Gog (1954)

Good concept, poorly executed.

Excellent but underrated film

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Scientists hang around the lab talking scientific stuff while they wait for the next science disaster to occur.After awhile, it becomes evident that Constance Dowling is probably not going to dance naked on top of a table. The talking and the walking from one lab to the next continues, constantly interjected with an over-abundance of shots of scientific equipment.The film is only about 80 minutes long, but it seems to go on for close to two hours. There is no explosive ending, only a weak scene of two old farts expounding on the promise of science in the future, followed by stock footage of a V-2 rocket arrogantly blasting off into oblivion.Though I gagged on this mundane film, it was preferable to finding out what it would be like to 'gog' on it.

My husband was a nuke in the navy, so this movie was a howler, even for me. Radiation does not travel in a straight line, and picking up something that is setting off a Geiger counter is not advised. Although the movie starts off quick, 5/6 of it is spent explaining the "science" behind most of the props in loving detail, which has a strangely endearing effect, like when a kid tells you about his fantasy world. The plot is a tangled mess of red herrings and loose ends, unless it is an insightful reflection on the nature of paranoia. The science of the ending, does, accidentally, turn out to be prophetic. In fact, if it doesn't have you saying, "Oh, my lord!" you probably aren't paying enough attention to current events. All in all, I'd say it qualifies as "so bad, it's good".

I was perhaps seven or eight years old when I saw "Gog" in the 1950s. The story was only somewhat comprehensible to me; although I understood that the laboratory was some type of research facility, it was unclear to me why things were going haywire. The jet flying overhead was a mystery: where did it come from, who was in it, and what was it doing?The scientific devices were fun to watch, especially the "ray" weapon. Being unable to grasp the concept of sabotage, I didn't appreciate why the device was not operating as designed. But what had the biggest effect on me was the action of the robots. Their running amok in the lab scared me to death. Maybe I picked up on the terror of the lab's occupants.The combination of confusion and fear made watching the movie (on TV) unpleasant but fascinating. It would be fun to see "Gog" now, knowing what I do about the plot, the actors, and the Cold War era in which it was made.

In my opinion this is one of the best films made by Ivan Tors. Tors created "Science Fiction Theater" for TV and made several SciFi films (like The Magnetic Monster) before this genre was really popular. He brought real science to the screen in plots that may seem dated today but afterall, it was 1954. In GOG, Tors brings in then brand new inventions such as jets, computers, robots, high frequency sound, cryogenics, sunlight as a weapon, electronic surveillance, atomic power and even man-made satellites (which would not become reality for 3 more years). To an audience unfamiliar with such things, it was exiting and scary. Especially scary when you were made to think such super weapons were under the control of a foreign power. The Korean War had just ended and the USSR was making aggressive comments about atomic war with us. This movie gave me nightmares for quite awhile.-BullMoose