Gog (1954)

How sad is this?

Absolutely brilliant

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

I recently saw a restored 3-D print of this film at MoMA and have to say I enjoyed it. It seems so much of it's time, when the Cold War was getting warmed up and interest in space exploration was taking hold of our collective imaginations. I loved the costumes, and of course the lead female scientist running around in heels, and that they thought radiation could only travel in a straight line and that just a turn of the corner would keep you safe. I imagine that I would not have enjoyed this film as much had I seen it in its original release in 1954, but given the chance to see it now in the 21st century I found it great fun!

GOG has it all: Richard Egan as the square-jawed hero, suspicious scientists, mysterious deaths, and rampaging, remote-controlled robots- who could ask for more? Like THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN (the original, theatrical version; I've never seen the television remake), GOG has an unnerving PLAUSIBILITY about it. "Science is never frightening," Dr. Zeitman states flatly in GOG. Apparently, he never heard of Los Alamos... Living underground, muses Egan, "could become the future of the Human Race." Just today, on a segment of DEMOCRACY NOW!, the findings of a group of scientists studying Global Warming/Climate Change were revealed: by the year 2085, The Greenhouse Effect that's decimating the world even as I write this will make it virtually impossible for Humans to work out of doors; we'll be confined to Artificial Indoor Environments. (This'll hold true especially if the ice melting in Greenland exposes the Nuclear Waste that's been buried there for decades and/or the frozen pockets of Methane thaw in the Arctic...) GOG is Superior Science Fiction.

A good healthy dose of Cold War paranoia is permeated throughout this film entitled Gog. Gog is one of two robots controlled by a giant computer in a space project the other being Magog. But someone has seized control of the giant computer which goes by the name of Nowac and the two robots are reeking havoc on our space program which was not yet under the control of NASA as NASA was not created until 1958 and this film came out in 1954.Richard Egan is both scientist and security agent sent out to the desert where this project is to find out what's been going on as a series of accidents. Already there is another scientist Constance Dowling who is also a security agent, but there incognito. She can't find an explanation as to who or what might be a traitor.It's both a who and a what. The who is our enemies, unnamed to be sure but we know it's the Russians who else has supersonic planes that have penetrated our air defenses. They've got control of Nowac and with it control of Gog and Magog so we have no traitor in the ranks of the scientists.Seeing the kind of sophistication the Russians have put into the sabotage, no doubt everyone left the film saying we ought to beef up security and give the military what they need.For a low budget B film, the special effects weren't bad. Gog and Magog look like more sophisticated Daleks, but Daleks were pretty scary on the Dr. Who series. Egan, Dowling, Herbert Marshall who played the top scientist and the rest of the cast gave sincere performances. Gog is most definitely a film for the paranoid at heart.

Perhaps I imagine the scene (I saw this movie on TV when I was 7-9, 45+ years ago), but my favorite recollection was when they suspected there was an aircraft spying on/manipulating their affairs, someone grabs a radio transmitter microphone and broadcasts the equivalent of: "Flying wing, flying wing, are you there?" ((Stock footage of YB-49)) "Roger" "Do you see anything unusual?" ((Stock footage of air force pilot)) "No." The movie proceeds apace.I must find a tape or DVD!(As it happens, IMDb has extremely rigid submission guidelines. I always understood, and agreed, that the brevity was the soul of wit. IMDb claims they will also object to "blah blah blah", so I am forced to meta-comment on their guidelines. Really. I was just hoping some other aero-nerds would appreciate supporting roles from a YB-49!)