode in his hands. 

In this one insurance investigator Jeff Keenan is looking into an insurance claim regarding the death of celebrity Clark Denver. When he looks into it more it turns out the death was likely caused by an electronic dream therapy being conducted at a facility in the area. As it turns out Jeff’s old flame Ruth is about to marry the man in charge of it all. Will they both discover the secrets of mad science in time to save themselves?

First off, I have probably seen about 200 or so 1950s flicks in my day and this movie definitely takes the cake on the “fastest driving scene” out of them all. Second of all, even though this is the 50s, this movie is a lot like THE MAGNETIC MONSTER in the sense that we don’t get any “monsters” per se. The monsters in this one are crazy ex-Nazis and scientists with entire boxes of screws loose. 

I have read a few reviews saying this is poorly executed and it’s hard to really point out the flaws in that critique. The problem is the middle section of the movie just has a ton of nothing happening. We get a decent build-up in the beginning, and the end works pretty well by all accounts, but the middle is just really stiff and uninteresting. None of this is bad by any means, it’s just very plain.   

What really works in this movie is the acting overall. Mary Murphy who plays Ruth is good in this but is outshined to an extent by Kay Callard who plays Laura Maxwell and has fewer lines. Neither actress was known for sci-fi, but both stood out as better than most of the cast. I did like the majority of the dialog but my main issue as I said is that the entire middle of the movie (about 50 minutes worth) doesn’t really move this thing forward. After we know the deal between Ruth and Jeff, things become more and more predictable. I guess there is an even longer version that this out there. I don’t think I’d want to see more. 

What doesn’t work is the mystery part of this movie. If this was supposed to be a suspense thriller, it kind of missed on that element. The sci-fi is definitely there but we don’t see a lot of it. We hear about it, and the scenes we do get just seem to go too quickly. I will also say that the main villain's “former Nazi” connection is never fleshed out, so it seems odd that they even brought it up. Maybe that is all covered in the sections of the movie that I didn’t see, but I kind of had zero desire to see that. 

Acting wise Rod Cameron was a nice touch as Jeff Keenan but his performance is just okay. Meredith Edwards who plays Dr. Phillips Maxwell ends up doing a lot of the heavy lifting projecting emotions, but the actresses in this one are definitely the big draw.  

Overall this is below the middle of the road when it comes to 1950s sci-fi which is probably why it hardly ever comes up in sci-fi movie groups I am in online. For me, this is a 3 out of 7, but there is almost nothing about it that you will remember in 5 months if you watch it outside of Dr. Phillips Maxwell getting the short end of the stick. I imagine feeling bad for this guy a year from now. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF GORHAM PRODUCTIONS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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