The Creation of the Humanoids (1962)

Good start, but then it gets ruined

How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

.....but only succeeds in making you sleep. I really can't believe all the good reviews for this. Creation of the Humanoids is a pretentious, plodding dud of a flick. It aims to strike the viewer as profound science fiction but, ultimately, it has a 10th grader's idea of what that looks like. Admittedly the production is hampered by a low budget, but that doesn't mean that the movie has to be stripped down to nothing more than an attempt to talk you to death. It could really stand a few human touches. How about a little comedy? Why not show one or two of those 1.4 children they keep on mentioning? And, fer Gawd's sake, how about some suspense? Hell, at least a car chase! The only scene that approaches exciting territory is a brief fist fight that occurs near the beginning of the film. If you choose to watch this turkey you'll want to cherish that scene because it's all slow going after that. This movie reminds me of all those old 60's soap operas that used to air on weekday afternoons. There was always plenty of tense talk between two or more characters but precious little ever happened and, if it did, it was almost always happening off camera and simply alluded to in one of the many endless stretches of dialogue that filled another wasted half hour of television time. In short, this movie is a bore. The ending, which is supposed to provide the only surprise twist to a barely existent plot, is so obvious that you guess it right after the rugged guy and attractive gal first meet. View this only if you enjoy watching other people chatter at each other.

Although terribly "talky", there are many redeeming qualities that make this story worthy of being filmed again. The storyline bears a similarity to the 1951 "The Day the Earth Stood Still" in that it delves into the paranoia and prejudices of the times. And though the dialog is horribly dated, (more like reading a novel or listening to a 1930's radio drama) the concept is excellent. With it's twists and turns of the story and some prudent trimming of all of that dialog, the drama of the story would hold up in today's market.The make-up design of Jack Pierce was quite striking for such a low budget venture. Likewise, many of the camera shots and the lighting were of an excellent quality. In today's world, where "special effects in search of a decent story" seems to be a large part of what makes it into production, this gets my nomination for an updated version.

Creation of the Humanoids takes us to a future Earth ravaged by nuclear war. Even while maintaining a high standard of living the survivors are suffering from low birth rates and the possible end of mankind. Enter the creation of advanced robots to fill the gap.Sounds o.k. doesn't it? And if you want to consider the idea of robot rights and what it is to be a sentient being this film could be for you.One problem. Creation of the Humanoids is a series of scenes where actors talk and talk and endless talk! No action, no special effects, damn little plot, just monologue after discussion, and then more chit chat. The script for this film must be 200 pages long! Don't get me wrong, I like a good conversation, but that is all you get in what has to be one of the most static, boring films ever made.On the positive side, the silver contact lens looked pretty good.If you have an interest in the subject, rent it and be ready with the fast forward button.

What a peculiar, flawed little gem! Judged by any criterion this film shouldn't work at all. The script is insanely wordy and there is hardly action to speak of, for 75 minutes people just stand in a row across the screen and woodenly deliver screeds of expositional dialogue towards each other, often without any cuts or camera movements - sometimes, when there are cuts, the off screen dialogue is delivered by the other actor/s so straight and flat (almost as if they were just prompting) that it appears the editors either had no idea about sound editing or the director had given them nothing to edit together. The sets are minimal and flat, the costuming cheap, the score electronic 'Space Age' ooooeeeness seemingly unrelated to anything happening on screen.So far, so what? Sounds like every other cruddy 1950s / 60s lo no budget SF movie - it even starts with a montage of stock footage nuclear explosions. But what actually arrives on screen is an odd mix of genuinely novel SF ideas (I particularly liked the Human / Robot 'marriage' idea that sees one of the characters transferring aspects of her personality to a robot and then falling in love with the refection of herself) and a stream of philosophical ponderings and anti-prejudice messages that must have been mind-blowing to a teenage drive in audience of the time (if they had managed to stay awake long enough to see them). The plot has our central anti-hero character (an anti-hero in a cheap 60s SF movie in itself is a major oddity) is one of the leaders of a quasi-militaristic, group with growing influence over the police and government, dedicated to the preservation of MAN in a world where the already tiny population of a post holocaust Earth is declining due to radiation induced mutations and sterility. The group sees the ever more sophisticated Robots as a threat and agitates against them (think Brownshirts and Jews). Our 'hero' discovers a robot disguised as a human being and suspects a plot to replace real humans with replicas, then is told his sister is living openly with a robot she is in love with. He goes to visit her to put a stop to that sort of disgusting behaviour and meets a friend of hers. There is an immediate bond and the two fall in love - we discover (before they do) that both he and the girl are robot replacements implanted with false memories (this film was made in 1962, six years before Philip Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was published), and the final shots hold out hope that the human race will allow themselves to be resurrected, one by one, in near indestructible robot form and that robots will soon have the ability to reproduce much in the same was as humans do now... cue end title...It's all pretty woodenly done and some of the writing is dreadfully dull but there are more SF ideas thrown out, and assumptions made, in this movie than in any dozen other more mainstream SF movies of the period. The film is unsurprisingly (but amazingly) adapted from a novel by Jack Williamson (at the time - as now - it was rare for Hollywood SF movies to be based on existing works). The movies main problem is that it looks just like it. A novel filmed.Apparently this was one of Andy Wahol's favourite films. It'll stand another watching.